How to Master the Art of Content Creation

“Content is King.” You’ve probably heard this phrase used before countless times when it comes to developing marketing strategies. But why is content marketing so important? Content marketing focuses on the development of valuable and relevant content to attract and retain customers. When done correctly, it can help build trust with your customers, influence conversions, and improve your search engine optimization. By following these three simple steps, you can master the art of content creation.

Step 1: Find Top Performing Content Ideas

There is a significant amount of content available on the internet — the trick is to find the type that your audience needs. You can get quality content ideas from sources such as blog posts, videos, infographics, online publications, and social media. Facebook is a great place to start looking for content because it is the most popular social media platform. Search top performing Facebook pages that are relevant to your business to see the type of content that gets the most likes, shares, and comments. LinkedIn is an excellent source for article content, and you can join industry-related LinkedIn groups to see the content others are sharing. For Twitter and Instagram, search for relevant hashtags to see the trending topics and discussion around the topics for content inspiration.

Step 2: Write Attention-Grabbing Headlines

Quality content is nothing without a captivating headline. Attractive headlines encourage people to click through your website and content and improve your search engine optimization. To write stronger headlines, consider the following strategies:

• Use numbers: The brain is naturally drawn towards numbers and things that are quantified. Research shows that using odd numbers in headlines is more effective, for they received a 20% higher click-through-rate than even numbers.

• Emphasize value: Express why your content is beneficial to the reader and why they should care.

• Use action verbs: Action verbs make your headlines stronger and more compelling than ‘to be’ verbs. For example, the headline “5 ways to write better content” is more persuasive than “5 ways to be a better writer.”

• Mention the reader: People love it when they feel like they are directly talked to — use ‘you’ and ‘your’ in headlines to make them more personal.

Step 3: Optimize and Organize Your Copy

The average web visitor only reads about 20% of the content on a webpage. This means you should make the most important information stand out. To create a value proposition and increase conversions, define a specific problem your reader has then provide feasible solutions for it. Be sure to highlight the benefits of your proposition and how easily those results can be accomplished. Try to limit your calls to action on a webpage because having too many options can distract and confuse your readers. Place a compelling call to action wherever the emotion is the highest in your piece of content; when you ask readers to take a specific action that is beneficial to them, it leads to conversions. Lastly, format your copy for readability — format blocks of text with a lot of white space in between to make it easier to read and ensure your readers are not overwhelmed by the amount of information.

There’s no denying the power of quality content — it has proven to engage customers, increase sales, and grow businesses. Use this guide to help improve your content marketing strategy and start creating today!