Having the right words and content on anything connected to your business is also going to make it more attractive to potential clients and customers. Whether it’s on your website, your social media posts or a leaflet popped through a letterbox, knowing how to write attractive and engaging content can make the difference between making a sale and losing out to a competitor.
Here we list the A-Z of attractive and engaging content we recommend thinking about:
Define your Audience
Who is your audience, and what works for them? This is a question that we always ask our clients. But the other even more vital question is, “Who is your emerging audience?”
Understanding your existing customer and audience base is important, but pinpointing your emerging and target audience is the key to obtaining new customers (after all, that’s one of the reasons you’re writing the content in the first place).
For any company creating new content, you should consider what kind of content your customers are looking for (blogs, webinars, podcasts, videos), when they’re accessing them, what kind of language to use, and where they are likely to find it.
What does your Branding say about you?
Any content that a business produces should always work within brand guidelines. This is mostly to ensure that the message is consistent, supports the overall company image, and that content is recognisable and easily identifiable.
As a result, logos, colours, and fonts should match any branding guidelines, as should tone of voice and relevance.
Watch your Consistency
Consistency encompasses several different topics. Firstly, your message and content should always be consistent and should be well-planned and well-prepared. Additionally, content should be published consistently, and a plan should be related to how often content is posted. For example, content and posts should be spread out instead of being chunked in together or appearing intermittently in social media feeds.
Watch out for Duplication
Whether you are considering duplicating content from another site, publishing identical content on multiple websites or plagiarising, you should avoid it at all costs. Aside from the fact that plagiarism can be a copyright infringement issue (which could end with a solicitor’s letter landing on your mat), Google and other search engines don’t like it. In most instances, under current Google algorithms, the search engine will prioritise the original content from the source it was copied from, meaning that if it’s been used on your website, it will rank lower.
Additionally, your content should stand out and grab the reader’s attention. Rehashing the same message that your competitors are using means that the customer will find it harder to differentiate between you.
Ensure you are Engaging
So, how do you make your content stand out from your competitors? You make it fresh and engaging. Think about what grabs you about a book, TV show, or film. The initial few minutes pull you in and make you want to engage. It has to be the same for anything you publish.
Alongside that, you also want people to engage with content by sharing it, interacting with it, or by asking more questions about it. With that in mind, your content should be useful, informative, or inspirational. Think about what you share on social media and transfer that to your business.
Keep an eye on your Formatting
Does your content look good on a PC screen? It does…excellent! How about on a phone or tablet?
Anything that you publish needs to look good on all screens.
It should also have headers dotted throughout the content, and any words should be broken down into bitesize, readable chunks (see what we’ve done there?).
Don’t forget your Goal Setting
There has to be a reason for your content. If there isn’t, it just ends up being internet bric-a-brac collecting dust and sitting in a corner, unloved and unwanted.
To avoid finding your content sitting at the back of a virtual cupboard, create goals for it. What do you want it to achieve? What use does it have? You could use it to sound like the expert you are, to make announcements, or to boost sales of new or existing products. The list is endless.
And always end with a call to action. If you need help with calls to action, you should probably ask an expert for help.
What about Headers and Headlines?
We’ve bunched these in together because we think they are equally important for SEO and making your content findable. Let’s start with headlines.
Headlines/headers/titles should be concise and easily searchable. They can come in various forms, from questions to calls to action or telling the audience where they are going wrong. They should also include your keyword (we’ll come to that later).
Headers are also important for SEO and should be dotted throughout any written content. Some of them should also include the keyword, and they should all be relevant to the content.
Make your content Identifiable
You’ve written an amazing blog and posted it on your fantastic website, but how do you get people to find it? Aside from sharing it across your social media feeds, you can also use tags to make your content more identifiable to an audience.
You can add tags to your blogs and podcasts and then use hashtags on social media. Before using hashtags, we always recommend doing some research to ensure that your content is hitting your target audience. The last thing you want is to do loads of work creating something for it to be seen by the wrong people.
Avoid Jargon
If you’ve read our blog on Marketing Buzzwords, you’ll know that we aren’t fans of jargon and acronyms. They’re fine if you’re talking to your team, and they understand you, but you have to remember that most of your audience won’t have your industry knowledge.
Not understanding something is the ultimate turnoff. It’s disengaging. So, make your content understandable and accessible and, if needed, include a glossary of the explanation post.
Think about your Keywords
Not understanding something is the ultimate turnoff. It’s disengaging. So, make your content understandable and accessible and, if needed, include a glossary of the explanation post.
We like to call this ‘What would you type into Google’, and it is basically the words that a visitor would type to find your website. Sometimes they can be short, for example, ‘Plumbers in Dover’, others could be ‘Why is my toilet leaking?’.
Keywords are set in your website and are also included in your content and headers. Beware of overusing them, though. There’s a fine line between catching an audience and then annoyingly repeating yourself.
What about Links?
Links come in two different and important forms. The first are links on your website. To stop visitors bouncing off your site (that means leaving before clicking on any other pages), it’s important to include links to other areas of interest. It helps with your SEO.
The other kind of links are the ones that you should always use in your social media wherever possible. If you’re using social media to market your brand, always make sure you include a link to your website in every post.
Other links that are also important are links when you are referencing something. This gives your content credibility.
Is it all a bit of a Muddle?
