Whether you are creating content for social media, a website or a blog ensuring your content is valuable and interesting is key, but why?
When you post out on the web you need to remember that everyone can see what you are posting and more importantly people can see who posted the content. Everything you post online links back to your brand/company, therefore if the content you are posting is sloppy, boring or just awful- this bad content can affect people’s perspective of your business. You want to build relationships online and get people to know about your business for good reasons not get people to avoid your business because your content is dull.
You also need to ensure that the content you post is not offensive or rude, nowadays things can go viral online within minutes. If you post content that offends others this will not only be damaging for your brand reputation it may also lead to a loss of customers and business.
Lastly, posting/writing poor content is a waste of time and resources, the time you spend sharing or writing poor content could be used to share interesting, fun content that others engage with. Good content is a great way to build your client base if you’re sharing things people want to read it may spark online relationships with people in your target audience, also if you are posting interested content frequently people may see you as a knowledgeable source and keep updated with what you post.
What makes good content?
You need to think about what content you’re drawn to online and include these features in your own content. Firstly people are more likely to click on your content if it’s eye-catching, include images or videos to capture your audience’s attention – content that doesn’t look good won’t make people want to click on it.
Secondly, whether you’re writing your own content or sharing others, you need to ensure the headline you post out is relevant to the content and is short and catchy, you don’t want to include a long headline that screams boring to your audience. The Spelling and grammar of your content is also key, no one wants to read a post that is hard to understand because words are spelt wrong or if it makes no sense- this not only looks unprofessional, it will also look like you’ve rushed your content and had no time to spell and grammar check it first.
Sharing other people’s content is perfectly fine as long as you’ve linked it back to their website/blog and not copied and pasted it, however writing your own content is also important for your brand. Original content goes a long way with google search engines if you create content and link it back to your website this works wonders for your SEO, whereas if you share other people’s content it will link back to their website and that doesn’t help your with your brand at all. Besides people love original content, not only does it show that you are a knowledgeable source on the web, it also shows that you make time to share your knowledge and experiences with others. Original content makes your brand more personal and unique, as the saying goes ‘Be a Shepard, not a sheep’.
Got any tips on creating content for the web? We would love to hear them!