One of the biggest hurdles one must overcome when creating content is making it shareable. Sure, you know the kind of content you like, but do your tastes align with your target audience?
You can create content as consistently as you want and still get no traffic if it does not appeal to the visitors you’re trying to attract.
Another thing to keep in mind is how engaging your content is.
If you want your blog to get attention, you need to put time and effort into making content that elicits more than the average cursory glance most people give to the things they see online.
The question is, though, how can you create this kind of content? There’s no quick-fix solution to this query.
However, if you follow these tips, your content will be well on its way to building the audience you desire.
Get With the Times
Before you can even get started on making content, you’ll need to be informed first.
If you want your content to be seen by the masses, you’ll need to keep up with internet marketing trends so your blog doesn’t get left behind in the virtual dust.
Even though this industry is constantly in flux with new updates cropping up faster than you can implement them, here are a few sturdy trends to get you started:
- Mobile Optimization: You see it everywhere. More often than not, people are on their phones talking, messaging, or looking up various things. Mobile phones have become so ingrained in our lives that most of us can’t imagine life without them.
In fact, phones have become the device of choice even over desktop computers. Marketers have caught on to this and are now targeting people through their phones more heavily than other media.
All the same, create mobile-optimized content. If your content is too difficult or unappealing to look at on mobile phones, you can be losing out on a major source of traffic since Google includes mobile optimization in its ranking factors.
- Social Conversion: Most of us already know how important it is to be on social media. Nearly everyone has a social media account or two. It would be crazy not to not tap into this wealth of marketing potential.
You need to be where your audience is, and right now, they’re all liking or tweeting about something. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are all good platforms to be a part of.
Let your content be the next thing they share by posting regularly on one or more of these social media networks.
- Content Marketing: This one’s a no-brainer. If you’re reading this article, you know how important content marketing is and are already taking the right steps to improve your strategy.
Just remember, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all marketing solution. Being informed on the latest news and developments of internet marketing is important, but you don’t need to fix what isn’t broken.
It’s good to leave behind outdated methods to adopt newer and more efficient processes, but don’t let this deter you from continuing older practices that have proven successful for you.
Experiment with your marketing strategy and see what works best for you.
Give Your Website a Tune-up
The website your blog resides on is just as important as the blog itself. Blogging on an already established platform such as Medium and Linkedin can be a great way to reach an already present audience.
However, the range of customization is very limited and may not promote long-term growth in viewership.
That’s why it’s important to blog on a website you can call your own. You can make your site fit with the themes and topics your content covers and make it a part of your brand.
When people can easily recognize your content and link it back to your site, you are much more likely to develop a following.
Before that can happen, though, you have to make sure your website works for what you need it to do. You can do this in a number of ways.
First, and most importantly, you need to do your research. Really find out who your target audience is. What are their likes and dislikes?
How do they spend their free time? What are their aspirations? Finding the answers to these questions will help shape your content as well as your website.
If your site is something they would naturally search for, they are more likely to read and share your content.
Also, research your competitors’ websites and see what they’re doing to drive traffic. Although mimicking what they do is one option, a better path to take is to improve on what they have and make your site even better.
If you don’t have the coding skills to create your own site, your next two best options are a customizable template site or one created by a web designer.
If you go down the customizable template route, you’ll be utilizing a cost-effective option that gives you the creative freedom to design a site you want as easily as possible.
However, if you don’t have the time and can’t find a template that’s right for you, you’ll need the expertise of a web designer.
Either way, you’ll get a website that’s responsive, fast, and simple to navigate — all of which are important to reduce your bounce rate. The more people stay on your website, the more likely it is that they’ll share your content.
Create Engaging Content: the Secret Ingredients
Creating shareable content that others will want to engage with cannot be accomplished in just one or two steps. It will take much research and work in order to make content that people will actually stop to look at it.
With over a million blog posts uploaded each day, there are a lot of sites fighting for your audience’s attention.
That means your content needs to be one in a million to stand out, and that won’t happen just by hoping it does. So before posting anything, find out what’s currently trending.
Instead of trying to make a splash on your own, piggyback on a topic that’s already popular.
Both Twitter and Facebook have trending sections that are easy to find and scope out.
By creating content on a subject that is already being massively shared, you stand the chance of people sharing and interacting with your content too. It will be in your best interest to stay informed on pop culture as well.
You don’t have to create entire pieces on memes and popular TV shows, but mentioning aspects of pop culture as it relates to your business will help entice viewers to take a closer look at your blog.
Also, if you want people to engage with your content, you need to engage with them. Reply to comments on your blog, even go to other blogging forums and participate in discussions.
There you will find what readers want to see as well as form meaningful relationships. When it comes to the actual content you’ll be writing, write something of value.
Provide content that will add to the lives of readers, not subtract from it. However, no one will read your post no matter how informative it is unless your content has a headline that will reel them in.
Headlines are like book covers. Although we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, we usually do. Let your headline be an enticing cover instead of one that lacks luster.
Lastly, include social sharing buttons on your content. It goes without saying, but nobody will share your content if they’re not able to.
Conclusion
Creating engaging, shareable content can be the bane of many bloggers’ existences. It’s not enough to just write on a consistent basis. What you write and how you do it will be huge factors in how readers will react to your blog.
Not only will you need to know the trends surrounding internet marketing, you’ll need to make sure your website is up to speed as well. Only then will the effort you put into your content be truly worth it.
