Creating remarkable content is one of the biggest challenges for small businesses and content marketers. There's so much noise, so much competition, so many distractions that must be overcome in order to get the reader's attention. Plus, how do you ensure that your content is remarkable, versus ordinary or even horrible?
There's no one "magic formula" way to creating remarkable content. Neither is there one type of content or style of writing that's considered remarkable to all readers. But, there are few important content marketing principles that ought to be followed when creating remarkable content. Here are some of the most important:
- Leave Your Company Out of It - This is one of the hardest principles for small businesses to follow. Since it's their company blog or newsletter, it should be about them, right? Since content is the new advertising, content should contain advertising, right? Wrong! All wrong! Talking about your company and how great it is does not create remarkable content. Your readers don't care about your business. They care about themselves. Remarkable content relates to the reader, helps them to solve their problem, or provides them the information they are looking for. Don't tell your readers about your great company, show them how your comapny does all of the above (by creating remarkable content).
- Keep Keywords a #2 Priority - When keywords are #1, you are then writing for they search engines, not for the readers. Search engines don't necessarily measure remarkable content. They may showcase popular or relevant content, both qualities in remarkable content. But letting the search engine be the judge ins't necessarily the best idea. Keywords will appear when writing is crisp and clear. Instead of focusing on getting found, focus on making sure that what readers find is remarkable content.
- Take Chances! - If you just write about what everyone else is writing about, or do what everyone else is doing with their content, then how is that remarkable? The definition of remarkable is somethng worth talking about or sharing, so creating remarkable content involves creating things that are worth sharing and talking about. Usually, the things that are worth sharing and talking about are the ones that are different, bold, new, and/or unbelievable. Creating remarkable content means going that extra mile or taking that extra step.
Although there's no way to guarantee or to create remarkable content all the time, these principles are the hallmark of remarkable cotnent. Most, if not all, remarkable content, adheres to these principles. Creating remarkable content isn't supposed to be easy, but maybe following these principles will make it a little bit easier.