What Makes Great Content Great? Experts Weigh In.
Content marketing is about having a real conversation with your audience and communicating your Big Idea with your customers.
Great content can do a lot for your business, like generate interest in your brand and help you close sales. That’s why it’s so important to create content of value, instead of 300 words of fluff sprinkled with keywords and hip phrases.
What makes great content great?
In this post we have gathered some definitions of great content from blogging experts. Use this infographic as a jumping off point as you begin the content creation process and also as a self-measurement tool along the way.
Great Content is Empowering
Content creates a conversation with your audience, and they should walk away from that exchange richer in some way.
To create content that empowers your audience, be specific. Don’t tell your audience to interact with their customers, tell them to respond to tweets and thank customers for sharing content. Don’t tell them to save money, tell them to make a budget and give them a template to use.
In her article, What Makes GOOD Content?, Kimberly Judd-Pennie gives some other great definitions.
It’s Grammatically Correct
Great content starts with great writing. You want your readers to engage with your content, but they can’t if they’re distracted by typos and grammatical errors. That’s like trying to watch Lord of the Rings with a boom mic in Frodo’s face for three hours.
To ensure that your work is error-free, get at least one other person to review it before it’s posted.
TIP: If you don’t have another set of eyes to look over your content, try reading it backwards sentence by sentence. You will be able to concentrate on the individual pieces instead of the whole, and catch typos easier.
Read more about the importance of grammatically correct content in Bean Velocci’s article, Content Basics: What Makes Good Copy?.
It’s Strategic
Your content should be mutually beneficial for your company and your customers.
I’ve written before about why blogger Angie Dudley shares industry secrets for free: she’s establishing herself as an expert in her field and keeping her audience coming back for more. This allows her to sell how-to books and related products.
Learn more about great content by reading What Makes Content Good?, by John Miller.
