Being a content creator while managing a business can be tough. Many a successful businessperson has fallen short trying to do both. To be frank, content creation is a full-time job. It’s not something you can do half-heartedly. Researching topics, writing, tweaking and editing take a lot of time.

Still, you can’t compete in today’s business world without creating content in your niche. To be successful, along with your sales content, you should be seen as an expert in your area, engage your clients and offer information they need. It’s not a complicated process, but doing it right can be difficult. It’s a hit or miss process. The problem with this model stems from the inefficiency.

With this in mind, here are 15 digital content creation tips sure to boost business:

 

1. Do Your Research

First, and foremost, you can’t start cranking out the digital content these days without a plan. There’s too much competition out there. You’ll get lost quickly  without some research and a well-developed plan which includes these tasks:

• Explore the Internet.
• Look at what your competitors are doing.
• Use SEO tools and see what type of long-tail keywords you can rank for.
• Examine successful content in your niche and breakdown exactly how it’s crafted.

You’ll save your company a lot of time and money with just a little effort.

 

2. Take “You” Out of the Equation

You’re creating content that you want others to read. So don’t expect Google, other search engines or readers to reward your content if it’s all about your small business. That’s not how content marketing or SEO works.

Content that gets page views month after month and year after year is content that people actually want to read. And most of the time, this content isn’t about you or your business. This is the only way to get more views to any company’s content and actually engage customers.

 

3. Find the Best Content For Your Business

There are numerous types of content. One of the best things about content creation is the variety available. One day you can craft a killer blog post and the next day, you can put out an incredible infographic for all your loyal readers.

The key is to find the best content for your business. While a travel site may require photos and videos to find success, a site about quantum physics may only need detailed exposes on certain topics. You’ll need to figure out which type of content fits best with your business model.

 

4. Focus On Connection

Connecting with a potential customer or client is relatively simple. You want to focus on offering the reader or viewer something and avoid talking about your business. The easiest way to ensure you do so is through entertainment and value.

When playing the part of a content creator, teach your reader something. Entertain your viewer. Offer them something they cannot find in other corners of the web. Be the go-to source for the information they need. By providing value, you build a strong connection with current and potential customers.

 

5. Continually Craft Great Content

It’s important to note that content creation isn’t a one-off thing. To build an audience and keep Google happy, you need to continually craft great content. The more you update your web presence, the more viewers you’ll find.

Every industry will require a different kind of content marketing. A floral shop blog requires a lot of different content and colorful images while a B2B site may just need 1,500 compelling words to share on LinkedIn every month. No matter your industry, consistency in content creation is essential to success.

 

6. Headlines Vital to Success

Great digital content often gets left in the dust even though the content is great. Why? Content marketers forget an important rule – you have to craft a compelling headline to get more readers. But it may not be as easy as it sounds.

Great headlines:

• Get clicks
• Are simple
• Easy to remember
• Often, share-worthy

If your headline doesn’t do those things, you might want to rethink it. If headline writing is a burden for your business  just click here for an informative and well-written article on how to craft results-driven headlines.

 

7. Variety is the Spice of Life

Adding a little variety  to your article writing can up the ante on your content marketing. Even if you’ve determined long blog posts with strong keyword research is the absolute best content for your business, you can still throw some different kinds of content out there now and then, such as:

• Videos
• Infographics
• Blog posts
• Statistics-based white pages
• eBooks…

These can all be added to your content creation mix. Don’t fall into a content marketing rut! Switch things up and watch interaction soar.

 

8. Get Everyone Involved

Speaking of interaction, you should be continually linking to others through your content marketing. Remember how you and your business shouldn’t be the only star of the show? This content creation tip goes right back to that point – by linking to others, you encourage them to share your pieces, as well, thereby extending your reach. The exception would be links to direct competitors. You don’t want to send a potential customer to their site!

Even a small tweet from an influencer can turn your content marketing efforts from stagnant to successful in mere moments. There’s nothing wrong with referencing industry experts and giving credit where credit is due. Most people and businesses love receiving positive mentions and links in your content.

 

9. Don’t Rush It

Many brands, businesses and individuals think they need to be the first person to break a news story or follow a trend. While intuitively it seems smart to hop on news stories, many create content around a story too quickly, and it ends up backfiring. Always make sure your content is neutral when it comes to politics, religion and other topics that might offend potential customers. This is a business site, not a place to air your personal opinions.

Another issue with rushing content to capitalize on news and trends relates to “evergreen” content. Rushed content will rarely, if ever, turn into content that continues to generate views and traffic a year or three down the road.

Learn more about “evergreen” content here.

 

10. Humans Are Visual

Even if you craft an amazing blog post that offers incredible value, those same readers won’t even stop to read without an impactful image. Plus, Google rewards content with pictures, graphics and more.

Just make sure your images are original. Copying or stealing images may not anger readers, but search engines won’t reward your content if you do so. On the other hand, adding YouTube videos to content, even if they are not yours, will be rewarded by search engines and readers alike.

 

11. Test, Test, Test

So now you think you know what will work, you have a plan in place, and the ideas are flowing. What’s next? First, you need to actually create digital content. Once you have the killer content your audience will love ready, you’ll have to test it out and see what works.

Ideas and theories are one thing, but facts and numbers boost business. So create a few different types of content. Then go back to test and track. See what works for your company and what doesn’t. Many times businesses are surprised by what type of content continually drives sales and boosts business.

 

12. Professional Editing is Key

Content creation must be professional. Nothing annoys a reader or viewer more than a broken link or a misspelled word. As such, it’s paramount you professionally write or edit every piece of content you produce.

If you’re writing a blog post yourself, make sure you have an editor on hand to correct errors. If you’re creating a video, you need to start with some good equipment and a tripod. No one wants to watch a video made on an iPhone with a shaky hand.

 

13. Get Social

Once you craft this incredible content, get on social media and share what you’ve created. Feel free to post on every platform your business uses. Popular platforms include:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest

Don’t spam, but be active. It’s ok to share a link to great, “evergreen” content multiple times throughout the week. The best way to do so is through scheduling social media posts on HootSuite or another social media management platform. Just make sure you’re also interacting socially with others, not just spamming your content.

 

14. Content Creation Tools

Like HootSuite mentioned above, you can use a variety of apps to help you with your content marketing efforts. Here are a few other popular apps:

• Polldaddy: You can use this app to add interactive polls and quizzes to your content. Not only do your viewers like this – used correctly, so does Google.

• Infogr.am: This content creation tool allows you to take an Excel spreadsheet and turn it into an incredible and informative infographic.

• Headline Analyzer: This handy app offers tips on improving your headline. Just type it in and it does the rest.

• Grammarly: If you can’t afford a professional editor, then Grammarly is the app for you. For a small monthly fee, you get a professional editing app that ensures no silly mistakes get printed in your content. It’s like spellcheck on steroids!

 

15. Call To Action

And finally, you shouldn’t put all this work into crafting some of the best content on the web and not get anything in return. So feel free to add a call to action at the end of any piece. Just make sure the action you want actually relates to the content.

For example, at iWebContent, we specialize in creating a variety of shareable content for our clients. “Evergreen” is our specialty and almost every piece of content we craft is built to get views today, tomorrow and years down the road.

Get in touch if you don’t have time for content creation. We’ll craft the killer content you need, whether it’s a blog post, site content, landing page or eBook. Then you can get back to managing the business side of your company.

Want to know more about content marketing and getting new leads? Click here for a download of our FREE eBook, The Definitive Guide to Lead Generation for Small Business. It’s full of innovative ideas about lead-producing content marketing strategies.