4 Tips for Writing Better Content

Over the last years of my marketing experience, I have learned the importance of putting out good content. With good content, then you can make yourself distinct from all the competition. With bad content, then you are basically just another fish in the sea. Over the last couple of years, I have gathered some lessons from mentors, colleagues and workshops that have helped me along the way to write better content. These are some of those lessons:

Know thy audience

I think one of the best tips that I have learned to making good content is to know your audience. If you are the target audience, that’s great, then think about what your problems/challenges are when it comes to the product/services that you are trying to create. If you are not, which many times I have not been, then its really important to do the research to get to know your audience in a very intimate way. You should really know what their challenges are, what are their goals, and aspirations. It’s a really good idea to able to know them on a very very deep level in order to be able to write good content for them.

Put yourself in your audiences shoes

Once you know who your audience is, then I’ve found it helpful to put yourself in their shoes. Whenever I try to write content, I am trying to think about what my audience would like to learn from me, or what topic is going to help them in some kind of way. Though as a writer, I sometimes just want to be creative and write for myself, I have had to change my perspective around this and write for the audience to help them in some way. I believe that this is our purpose as writers, which is to help solve our customers challenges. Thats why I try to think of the topics that will help them in this way.

Read the metrics

As important as it is to write good content, it’s just as important to set metrics and determine whether or not that content is performing well. The data and the metrics are solid evidence, whether or not the content is resonating with your audience. I have found that it is better to read the metrics, then just go with your “gut” instinct. That way if anyone asks you to justify whether a specific piece resonated with your audience, then you can rely on the data to tell you. The best part about this is that if it’s not resonating with your audience, then you get to make up new content that will. If it is, then you continue to write that kind of content.

Make it interesting

The last piece that I have found in writing good content is to just make it interesting. There is so much content out there that is just repetitive or snooze worthy. I mean, no one really wants to read that. When I think about writing good content, I try to think about how to make it interesting. For instance, storytelling usually shows up, or relevant examples to the audience. There is so much overload on the internet, and that’s why it is more important than ever to stick out. So do yourself and your audience a favor, and make it interesting. If you take their attention away for 5, 10, 15, or even 30 minutes, then you better make it worth their attention!

Those are my 4 lessons that I have learned when writing good content. Is there anything that you would add or subtract anything from this list?