Let’s clarify this. Your website content should be targeted at your audience. Google will reward you for writing relevant and profitable content if you do it right.

Good content is not enough in today’s digital world. Outstanding content is essential. Google improves its ability to provide relevant information for searchers with each algorithm update.

How can you create amazing content that Google loves and your audience loves? Let’s take an in-depth look.

1. Define your Conversion Goals (What’s Your Point)

Think about what your end goal is before you start to write. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, get more customers, be part of industry conversations, or get more leads?

Content must be clear about who it is and what it should do. It is also important to determine a method to measure these goals.

Ask yourself:

• Why am I writing this?
• Who is this for?
• What is success? What would you define as a success?

2. Choose a relevant topic 

You must choose a topic before you can start writing. You don’t have to choose what topic you would like to write about. Your goals should be reflected in the topic you choose. Your content should be relevant to your goals.

These are some thoughts to consider:

• Keywords: What are people looking for? What are the most searched terms?

• Analytics: Is there any content on your website or blog that is performing well? You could turn your blog post into an entire guide.

• Target audience: What’s the point of content if it doesn’t resonate? To help me choose the topic for my last guide, I used data from a survey I sent to customers.

• Competitor: What other guides are there? Are there any guides that your competitors have published on the same topic? You might consider a different topic if you aren’t sure you can make a better guide.

3. Offer value

Outstanding content is only possible if you have passion and are skilled at writing. Your content can be as good as any wordsmith on the Internet, but you will lose your followers if it doesn’t offer value to your audience.

Content that is beneficial to readers will be more appealing. There are many ways to offer value. It’s as simple as identifying the benefits that your audience seeks and then catering to them.

A home improvement company might offer helpful tips and guidelines to their customers. You might find tips and advice from a Web hosting company on how to troubleshoot server issues or what mistakes to avoid when creating a website.

Your goal is to appeal to your customers in a way that resonates and provides tangible value. This will help you win customers and keep them coming back for more.

Before you start planning your content, think about your audience. Ask the following questions.

• Whom/what am I writing?

• What questions or problems do customers have?

• Are there any resources or information that could be of benefit to my readers?

• What is the current trending content in my niche? What can I contribute to the conversation?

Answering these questions will allow you to dig deeper into the topics that are most relevant and helpful for your target audience.

4. Cite Sources

While opinion pieces are important in the content industry, readers prefer cold facts. Statistics and data add credibility and weight to your authority, which increases trust in your content and you.

When possible, back up your claims using stats and facts from reliable sources. Fact sheets can be published as well. This type of post is especially popular with readers who like to digest small pieces of information in one place.

Fact posts can also be shared more easily since you can make each stat tweetable or shareable on Facebook.

5. Make it newsworthy

Current and relevant content is the best kind of content. Do your research instead of trying to guess what will happen and hoping that your content ideas stick. Find trends in your niche and across the wider media.

Look for connections.

Consider how relevant current events are to your niche or industry. Sometimes, the connection is obvious and direct. Other times, you might need to be creative. Don’t let loose connections discourage you. They often lead to original ideas and more interesting content for your readers.

People want to understand how different events will impact them. Your content will be more relevant and relatable if it is related to current events or trending topics.

6. Be personal

Personal connections are key to creating powerful content. Econsultancy discovered that 52% of digital marketers agree that personalizing content is fundamental to their online strategies. 

Readers want to see that someone is behind the words. Don’t be afraid of revealing the real person behind them.

These are some simple ways to inject personality into your content.

• To illustrate your points, share a personal story.

• Recognize the frustrations and problems you share with your audience. And, ideally, how you solved them.

• Write as you speak

• To address an individual, use second person (e.g. “you,” “everyone,” etc.

Your blog can be your business website or a part of your overall online content strategy. Make sure you personalize the message and reach out to your target audience.

7. Optimize Everything

It should be obvious that all content on your Web site must be optimized. But don’t optimize your site just for search engines. 

This is an important aspect of optimization. However, it will make your efforts a lot less effective if you don’t take into consideration the actual users. Optimize your content to make it user-friendly.

How?

• Use targeted keywords in your titles, meta-descriptions, and tags

• After every blog post or promotional content, add calls-to-action

• High-quality images should be accompanied by optimized alt descriptions

• Create captivating headlines and content that is memorable

• Regularly post content

• Design intuitive (read: user-friendly) site navigation

• Reduce page loading times

Let’s take a look at that last point briefly.

Econsultancy estimates that 40% of users will leave a site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. This means that users will abandon your site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

You can ensure that they do exactly that by evaluating your site.

Many of the above steps (such as optimizing images) will increase your load times. You should also reduce the number of plugins and redirects on your website (important if you have a mobile-friendly responsive design). Redirects can increase page speed and HTTP requests.

Also, ensure that your Web hosting company offers the best services. Hosts with lower budgets may not be able to accommodate sites that receive a lot of visitors. You can use shared hosting services or dedicated servers like Midphase to host higher-traffic sites. Page speeds will not be affected. These packages are offered by providers:

• 99.9% guaranteed uptime
• 24/7 tech support
• Upgrade options available

These factors will ensure you receive the best possible service. Your host will also be able to handle any issues quickly so that your website (and your traffic) do not suffer.

