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Content is king, blah blah blah. Fact is, there's no magic formula for good content, but there are some basic things you can do to make your content more attractive to both readers/consumers and search engines.
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Think You Know Good Content?
Fuggedaboutit. Here's What Really Counts
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Finding Your Subjects
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Where Inspiration Strikes
• Mention, Talkwalker - take what Google Alerts used to do so well and do it 100 times better.
• RSS - whether through Flipboard, Feedly, Digg Reader, or wherever else, RSS lives on.
• Forums - people still use 'em. And love 'em.
• StumbleUpon - the easiest way to get content to come to you.
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Content Categories
Targeted Funny
How-to Commentary
Target photo by Ville Miettinen viaFlickr Creative Commons Owl photo by Doug Wheller via Flickr Creative Commons #smx #24A
Targeted
Any piece of news that relates to your niche/genre. They can be quickly recapped and take little effort. Industry happenings News releases Personnel changes and moves
Writing/Creation Time: LOWSocial Potential: LOWValue: Helps share important news, caters to your core audience, boosts SEO and helps keep the blog filled.
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Funny
A play off the news or something topical, but with an eye toward the absurd. Start from the topic, but focus on the funny
Writing/Creation Time: MEDIUM to HIGHSocial Potential: HIGHValue: Shows a light-hearted side; brings in traffic, boosts SEO and exposes you to new audiences.
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How-to Teach your readers
something they don’t know. Better yet, teach your readers
something they didn’t know they needed to know.
Can take many forms
Writing/Creation Time: LOW to HIGHSocial Potential: HIGHValue: High shareability; establishes your thought leadership; provides value to reader (which makes them think better of you); boosts SEO.
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CommentaryCovering popular news stories or timely topics, but making it your own by expressing opinion. Covers the news from a
specific angle. On a news release – is this a
departure from the norm? Has this worked in the past?
Writing Time: HIGHSocial Potential: MEDIUMValue: Establishes your thought leadership, boosts SEO.
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Content Types
Infographics Timelines
Video Photos
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Infographics
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DON’T: just throw up a bunch of stylized text
DON’T: Change color schemes for no apparent reason
DON’T: Mix and match fonts just because you feel like it.
Infographics
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DO: Share interesting information in an engaging, informative way
DO: Have some information that people want to know and share
DO: Visualize data and make numbers tangible
Timelines
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“Evolution” (of a logo, a singer, etc.) Design is important Memes are still good Yes, this is a type of infographic
What happens if you Google “LEGO timeline”?
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Video
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YouTube is the biggest by far, but it’s not the only game in town. Dailymotion is 2nd-largest in the world. Vimeo has reputation for quality video. Telly, Viddler – more players every day.
Video is getting bigger every day
It doesn’t have to be expensive
When it goes viral, it goes HUGE
Photos
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Use large, high-res, attractive photos
Slideshows need to be short, or very fast-moving (i.e., no reloading the page every scroll)
Encourage users to send in pics Then & Now “Separated at birth?”
This had 102K views on StumbleUpon
A few words about lists
#smx #24AThis had 166K views on Stumbleupon
People love lists. They really do. They complain about them
being linkbait, but they read them.
And share them. If you’re going to do a list,
cover the subject. BE COMPREHENSIVE.
Why do top 10 if you can do top 34?
People like learning things they didn’t know.
Did I mention that people love lists?
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(Just seeing if you’re paying attention!)
A COUPLE MORE THINGS
Do these things
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Be useful. Be relevant. Be consumable. Link out. People will notice, visit
and maybe even link back to you.
Illustrate whenever possible. K.I.S.S.: Keep it simple, stupid
(no offense). Emulate content you like. Look at your piece before you
post — would you read it if you happened up on it?
Photo by Matt Brown via Flickr Creative Commons
Thanks and Keep in Touch
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www.Facebook.com/AmyVernon
www.Twitter.com/AmyVernon
http://j.mp/AmyVGplus
