On the Web, content marketing is what we do. It means that you put content out there that grabs the reader’s attention and gives them some form of value. They benefit from it and check out your site to see what else you have to offer, and there you try to sell them products and services.
Unfortunately, the Web is flooded with content. Yours has to shout louder than the rest. If you don’t consider yourself a great writer, this can be a serious challenge, but here are a few ideas for spicing up your content and offering more.
Injecting a Little Humor
Humor always helps when it comes to grabbing the attention of your audience. Everyone loves a good laugh and a little humor paired with quality information really hits the nail on the head. Humor is much easier to use than most people realize. Create content that you think is funny. There’s a good chance someone else will find it funny as well.
Resist the urge to ‘tone it down.’ Most of us have a voice in the back of our heads that tells us we’re going too far. The purpose of your content is to show your expertise, and we equate expertise with seriousness. But humor also shows your personality, and that’s important as well. Be as funny as you want to be; just make sure you don’t offend anybody.
Controversy Is Your Friend
When it comes to getting attention, controversy is golden. A controversial blog post gets readers commenting. The risk you take in being controversial is that you might alienate some segment of your audience; but the audience members who relate to your message will love you more for it.
A great way to use controversy is to take the common wisdom of any niche and turn it around. If you’re in the weight loss niche, tell them outright that there is no easy solution to their problem. Think of topics where whether they agree or don’t agree with you, they’re going to want to read more.
Branching out
You can gain lots of new audience for your content by simply branching out into other forms of media. Remember that not everybody likes to read. There are many different ways to digest information – videos, podcasts, lists, interviews, resources, infographics. Don’t get stuck just writing articles.
The cool thing about all of these different forms of media is that they’re not hard to produce. If you think so, give it a try. Commit to making just one video or just one podcast and see how it goes. Once you see how easy it is, you’ll add it to your regular content creation.
Check out the Competition
Before you start writing another boring article on dog grooming tips, stop and take a look around. Look at other sites in your niche and see what kind of content they’re offering. Yours should be unique from all the rest. That’s how you create content that stands out and goes viral.
You can always come right out and ask your audience what kind of content they’d like to see. Put a form on your site and listen to their feedback. This is an easy way to create content that stands out and delivers exactly what they want.
Tony Phelps
