Writing Content To Create Value

Are you struggling to create content for your website? It's not that difficult if you keep these two points in mind.

In Order for an article to have value and be effective, it must:

1. Teach about a subject people want to know about that you have a comfortable knowledge of.

2. Have an immediately actionable portion as part of the lesson.

Think about it if you are searching for information on a subject and find something you can implement now, would you come back for more or subscribe to the feed? Of course. Now take that same idea and put the actionable part as something that cannot be immediately set in motion or has parts missing that the author releases by drips and drops over time. Would you see value in sticking around?

Sometimes people can be trained to anticipate something good when the bell rings like Pavlov's dog. Even Pavlov realized that after a while of just ringing the bell without food, the dog would stop reacting. Your audience is the same way. If you don't deliver enough times, you'll lose them.

Does Actionable necessarily mean DIY?

A number of my clients are service providers. They don't really want to tell people how to do the services they perform themselves. Actually, I too am a service provider. But I understand that there is a group out there that will always want to DIY (Do It Yourself). Just like there is a group that will never want to DIY.

It's when you give enough information that someone could do it themselves, that you gain access to a critical segment of the marketplace. The people who might try to DIY but learn that it is actually harder than they thought. They learn that it takes experience to get the results they wanted. And it's not just the services they're paying for, but the experience of the person providing them.

Actionable should include a Call To Action (CTA). That brings them to you to get the service performed. A CTA can be as simple as a link to a form or Buy Page. And it can be a button if you want to make it stand out and a bit more clear what to do.  

The actionable part of today's lesson:

Step 1 Determine what subject you have enough knowledge to comfortably teach. This should be a subject you've studied, practiced, done well, and enjoyed. But it has to be of interest to your audience.  

Step 2 Think about what you had problems getting past and what you did to overcome them.  

Step 3 The subject becomes the category or if it is that broad, the theme of the blog. Then there are parts of the subject that bear explanation.  

The problem becomes the topic of that particular article. You'll first explain the problem. Then you'll write about what causes the problem. Make sure to include all causes by at least touching on or mentioning them. That way you avoid having people thinking you don't fully know what you're talking about. Once you've outlined the problem, you explain how you (and now they) get past the problem.

Bonus Tip

Make sure you have a Call To Action (CTA). It should lead to an offer that fits with the topic of your post. Your post itself is not selling or salesy, it's informative. Your CTA is not pitchy, but is direct and to the point. Make sure you tie your CTA with your content so it's a natural next step to solving the problem your reader came for.

The CTA should be something like “Do you want X? Click here (or fill out this form if you have a form on the page).” You need to give them clear definition of what to expect and how to get it.

If you help people solve their problems you'll have no shortage of people waiting eagerly when you ring the bell. It's up to you and the quality of what you deliver if they continue to return.

Do you want a content marketing system that converts more prospects to buyers?

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