Learn how to write laser targeted content for your readers, giving great value content and answers to your reader’s questions.
When I sat down to write this article I did just as I’ve done time and time again when writing a piece. I thought about the article title, some keywords, and considered a number of internet searches to illustrate good examples of great content, so I could leverage the content both as ‘Curated Content’ and as examples of how it should be done.
Then it struck me, although I’m writing this piece to show you how to plan and create content for your website, it’s me that in reality, is learning the lesson afresh.
So, with my fresh eyes, I’m going to take you through what I consider the process you need work through in order to get to the other side of a good quality article.
There are some common requirements for content. It should be engaging and bring in targeted traffic looking for the quality content you offer. By the same token, there are many other requirements that are more of a guide than a rule, like the length of the article, and most of your SEO rules like keyword density and frequency. But how do you get to that point?
When you sit down to write content there are a number of things that ideally, should already be in place. You should have a planned your article, your keywords, your research, and your angle of attack, which should include all your necessary elements that I am going to talk about now.
The Art Of Writing:
The Art Of Writing is a collection of learned habits that used together time and time again will focus your abilities and produce good quality content again and again. Let me add a number of subheaders to break this down, then I will sum up to finish.
Create Original Content:
Not always easy when you consider what you are doing but you don’t need to re-invent the wheel, just introduce the same wheel in your own unique way.
What Should I Write About?:
This is a very broad question with two principal and opposing ideas depending on what kind of content you’re writing.
Firstly, if you’re writing content for an e-commerce site where you can have multiple products constantly changing, you don’t want to write about what you ‘know’ or ‘like’, you have to write about what your audience likes, and that’s whatever you’re promoting after researching your product line.
The second option is really what we are here for. As an affiliate marketer, the probability is higher that you’re promoting something you have an interest in and creating content connected to it. Let me put is another way, can you see yourself writing multiple articles on a subject you have no interest in?
Well, I would guess you could, but you’ll be more motivated writing about a subject of interest right?
Write Engaging And Provocative Content:
After you have done your initial research and decided what you’re writing about, there are building blocks of writing that if employed correctly, will pay dividends moving forward. Like everything else, you will need a lot of practice to write your pieces while maintaining relevance, integrity, and as the WA training always reminds us, we need to offer value to our readers and provide answers to their problems.
There are many more elements that can be included and if you can manage to fashion more than one, or two, or three of these elements into a piece while maintaining your articles integrity, the more powerful your article will become.
Let’s look at what our readers respond to when they’ve found an article that’s answering a question or offering a resolution to their problem. They’re already reading your article because we used SEO keyword targeting to pull targeted traffic to your page or post. Now they’re reading all the way through your article because it is Original, Engaging, and Provocative.
Here you can begin to create a precursor towards an emotional response from your reader.
To give an example of this:
Can you invoke curiosity and urgency with fear within a reader to produce and emotional response?
You could write this about a weight loss program. Have you ever wonder how Hollywood stars stay so slim? For today only, you can purchase this at 20% discount; don’t let this opportunity slip away. Get the idea?
All this time you’re been providing an easy and accessible source of information giving answers to their questions in a concise fashion, using your personality to Surprise, Amuse, or Shock your reader to keep them hooked and wanting more.
However, no matter how creative you are at telling your reader how and why you should always be aiming to SHOW them. As Kyle the co-owner of Wealthy Affiliate is always hammering home in the affiliate training sessions, ‘SHOW dont TELL’. And never forget, your content should always be constructed with the idea of quality over quantity.
Strong Headlines Are Your Road Maps:
Humans can be busy or lazy, or a mixture of both but that doesn’t mean they’re not interested. It just means you have to create content that allows them to browse and scan.
You have also added relevant images to back up what your saying which also breaks up the copy into bite size pieces, allowing you to add vignettes or multiple subheaders making your article scannable for those too busy to read the whole post.
You will come to learn that subheaders are like headlines, get them right and it’s a roadmap to all readers looking for specific elements within your content.
Call Your Reader To Action:
Once you’ve illustrated to your reader how they can resolve their particular problem it’s time to close them and ask them to take action, but how?
Well, you could just ask them, but first, you could create an environment or feeling of urgency leading to an emotional response, or what if you could leverage laziness? That would be priceless right?
I’ve already mentioned evoking emotion but can you imagine selling the idea of a ‘six-pack in 6 weeks‘ to someone who’s never been to the gym? It could be a CTA like “The lazy man’s guide to a six-pack in 6 weeks”.
Or you could use alte
ative emotional triggers like:
Inclusions: “Join 1 million successful users of our six-pack in 6 weeks program”
Fear: “Don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime offer”
Freedom: “free yourself from your negative self-image “
Curiosity: “How would a Six-pad change your life”
Always Provide Answers:
A reader enters the following search phrase into the Google search bar “How to create great content”.
In this example the reader is clearly asking how to create great content, so what does the reader want to receive in return? Obviously, they want details on creating great content and if they don’t receive that, your content has failed.
You see how you HEADLINES and content keywords are so important to target this particular subject?
So, your content has to be concise, precise and 100% relevant, and add value to your reader.
Basically, it doesn’t have to be new but it does have to be unique, compelling and relevant.
Know Who You Are Writing For:
To know who you’re writing for is to have an on/off switch to your marketplace. Imagine knowing your reader and knowing what they want and how they want to receive it. You could create the exact content they wanted and convert every time, right?
This is a requirement but a subject for another post as it is out of scope for this.
I really hope this has been useful to you. Dont's forget to read my full ‘10 Steps To Creating A Successful Affiliate Marketing Site‘. The next article covers adding affiliate links.
1.Build your free site
2.Hosting
3.Niche Market
4.Keywords
5.Google analytics
6.Mailing lists
7.Writing content
8.Affiliate links
9.Traffic generation
10.Testing!