8. Include Mobile Interface 

MarginMedia found that 52% of users would not engage with a company if their mobile experience was poor. 48% of users said that if a website is not optimized for mobile, it indicates that they don’t care.

Mobile optimization is essential if you want your site to be noticed.

You have many options to make your mobile site mobile-friendly, such as responsive design or separate mobile versions. Econsultancy discovered that 62% of businesses that created mobile-friendly website had higher sales.

WordPress also offers a variety of plugins, including WPtouch Pro which optimizes your blog for mobile devices. You can choose the best option for you based on your needs and budget.

9. Get Deeper

Originality is the key to great content, marketers, and writers will tell ya. But, not everyone is perfect. You can search for almost any topic to find multiple articles and resources that answer your questions.

Although personality can add some life and originality to your content, depth can make your content stand out.

Look for ways to dig into the content when you are planning your content. Ask questions that aren’t obvious or intuitive and then try to answer them in a post.

Instead of writing about the “5 Secrets to Good Business”, go deeper into a topic that falls under this umbrella. For example, “How to Use Text Marketing To Promote Your Small Business”

Make sure you provide relevant, detailed, and helpful information for your audience. Avoid boring your readers with jargon or exaggerated statements. Instead, you should cater to your readers’ needs by providing them with valuable information that they won’t find anywhere else.

This will not only attract loyal followers, but it will also establish you as an authority online in your field and an expert.

This is good news for businesses.

10. Think about your buyer persona.

A buyer persona refers to a specific group of potential customers. It is an archetypal person you want your marketing messages to reach. 

David Meerman Scot

One buyer persona may be more important than another. When designing your website, you might also need to consider potential job candidates or the media. You must know the audience for which your website is created. You can’t create content for them if you don’t know their identity and their values.

Your conversions can be greatly increased by introducing content that addresses buyer personas. These case studies are from David Meerman’s blog. Brand Regard saw an increase in click-throughs threefold after they created a persona-focused website. RightNow Technologies saw fourfold increases in conversions.

Are you able to communicate in the same language as your target market? Are you using the same terminology they use to discuss your products? These terms will increase your chances of being discovered via search engines and be considered relevant by your target audience.

11. Give people reasons to buy from your company

Each buyer should be given a reason to buy from you. It’s important to think about the situation from their perspective. Your buyers are not interested in your products. They want to learn how you can solve their problems, how you can save them time and money, or how you can make them more productive, happier, or healthier.

KISSmetrics describes how its analytics software solves the problems of each buyer group.

12. Be open to suggestions 

You must overcome any objections that potential customers might have to maximize sales. Are they concerned about the price of your product? Are they concerned about the complexity of your product? Are customers concerned that your product might not be appropriate for their particular circumstances?

Refer people to a page that answers frequently asked questions or addresses objections on your sales pages. To maximize conversion, overcome any objections.

Crazy Egg explains the reasons you should purchase its tracking technology, even though you can get Google Analytics for free:

13. Answer questions

If you don’t sell commodities, buyers will have questions about your purchase. Answer all of their questions and you will be a trustworthy supplier and authority in your field.

You can change your mind about selling widgets to retired workers. Instead of How do I help them choose the right widget?

Look beyond the simple sales copy. Consider questions like:

• How …?
• What …?
• Where …?
• When …?
• Why …?
• Who…?
• Can I…?
• Do I…?

You don’t need to answer every question when you launch a website or expand an existing one. Answer the most important questions first, then create an editorial plan to address any remaining ones.

MailChimp offers online training to help answer questions related to email marketing. These pages rank highly in search engines for phrases such as What is a double-opt-in? How do I make an autoresponder? and When is the best time to email?

Potential buyers turn to Google to find answers to their questions. This is a great way for potential buyers to find relevant long-tail traffic to your website and to be useful to them.

14. Promoting your business? Get all hands on deck

If no one is reading your content, it’s useless. So make sure to get your PR and social media teams involved.

Email marketing and social media

Plan a social media strategy for each guide you publish. Consider how often you will share long-form content on each network. You can use different copies at different times of the day.

Sponsored Facebook and sponsored Twitter campaigns are options if you have the budget. Include your guide in an email marketing campaign to ensure that it reaches existing subscribers and customers.

Giveaways and Contests

You might consider holding a giveaway or contest in conjunction with the publication. People will see the guide if they are active on social media. Be sure to keep giveaways and contests relevant.

Reach out to influencers by connecting with them

Be sure to let companies and influencers know that you have included them in your guide. You can depending on the relationship, ask them to share it with them or ask them to just read it.

I’ve been successful when I have thanked an influencer and provided a link. They’ve shared the content without me asking. 

Bottom line

It takes a lot of preparation and hard work to create outstanding website content. Do not settle for the average, as most of your competitors are average. Instead, focus on the small improvements you can make to your website and content development that will increase its value and quality.

How have you taken your content to the next level of excellence?