You want your content to rank and you want as many clicks as possible - isn't that a common goal? This is what will help bring in the dough and make your business and website a massive success. Because of this, you might be tempted to write solely for the search engines, ignoring your reader base.
Newsflash: this can be incredibly detrimental to your business, and even get you a penalty in the future.
One of the best ways to have successful content and promote your business is to make sure you write high-quality content for people, not bots. In fact, you will see content that is high quality and written for people equals awesome search engine results! Let's take a look at how you can write excellent content for your readers.
Write For People, And Quality Pages Will Impact Your Search Results Too
When it comes to writing engaging content for people, instead of writing content for search engines, you will notice that it greatly impacts your search results. Google is likely to slap a penalty on any site that is focusing on writing only to bring in the search engine results. However, if you start writing content for humans and not the bots, Google will reward you wonderfully! In fact, quality content, written for people is one of the major parts of Google's algorithm. Are you convinced? Well then, let's take a look at just how you can create excellent content for people!
1. Don't Create Content You Don't Like. When you are creating content for people, the number one thing you want to avoid is creating content you hate, especially if you feel the topic is average. This can quickly lead to you creating low-quality content that isn't going to stand out from the rest out there. In our Google Hangout on Air with Guillaume Decugis, CEO of ScoopIt, we discussed what you need to do if you realize you are creating low or average quality content - trash it. Don't even attempt to save those topics for a later date; simply get rid of them completely and come up with ideas for high-quality content.
2. Ask What Your Clients Want To See. A great way to make sure you are crafting content for people is to ask yourself your readers what they want to see and read. This can help you not only write for people but also come up with several great topic ideas if you hit that topic brick wall. You can create customer profiles to determine this or even set up a question and answer session where you hear from your clients specifically. You can also use testimonials, support calls, and reviews as a great source for material to create excellent, engaging content.
3. Create Content That is Unique. Another way to write content for people is to write unique content. You can always write on trendy topics, but add your own flair to the mix and make it something that can stand out and show people that you are an expert in the field. This will help bring in more visitors and turn them into customers quickly. Not only that, but you will also be able to work at maintaining those customers once they come in. This is one of the most important parts of creating content for people. If you create it for the search engines, you might bring in a few people who may become customers, but they won't stay your customer for long. Content for people means keeping them long after their initial visit.
4. Bring People in With Strong Headlines. One of the best ways to bring people in to read your content is to create strong headlines that pique their interest. Headlines are what will convince someone to click on an article while browsing social media, and if it isn't strong, people will simply skip right over. The same can happen with search engines. Even if you rank because you've written for the bots, you will realize that people are less likely to click the link if you don't have a great headline. Write for people by crafting awesome content and amazing headlines! If you're at a loss for how to come up with an awesome headline, you can always use HubSpot's awesome topic generator that can give you some awesome ideas for headlines!
5. Write Content that is Easy to Follow and Understand. Crafting content for people means you need to make sure it is easy to follow and understand. You don't want to craft something that uses tons of industry jargon, and you also do not want to craft something that is only written with SEO in mind. Both of these will come across as stilted and hard to understand, which can quickly send readers away from your site. You definitely don't want this because you want them to purchase services or products. The best way to avoid this is, you guessed it, write high-quality, easy to follow content for people!
6. Always Be Researching and Curating for Future Content. An awesome way to get the best content for your readers is to be on the constant lookout for great content. You should regularly be curating content to create new topics and share amazing information with your clients on social media. You'll find that it is significantly easier to come up with new topics if you are consistently researching and curating. This might seem time-consuming, but simply try researching and curating for just thirty minutes every day! In addition, you can always set up Google Alerts for certain keywords.
Get to Writing Awesome Content, My Friends!
Are you ready to wow your audience and bring in more customers and revenue? Then this is one of the best and easiest ways to do so! Take a look at your content to see if it is written for people and learn if you need to make any changes. Don't hesitate to make the changes because as soon as you do, you'll start noticing some awesome results! Which of these tips helped you out? Do you have a favorite? Let me know!