Open Your Notebook – Ways to Improve Your Content

– Contributed content –

(John Schnobrich, Unsplash)

10 Oct. 2019. Of all the grandiose plans you have as a start-up, you soon settle into a way of working that suits you and the employees. This is one of the major traps of a modern business. While we want our employees to be happy and productive, we have still got to find ways to keep ourselves abreast of new changes.

One of the major areas that are forever changing is marketing and, more specifically, content. Content is one of those all-important components that can acquire new followers, which can then turn into leads, and therefore, products and profit. But when content seems to stop making the impact it once had, we need to find better ways to engage. What are the best ways to do this?

Optimize it for SEO

While Search Engine Optimization is one of those areas that everybody talks about, we can run the risk of flooding our content with so many different SEO-friendly components that it completely swamps the message. What we can do to ensure that we are heading in the right direction is to undergo an SEO website audit where we see if the material we post is friendly for search engines, while at the same time ensuring that it does put the message forward. Because search engine optimization requires so many different components to ensure it stays ahead of the curve, it’s always worth consulting an SEO agency or someone who truly has their finger on the pulse.

Change content styles to increase engagement

The message remains the same, regardless of the medium. This means that if you are looking to increase your engagement, you have got to find how people respond to certain types of content. It’s important to mix it up, not just use blogs every now and again. At the same time, your content doesn’t just have to be the most obvious components like blogs and social media posts, but remember that other people will respond to things like emotional messaging, discounts on products, or even podcasts. If you vary your approach, you will reach more people, and make a bigger impact.

Repurposing your content

We’ve all been there; it’s very time-consuming, not to mention draining, coming up with exciting content consistently. But what we can do, to follow on from the last point, is mix up the medium but have the message remain the same. You can do this by repurposing your content. A lot of people now use videos, podcasts, as well as slideshows to mix up the medium. It’s a very great method, especially if you found that there was a certain bit of content that had more engagement than others. Repurposing isn’t recycling, just as long as you change the medium.

And while the debate as to whether content benefits from various bells and whistles in comparison to the message, you always have to remember that the content is the blueprint. If the content isn’t good in the first place, tidying it up with various spammy links won’t necessarily yield the benefits you think they will. There is no shortcut to great content.

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