You can’t get where you’re going if you don’t know the destination. This same adage applies to building a successful online business. Much of your business success centers around the content you’re providing – it’s what’s helping to drive customers to your website, keep them there and bring them back.
When it comes to creating content that drives business, there are certain things you need to be doing to make the most of what you’re offering customers. Here are the best strategies to implement immediately into your content creation.
Know What Your Goal Is
As it’s already been stated, you can’t get where you’re going if you don’t know where that place is. Start off with understanding your goal, or your destination. Then, you’ll be able to map out your route to get there. Not every route is going to be the same, so depending on what you’re looking to achieve will help map out the content you’re creating to get there.
Research Your Target Market
Along with understanding your end goal, the audience you’re targeting needs to be known and understood. Simply understanding what you want to achieve isn’t enough to be able to create content that accomplishes that goal. You’ll need to narrow down the buyer persona you’re after, then create content to directly target that audience.
Audit Your Content
Take a look at what type of content you’ve been providing and consider what other ways of offering content would be effective to your audience. Examine what you’ve done in the past and how it can be improved and what can be done differently to achieve the new set of goals you’ve set out.
Manage Content More Effectively
There are a number of platforms available that can assist you with easily managing your content more effectively, allowing you to create, publish and track the effectiveness of your content all in one place. Using one of these platforms or simply having a system in place to monitor this can help you see what is most effective and what could use improvement.
Get Brainstorming
Simply thinking of great ideas for content to create can sometimes be the hardest part of the process. If you’ve got writer’s block or have seemingly run out of ideas, there are a number of online resources to draw from – ranging from subject generators to online writing services that can create all of the content you need for you. “Sometimes all you need is that little spark to get the ideas flowing. One great idea can branch out into any number of other ideas, so brainstorming content topics is a great way to think of different ways to approach a topic and the various related topics that can be connected,” details Catherine Stanley, content marketer at WriteMyX and BritStudent.
Nail Down the Type of Content You Want
There are so many different ways to get your content out there, in a number of formats. You can present your audience with the same information in a variety of ways and it will be received by them – or not – in an equal number of ways. The key is finding the right format to present your content in for the exact audience you’re targeting.
“As the saying goes, the medium is the message. So it’s not necessarily just about what you’re saying, but about how you’re saying it. Determine the most effective way your audience will receive your message and deliver it that way,” outlines content strategies Lavonda Lo from NextCourseWork and Australia2Write.
Manage Your Published Content
Beyond focusing on the actual content you’re creating and providing to your customers, you’ve also got to remember to organize and manage that content. You won’t want things to get stagnant or have long delays between fresh new content. A social media calendar can help you keep track of regular posts, so you are always remembering to provide new information to your customers, in every outlet you have a presence in.
Creating content online that drives success first demands that you know where that success is leading you. Once you know where you’re going, you can begin creating a map to get you there. And, these strategies can help you develop that map.
As a lifestyle blogger at Academic Brits and a Writer for Origin Writings, Katrina Hatchett, finds herself involved in a number of business project where she looks to improve the effectiveness of communication. Also contributing as a blog writer for PhD Kingdom, she enjoys identifying the problems within the projects she is paired with and finding the solutions for those problems.
