It’s no secret that the best way to attract traffic and achieve higher rankings is by creating high quality content. High value content is ultimately what separates you from the millions of other sites and blogs in cyberspace and in the blogosphere.
Yet, the internet is exploding with thousands of pages of low value content. Most content creators look at the content on other sites, and rewrite some of those ideas and throw in a few keywords. This rehash has resulted in the internet being flooded with pages of low quality content.
So what is high quality content?
High quality content:
- Is original and involves creating new ideas
- Is created when you share your unique experience, your fresh and unique perspective with your community of readers.
- Is created when you use your voice to give new life to the same copywriting formulae that writers have been using for decades.
If you are an affiliate marketer, it means researching and personally experiencing the benefits of the product that you are selling. Your review will be of value to your customers as you have spent the time and effort required instead of simply copying ad copy right out of your vendor’s website.
If you are a real estate agent, it means writing an honest review on why you love the area where you sell and why you feel it would be an attractive place to live.
Benefits of Creating High Value Content:
- Unique content will engage and delight your customers and will keep them coming to your site for more ideas. Quality content along with these content writing tips will ensure audience engagement on your site.
- Search engines give higher rankings to original and high quality content. A higher ranking in turn will drive more traffic to your site. Google’s early 2011 algorithm updates were specifically designed to penalize short and shallow articles and reward high-quality content.
- Fresh ideas get the maximum shares on social media.
Here are 5 content ideas that are tried and tested marketing strategies. Use them with your voice to create content of a high quality and value.
#1. Make Some Predictions
The New Year is always a perfect time to predict how 2012 will shape up for any number of industries such as the outlook for:
- small businesses
- cell phones
- the economy
- movies
- web design
- social media
The sky is the limit. Every product and industry lends itself to speculation, predictions and a future outlook. People love reading predictions. Make sure that the prediction that you make are purely from your perspective on the future of your market, service or product.
#2. Common Problems in Your Profession and Their Resolution:
Almost 60% of respondents to a recent Pew (Project for Excellence in Journalism) survey said that they used internet search as a way to solve problems. In fact, more people turn to the internet as a source or solution than consult experts, family members or friends to provide information and resources.
I came across a number of small technical issues while I was creating this blog. I kept a track of these issues knowing that other people who faced similar problems will be able to benefit from my experience. These problems and their solutions, I have no doubt, will turn out to be original, high quality blog posts.
#3. Before and After
People love to read about before and after stories, and the more dramatic the transformation the greater is the level of engagement; the more it gets shared on social media. Besides, before and after projects are also extremely well illustrated with some nifty graphics. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Every product and service has a before and after story in terms of why the product/service was created and the value it added to customers’ lives. Every client project, sales pitch, marketing effort has a before and after project story with: lessons learned; value created; and income earned. Other classic examples of before and after projects include:
- before and after a makeover
- a complete site redesign
- before and after a social media strategy
- before and after a home design project
- before and after slimming diet or product
- sales figures before and after a marketing campaign
#4. Write a Review
Early in 2011, Derek Halpern used this strategy by writing blog reviews of popular sites such as Chris Brogan and Think Traffic.
Review any product or service that is making waves in your industry that you have personally tried or experienced. Better yet, be among the first to review a new product or service.
#5. Do a Comparison
Give your unique perspective on 2-3 products or services in your industry. You could list the pros and cons and why you would recommend one over the other.
You could do side by side comparisons of any product or service under the sun: Cars; cell phone plans; tablet pcs; Digital cameras; and laptops are perfect niche markets for comparison tables that work wonders for ratings.
What are you doing to create original, high quality content? Please share your thoughts and ideas.
These are great suggestions that will work for everyone, regardless of the type of businesses they are in.
Thank you for your feedback. I agree. I hope that this post will help every small business owner, blogger or consultant who is looking for content ideas.
Excellent post, Gazella! Indeed, these are 5 great tips for content in pretty much any industry. I would add a 6th tip: make it easy to digest.
Too often, I find some articles are filled with data and loads of stats, but it doesn’t necessarily make the reading any easier, nor does it help for comprehension. Sometimes, sticking with 2-3 key argument, presented in bullet points, is all that’s required.
Now, if I can could only practice what I preach… 😉
Thank you for your feedback Frederic. You are right, making your info easy to digest, understand and read are so important in our information driven society.
I like these tips. As others have said, they’re the kind of ideas that can be applied to any industry. Certainly going to give these a try. Maybe I’ll do a ‘before and after’ post charting my progress 🙂
Adi Gaskell recently posted..Adwords: Higher ad positions does not equal higher profits
Thank you for your feedback. I’m glad that you found this post helpful and that you are going to try these tips. Please stop by and let us know how it turned out. All the best! Here’s to your success.
All five are very important factors when creating a quality content but if you want to keep it simple, keep the following question in mind:
“How can I help better”
Each time when writing content if you can answer this question well, you will be a winner 🙂
Rana Shahbaz recently posted..How to Get Different Results in the New Year
That’s a good point, Rana. So here we have a sixth idea for creating high quality content. That is why I value readers comments so much – each idea and suggestion enhances the original post.