Content marketing is a fishing rod: it can catch you a lot of fish if properly handled.
Ok, I want to say sorry for the terrible analogy. On the flip side, if it made you cringe a little bit, it means it sunk in.
So what are you going to take away from this blog post? Well, I've been doing a lot of content marketing in my career, and I thought it would be helpful to share some actionable tactics for you guys to take away. So in this blog, you will find five easy actionable tactics that will help you create better content for your blog. Not only that, but you will also be arming yourself with more tools for content marketing in the future.
The 5 Game-Changing tactics
Tactic One - Up Your Visuals
Adding images, videos, or infographics is a straightforward and effective way to boost your quality and performance content.
I know what you're thinking; creating images can be more stressful than writing the blog itself. But it doesn't have to be with online tools such as Canva providing thousands of templates you can use completely free. You can also find images on sites such as Unsplash.
Are images really that important? Research has told us that blog posts that include images have more post views by 94% compared to blog posts with no visuals.
If that's not enough to convince you, think about the times you've read a blog post. Especially ones that have thousands of words, images can be a refreshing break from all the text.
Just make sure the visuals are related to the blog post itself. For example, you were probably looking at the gif of a cow at the start of this paragraph confused.
Tactic Two - Do Your Homework
Don't panic, remember you're an adult, and you don't have to do homework.
What I mean is do your research (the adult version of homework).
Researching topics that people want to read is crucial to the success of your blog. If your content is irrelevant or pointless to your target audience, how on earth do you expect people to read it?
There are tonnes of ways to identify content for your blog. You can use sites such as answerthepublic.com, alsoasked.com or SEO platforms such as Ubersuggest or Ahrefs to find what people are searching for related to your topic.
If you're looking for more ways to find content ideas, check out my post on how to find social media content ideas.
Tactic Three - Be Yourself
Being yourself and letting your personality show in your writing is probably the most crucial point on this list. I'm not sure if it's quite a tactic but I needed to include it.
Why is this crucial? Because people follow people.
Admittedly, it's taken me a while to understand this point myself. If you look back on my past blogs, yes, they offer value to the reader, but I was blogging for the sake of it. Now I love doing it.
What changed? Being myself, writing in my tone of voice on topics I am passionate about.
So next time you write a blog post, think if what you're writing sounds like you and how you would talk to a friend or a colleague in real life. If it doesn't, change it up.
Bonus - finding yourself makes writing blog posts a lot more straightforward.
Tactic Four - Provide Value
Unless you are writing a journal-style blog post, you need to offer your reader something they can take away or learn.
It doesn't have to be industry tips; it can also be learning experiences you've been through or exercises on how to live or think differently.
Try and provide at least one point that the reader will take away after reading your blog post.
For example, after reading this blog, hopefully, you will have resources on finding visuals for your next blog and a mini criteria on how to boost blog performance.
Tactic Five - Be Direct
Ok, I love this point because I'm not always the most direct person myself. So it's almost like a reminder to me that I also need to be more direct in my writing.
What this point means is to get to the value that readers really care about, fast!
According to studies, readers will only read about 20% of the text on the average page. We are all guilty of being skim readers.
Furthermore, people spend time understanding the page layout and navigation features and looking at the images, emphasising the need for visuals once again!
So what's the takeaway here?
Try writing down the key points you want to get across in the blog post, and then throw them in early by putting them within the first few sentences in the blog. Next, expand on the points in more detail in the main body of the text. Then finish up by providing a short recap of what's been discussed in the blog in the final paragraph.
Wrapping Up
There you have it, my easy to implement content marketing tips that will no doubt improve your writing game. If you work content marketing freelance or make money on the side as a content marketing blogger, hopefully you have gained some new tips.
Let me know your favourite actionable tactic for content marketing after you've read in the article. Remember, it doesn't have to be one of these five tips! Please post a comment below and tell me what strategy you find most effective for improving your blog content.
You are now equipped with five game-changing tactics that will help take any post up a notch or two in terms of quality and popularity. Which is your favourite? And if none of them are quite right yet, don't worry, I'll keep coming up with new ideas, so stay tuned by signing up for email updates at jackpwilloughby.com.
Thanks for reading.
Jack