More than just hiring great writers is needed to produce great content on a consistent basis.
It takes more than writing long content.
It takes clarity.
Too often I talk to content marketers who, in some way or another, tell me the same thing:
” My company has spent a lot of money on content marketing last month and we’re not getting any results. I don’t think this is working. We shouldn’t keep investing in content marketing.
The problem isn’t with content marketing itself, but with the way it’s being approached.
If you want to solve a problem, it’s important to first ask the right question. This was a idea put forth by Carl Jung.
I have never thought that I would quote an analytical psychologist in this blog, but he was completely accurate.
If you haven’t been doing as well as you would like this quarter, try following the advice of good old Carl and asking yourself some tough questions.
Why?
becausue they point out the problems you can’t see
Let’s get started.
Are you hiring the right people?
The most important thing when hiring people is not the number of people you hire, but rather hiring the people who are the best match for the job.
If success was simply a matter of hiring the most people, everyone would be succeeding at content. Having a lot of people working on a content project does not guarantee success. Paraphrase: Though the Content Marketing Institute report indicates that only 24% of marketers are very or extremely successful at managing their content marketing, this number could be higher.
It’s the combination of the two, working together in harmony. Content marketing is the combination of content and marketing working together to create a cohesive whole. Ironic, yet crucial.
If you hire the best content writers but don’t market your content, no one will ever read it.
Even if you promote your content using Facebook ads, sending outreach emails, and leveraging the audiences of top influencers, your content won’t be successful if it’s not good. You’ll get no results.
When hiring people for your content marketing team, you need:
- Someone who can write great content consistently
- Someone who can promote your content without being creepy
Hire content writers
It is not difficult to write, but it is hard to do it in a way that will engage people every time. A content writer who is great at their job knows what it takes to create content that is high quality.
When hiring a writer, you want someone who can:
- Craft a story, even if it’s simple (as in the intro of this article)
- Be authoritative without lacking substance
- Be empathetic with the reader
- Have a great grasp of grammar and syntax
- Can explain any concept clearly
One of the most important things you want from a content writer is consistency.
If you want to get an idea of what a content writer can do for you, take a look at their published work from the past ten articles. What topics has the writer published about? Are they all equally good?
You should only hire writers who can maintain a high level of quality in their writing over time.
Hire marketers
Content promotion is difficult because the goal of content marketing is not to immediately make a sale, but to develop a relationship with the audience and use their trust to your advantage.
It takes specific marketing skills to do so, like:
- Focusing on long-term relationships with their targets (i.e., not sending 3 consecutive emails with link requests)
- Providing value before looking to get anything in return
- Having connections in the industry
- Knowing how to leverage a social community without being spammy
- Using copywriting techniques to promote the content
Such marketers are scarce. Asking for previous work is the best way to find them.
The most important thing is to see how they build their relationships and promote their content.
What results has the marketer driven? How did she get them?
Hire content marketers
A content marketer not only needs to know how to create content, but also how to promote it effectively. There is a problem promoting content as it is not like carrying out a paid media campaign. You can’t stuff your content into people’s throat.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you—it’s easy to find people who call themselves content marketers, but it’s rare to find someone who can actually write and promote content effectively.
I’m better at writing than promoting. Some others are the opposite.
Look for a content marketer who has both writing and promoting skills, but who has a stronger preference for one of the two.
It’s better to have a specialist who can then learn other skills than trying to find a unicorn who already has all the desired skills.
There are very few content marketers who are both good at writing and promoting their work. I’ve only come across a handful of people who fit this description, such as Chris Von Wilpert and Aaron Orendorff.
Do you know what it takes to succeed?
I wanted to be a historian when I was in high school.
One day, one of my teachers asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. Proudly, I said “history.”
Despite the passage of time, I can still recall her rolling her eyes and telling me, “It’s obvious that you don’t know what you want.”
The sad part was that she was a historian.
I was told that I need to know what I want before I do anything, even before I could grow a full beard.
Coincidentally, that lesson applies to content marketing.
To be successful with your content, you first need to know what you want.
I know, I know, this is super obvious.
What I mean by “know what you want from your content” idea is this:
If you don’t have a clear vision for how you want to use content marketing to grow your company’s revenue, you won’t be able to hire the right people to help you.
I see software companies publishing content that no one would want to read.
It seems that they publish their content because they have to.
In order to create an effective content marketing strategy, you must first have a strong understanding of how content marketing works as a means of marketing.
If you don’t have a clear understanding of how content marketing can help your business, you might not use your resources effectively, leading to too much investment in writers or too little in planning, design, and promotion.
The Changing Climate of Search: Why We Need 10x Content
It’s clear that the time has come for great content to end. The content that is being pushed out is the content that does not fit the needs of today’s market.
