Content Strategy: Develop Compelling Content NOW!

In developing your content marketing strategy, you’ve probably run across this question:

How do I create compelling content for my website?

Be encouraged – the whole world’s asking about that right now!

The answer is simple but requires 3?simpler questions. ?Before sending any piece in your content marketing strategy live, ask yourself:

1) ?Does the content cause desired onsite actions?

Everything in your content marketing strategy has one single job: ?it makes readers?act.

Now,?action?doesn’t necessarily mean?purchase?– at least not in the beginning.

Let’s take a lesson from a traditional salesman’s playbook and think of clicks as people saying yes.

Every time someone clicks on something in your content

• From email to your website
• From Facebook to your blog
• From your home page to subsequent pages on your site

Higher Visitor Interaction Equals Higher Conversions
It means they’re saying “yes”. ?And every salesman knows: ?the more times people to say yes to?anything, the more likely they’ll say yes when you ask them to?buy.

Marcus Sheridan (aka “The Sales Lion“) discloses some excellent primary research in his book, ‘Inbound and Content Marketing Made Easy’. ?He discovered that there was a direct correlation between the number of times people clicked on unique pages or articles in his content marketing strategy, and their propensity to eventually purchase.

So whether it’s a picture, a title, or a button, or a form, your goal is to get people to interact just one more time – and they’re one step closer to purchasing what you’re offering.

2) ?Is the content easy to read?

This is harder to capture than you might imagine.

Here’s your golden rule when it comes to creating simple, compelling content:

Answer only one question at a time.

You can greatly enhance your content marketing strategy simply by catering to the fact that people come to your site asking questions. ?And to make content compelling, each piece you generate needs to only answer one question at a time. ?Then, when you’re done with that one question, encourage them to say “YES” – by clicking through to another answer.

Here are 2 quick tips for content you should employ:

The very best headlines are a few words long.

They encourage people to click open whatever you’re offering. ?You can achieve this by enticing readers with an emotional connection or story, or the promise a potent piece of information.

The best content has:

• Plenty of white space
• Short sentences
• Headlines to break up sections
• Numeric lists
• Bullet points

Taking the plunge toward making things simple will reward you with higher engagement – and ultimately, more sales.

3) ?Do your images capture the emotions of the content or offer unique information?

Pictures are incredibly important in today’s content marketing strategy.

Why?

Pictures in Articles

Anything you post to social media instantly gains more attention if you include pictures. ?Social networking platforms like Facebook automatically give articles or videos with pictures attached a higher ranking in newsfeeds.

And there’s a reason for that: ?people are less likely to open an article that lacks a picture.

But not just any picture will do. ?Your pics should capture the central question being asked in the article. ?Your readers should be able to immediately associate the title of any piece in your content marketing strategy with the attached photo.

If your content is primarily photo or video oriented:

Clean, concise photos of products are paramount. ?The photo should be simple, and answer one specific question: ?Does this product have the features I want?

And there you have it – compelling content encourages a conversion. That’s content strategy at work!