When you’re creating content, it’s always best to plan it out first, create it, and then take some time away from it before you edit it. Even better, ask someone you trust to give you truthful feedback to review it and edit it for you. This will hopefully stop it from coming out in a muddled and jumbled way.
Being clear and to the point is a much better way of getting your message across.
Work from an Outline
So, how do you create an outline for your content? Sit down and think about what message you would like to get across (be that for one piece of content or a longer plan). Think of it as a route map for informing your audience.
Creating and working to an outline removes the opportunity for rambling or going off on a tangent. Although, if you do suddenly feel a tangent coming on, make a note of it and use it for a different piece of content.
Keep it Proportionate
While we’ve just told you to avoid going off on tangents and to keep your content concise and to the point, you should also carefully consider your word count. The question “How many words should be in a blog?”, brings up so many conflicting answers. Here’s what we think.
Blogs can come in all shapes and sizes. You can have one (like this one) with a huge word count, and you can also find short and sweet blogs. The key is to consider the purpose of the content, how much information it needs to contain, and whether the information contained within it is being repeated just for the sake of it. Consider it in the same way as the difference between a magazine article and a novel. Both will be engaging, but each considers how proportionate the engagement will be. You wouldn’t string out a short news story over thousands of words in the same way that you wouldn’t concentrate a best-selling novel down to one sentence.
Customer and clients have Questions
Your audience has absorbed and digested your content and now has questions. That’s really what you want. Those questions could range from “How do I find out more about your service?” to “What do you think about…?”.
Firstly, you must make yourself available on any platforms you have published your content to answer questions. There’s nothing more frustrating than reading or listening to something, asking a question, and then experiencing radio silence.
The second thing you can do is collect any questions you’ve been asked and then publish a new piece of content with all the answers. Not only does it allow you to show off your expertise, but it also demonstrates that your business is proactive and listens to its customers.
Do your Research
The purpose of any content that you publish is to inform your clients and potential clients, so one of the most important things you can do is research. We really can’t stress this highly enough—research, research, research. Unsure of something, research it. Publishing something that is wrong can create a negative opinion of you and your business.
Remember to do a Spellcheck
If you are writing your content, please pass it through at least one spellcheck and ask someone to proofread it. While writing isn’t everyone’s forte, and some can have difficulties with spelling, a poorly written blog or social media post filled with typos can be a turn-off for customers. Aside from showing a lack of attention to detail, it can also reflect on a business’s professionalism. Alongside the spellcheck on your word processing programme, there are loads of free spellchecking apps out there. Even as professionals with years in the business, we still use Grammarly.
Be mindful of your Tone of Voice
No matter the format of your content, be it a blog, video, podcast, or social media post, having the right tone of voice is vital.
Your business’ tone of voice is the voice it uses to communicate with, and every company’s tone is different. Tone can range from using targeted and specific words to whether the business communicates formally or informally. Think of it as the difference between sending a text to your friend and emailing your bank manager.
Keep things Up to Date!
Creating and managing the content is a bit like painting the Forth Bridges; it’s never finished. No content creator or copywriter ever sits back and thinks, “Right, well, that’s that done”.
There are two types of content. Evergreen content is the stuff that’s timeless and that won’t change. Changeable content is pretty much that; it’s content that will become outdated and irrelevant over time. It’s important to ensure that any content connected to your business is up-to-date, relevant, and reflects the company as it is now.
What Value have you delivered?
The often rolled-out saying “time is money” comes into play here. Does your content provide value to your audience? Does the time they spend viewing it or the information they provide to access gatekept content reflect the information’s value?
While you may think the information you share is incredibly valuable, others may disagree. We always recommend obtaining second opinions and also thoroughly researching industry best practices.
Walk away and return with a clear head
Have you ever washed your car or decorated a room and realised the next morning that you’ve missed a bit? It’s frustrating but ultimately fixable with minimal fuss (or anyone else noticing). Content works in the same way, although if you publish it immediately, lots of people will notice if you’ve missed a bit or if something doesn’t work. That’s why we always recommend walking away from whatever you’ve created and returning to it with a clear head.
UX
UX or User Experience describes the effect your content has on your audience. This can range from whether the font you use is readable and where your call-to-action buttons are to whether the content is accessible and understandable. Your online content is your business’s shopfront, the thing that makes people decide whether they want to use your service, so having outstanding UX across all platforms is essential.
You!
Throughout this blog, you might have noticed that we’ve been using ‘you’ more than ‘we’. We could have sat here and written, “This is what we do for our customers”, but that wouldn’t have engaged you to get this far. Your audience wants to know what they will receive from your service and how it will impact their needs. So, instead of “We promise,” consider using “You’re guaranteed” or changing “We provide” to “You receive”. Talking directly to your audience can literally win over their hearts and minds.
Are you causing ZZZ…?
Still awake? Hopefully. We’ve tried to practice what we preach, and with that in mind, you need to keep any content interesting. So, to recap, make your content valuable and worthwhile, get to the point and once you’ve made it move on, and be enthusiastic. We like to think of it as ‘how would our content go down at a party?’. Would it be the life and soul, or would it be the content that people avoided?
Phew, we made it through the 26 points of the A-Z of attractive and engaging content! Alternatively, you could just get some experts to create your content for you. Not Another Marketing Agency has experience in creating interesting and engaging content across multiple mediums and platforms, so why not get in touch?