Here are the major factors that changed to create this climate:
- The Rise of User Experience: Once upon a time, web pages existed solely to answer questions and “user experience” was a fluffy little phrase that nobody paid much attention to. Today, however, user experience plays a large part in Google’s ranking algorithms. Because of this, sites that load quickly, are optimized for mobile devices, are segmented, sub-headed, and easy to read are ranking better than difficult interfaces featuring large blocks of brilliant but dense content.
- The Death of Link Building: In the early days of SEO, black hat SEOs built pages and then built links back to them, falsifying ranking and muddying the waters for everyone involved. Nowadays, low-quality link building is dead and Google’s Panda updates have proclaimed to wage war on bad link building in the future. Because of this, websites have been forced to begin earning links rather than building them. This means in order to be linked to, content needs to be worthy of links, which means it needs to be interesting, useful, valuable, and intelligent. The catch, however, is that people got their fill of useful, valuable, and intelligent content long ago. As a result, there are literally millions of high-quality pages that fit reader’s needs. As a result, these pages don’t earn links any longer and Google users are on the lookout for the best possible content.
- Content Marketing Got Hot: Over the last half-decade, people have begun to flock to content marketing in droves. This has produced more competition for top-ranking spots in search engine indexes and altered how content is ranked altogether.
- User Expectations are at an All-Time High: Google users want the best content on the web and, with such a supply available, it’s safe to say that they’re not going to compromise. They want content that looks great, answers questions, appeals to their sense of humor, and delivers value. That said, they’re not going to have much of an interest in anything that falls short of the mark.
5 Fundamental Guidelines to Help You Create 10x Content
With all this information, it is easy to have a negative view of content today. There is a better way for creative writers, marketers, and SEOs to create content that meets the needs of today’s consumers while also maintaining a high level of quality and intelligence. Doing what isn’t difficult?
1. Do Your Own Research
If you don’t know what 10x content is, how are you supposed to create it? In order to find out what people are interested in and what they find valuable, type some of your ideal search queries into Google and take a look at the top ten search results, as well as anything that might be trending on Twitter or social media. This will give you a better idea of what content to create that readers will appreciate.
By doing your own research, you can find out what is missing in the market and create a plan to fill that gap. To create content that is significantly better than anything else on the market, you need to first be aware of what is already available. This can only be deduced through conducting personal research. In addition to helping you realize what products or services are available, research will also help you learn what strategies are working well for other businesses, what strategies are not working well, and what strategies are not being used at all. If you want your content to be successful, gather the necessary information first.
Buzzsumo is an excellent tool that content marketers can use to research what content is popular with their audience, what content is trending in their industry, and what gaps they could fill with their content.
Content marketers can use a content curation tool to find any kind of content, filtered by date, to see what’s trending, compare domains, find top authors, or even set a content alert for new published material that is of interest to them and may inspire further creations. This is the best way to find and be inspired by the best content on the web.
I like the Trending Now tab, just to see what’s hot on the web in the last 60 minutes of Internet time:
In addition to helping you build a relationship with an important person, following and reading what industry influencers share will also give you ideas for content.
Although I am not officially endorsed to say this, I believe that BuzzSumo is a valuable tool for anyone who wants to create content that is ten times better than the average.
2. Consider Which Questions Your Readers Need Answering
Great content must answer readers’ questions. Without shares and links, there is no hope. When you are researching the most popular content for your chosen search queries, take a moment to think about which questions that content is answering.
It is likely that you will understand what readers are asking and what writers are answering. When you keep the user in mind, you can write better content that is both unique and engaging.
3. Boost Your User Experience
Is your site easy to navigate? Does it load like lightning? Is it laid out well? Is it optimized for mobile devices? If you answered no to any of these questions, you should get back to work.
If a user has difficulty interacting with the content on your site, they are likely to leave it quickly. Make sure your website is user-friendly and listen to what users say to keep them coming back.
4. Use Visuals
Images, videos and infographics can help you get your point across while also adding some much-needed variety to your posts. If you’re not using visuals in your content strategy, you could be missing out on a huge opportunity to engage your audience. Content that is ten times better than average relies heavily on visuals that are done well. Creating this kind of content means using great infographics, videos, photos, and screenshots to provide a deeper understanding and a better user experience.
5. Source High-Quality Information
Linking to low-quality or low-DA sites in your writing is not enough. To create content that is 10 times better than what is currently available, you need to get your data from the best sources and make sure that the data and linking practices are also the best. BuzzSumo helps research where to get hight-quality citational information.
The Future of 10x Content
It seems that content that is ten times better than the competition will continue to be successful, and those in marketing who want to be successful should take note. Although the phrase “10x content” may seem like it is designed to shock people, it actually makes a lot of sense. Content climate and user preference are changing, which changes search habits.
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