Every marketer knows content is King! The niche you ply your trade-in doesn’t matter. When visitors come to your site, they want great content. Great content will enlighten, educate or entertain your website visitors.
If you create compelling content, these prospectors will find the gold on your website and join your mailing list, buy your products, and keep coming back for more!
Google, the arbiter of great content, keeps raising the standard. Content that was acceptable 10 years ago no longer passes muster. The copy and paste methods, stuffed with keywords to game the system, no longer gain traction. RankBrain, Google’s algorithm-learning software, has artificial intelligence!
RankBrain can check content for style, syntax, and uniqueness. This clever code can second guess what searchers are looking for, and display the best result. It’s like having your English teacher looking over your shoulder!
Resistance is futile against the ubiquitous influence of RankBrain. So how do we raise our game and respond to the challenge set by Google?
Here are five ways to create great content that Google, and your website visitors, will love:
1. First things first: Start with a powerful headline
Headlines are the most significant part of any piece of great content. Without a powerful headline, your target audience will not read your article. There is much content on the internet competing for attention.
After placing a keyword in the search bar, the searcher will skim 80% of the headlines. Then settle for a headline that jumps off the screen. To convert surfers into readers, you must have a persuasive headline.
A great headline should make a bold statement and create a sense of urgency. David Ogilvy, the renowned advertising man used to draft his headlines over one hundred times before it satisfied him. For more help in crafting a compelling headline check out the following websites:
- CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer is a free tool. It helps you hone your headline until you achieve a good score.
- Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer offers free headline analysis results.
2. Find and use the best keywords
Keywords are still very important in your content. That’s because they are the words that your prospective visitors will use to get to your content. It is important to use keywords sparingly. Keywords should take up to 2% of your article but you can use relevant synonyms and related phrases. The Google algorithm scans your content for context.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What keywords and phrases do your target audience use?
- What will searchers put in the search box that will direct them to your website?
- What keywords do your competitors use?
- What keywords work well in your niche?
The following tips will help you find the correct keywords for your content. Unsurprisingly Google is a good place to start.
Google search box
We have mentioned how Google will try to second guess what a searcher is looking for. The auto-complete feature in the search box is a great place to start.
For example, if you enter ‘cash flow’
The drop-down menu will offer the following suggestions:
- Cash flow forecast
- Cash flow statement
- Cash flow template
- Cash flow analysis
That’s plenty of keywords you can use in your content.
On the Google SERPs
While still on the search results page look at the area below the top 10 searches and find other ideas under the subheading “searches related to cash flow” and you will find:
- Why is cash flow important?
- Cash flow example
- How to calculate cash flow
- Cash flow formula
- Cash flow v profit
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a free tool that will give you hundreds of suggestions.
Your competitors’ websites
You can use a free tool like Spyfu to check the keywords on any website.
There are many other keyword tools to help you get the right balance to your content. Here’s an article we wrote about how to conduct keyword research the right way using simple tools.
3. Repurpose content
What does repurposing content mean? When you take a written article and use that content to create a slideshow, you have repurposed the content.
A few examples of repurposing are:
- Convert an article into an audio MP3 file: use Audacity.
- Convert a slideshow into a video (you can do this from within PowerPoint).
- Turn several articles into an ebook. Watch this video to learn how to create ebooks that your audience will love.
- Convert a YouTube video into a blog post using screen grabs of the video. Try it with this free tool YouTube Screen Shot.
- Convert a blog post into an infographic: use Canva.
Why repurpose content? You can repurpose your own content or that of other people. Repurposing gives you access to a large volume of material. You can spread your ideas around the internet using a variety of channels. The pieces of content can direct visitors or viewers back to your website or sales page. You can use YouTube, Pinterest, article directories, SlideShare and many more platforms.
When you repurpose other people’s content, you can change or update it. Whenever you repurpose someone else’s content, acknowledge the original source.
4. Curate content
Curated content is not a new idea. Years ago printed newsletters on say, finance, running a business, or keeping fit, collated material from different sources. It was then published for their subscribers. It was easy for the readers as they did not need to spend days searching through a variety of publications to look for answers.
The internet exists to share ideas. And a well-curated page attracts many visitors because it is a good user experience as far as it concerns the search engines. “But is curating content the same as duplicating content?” I hear you ask? No, it isn’t! An excellent curated page is well worth the visitor’s time and is great content that Google loves.
How much of an article should you curate? Most informed bloggers suggest that 50% is a good balance. A well-curated page acknowledges the source of its content and offers its opinion or reviews on the subject.
To attribute an article, you can include the backlink in the context of the curated content. For example: “Rob Brown said in his article here that the way to create great content is to use different media”.
There are many free tools that can help you with content curation, three of the best are Buzzsumo, Feedly and Pocket. Find more content curation tools here.
Need more fresh content sources and article ideas for your blog? Try Curately, the ultimate tool to craft valuable content fast. With Curately, you will have an endless supply of fresh content that will get you more web traffic, leads and sales. Visit Curately.org to learn more.
5. To create better content, love what you do
As you can see from the content above, you may need to learn new skills. You can learn to work on MP3 files with Audacity by simply trying it. The same with YouTube. Create a YouTube channel for your work and link it to your website. You can learn new skills by searching how-to videos on YouTube or go to the WikiHow page where you can learn to do anything.
To create content that Google will love, you need to love to create content. Learn your craft, keep it simple, learn new techniques, create content every day, and love what you do.
Bonus tip: Write daily
Anyone can be a better writer, and anyone can write great content that their readers and Google will love. Use these tips, and remember: The best way to compose better content is to write often or every day, if possible.
Make writing a consistent element of your everyday routine, and you’ll start writing great content in no time.
Like anything else, practice makes perfect. It’s important to hone your article writing skills just as you would when learning to play a sport or an instrument.
Schedule writing time in your weekly calendar, and it will quickly become a habit. Follow our tips, and you will be amazed at how fast you’ll be able to write great content that Google will love!