Is My Content Good Enough?

Businesses are often faced with a content crisis. They keep adding content to their blogs and websites. Yet they see little to no change in customer perceptions. Why is it that they fail to make a mark? There can be plenty of reasons, ranging from failure to address reader expectations to poor content presentation. Here are some ways to check if your content is sufficient for generating interest in readers.

Keeping readers in mind

You need to produce content keeping your readers in mind. This would involve creating an image of the target reader in your mind – think about their age, geographical location, profession, and so on. Then you will be able to create content that addresses the requirements of readers. If your content is written solely to get your views across, not taking into account how readers might feel, it would be useless to them. Your content needs to offer new information and insights and help readers solve a problem or add value to their readership experience.

Easy to interpret format

One picture can speak a thousand words. Sometimes, relying too much on a single type of content, including text content, can backfire. Too much text is hard to read, particularly if readers are accustomed to the easy to surf internet format. You might feel that adding graphics would make things simpler, but you would have to keep in mind the value graphics can add to text content. Do the graphics offer additional information? Do they clarify certain concepts? If not, your graphics may not be adding to the richness of your content.

Paragraph breaks

Relevant to the point earlier, is the matter of breaking up your content into smaller sections. Internet readership is short on time, moving from one page to another at a breakneck speed. You have just a few seconds to catch their attention. Also, people don’t take the time to read everything on the page. They will look at the title, the graphics, and anything else that stands out. If your text is one clunky paragraph spanning 2000 words, you lose readership. Using subheadings is one way to give readers a gist of the subsequent text quickly, and thus ensuring their loyalty.

Interesting title

The title is the first thing readers will read, and any inkling they have on what’s to come will come from the title. The title will show up on links. If it’s catchy enough, it will entice readers to click the link and read more. Therefore, your title needs to be catchy. It should create a sense of urgency among readers, so that they are compelled to read your content then and there.

Simplicity

Make your writing clear and engaging, but not too difficult. Don’t use words that readers may not understand.

If you really want to understand how well your content is doing, check for competition on search engines. How are pages with similar content attracting readers? Why are the top ranked pages popular? If you can find some answers through your research you will have strategies to incorporate into your content generation efforts.