If your audience had to rate your content out of 5 stars, how do you think you’d score? Scared of the thought? You should be!

Are you struggling to create engaging content that is useful to your users? Don’t sit there yawning at your own content, train yourself!

To provide content that is educational and valuable takes a few things. It isn’t something you can do right off the bat with any thought. Just like a decent holiday or impressive wedding, it takes planning!

To become the mastermind of quality content that not just Google, but also your reader’s will love, keep reading to see what you need to do to get your content up to scratch.

The importance of valuable content

When it comes to SEO, your website’s content is incredibly important. Not only do you need to have a certain amount of content for your website to be considered valuable and useful, but you also need content that is worthy of your audience.

By having content that is worthy and on-topic, Google will pick up the relation between your website and the search intent, deeming you a better spot in search result rankings. Of course, there is more that goes into the overall SEO scheme, but this is a start.

Furthermore, by the users identifying your content as valuable, they will stay on your page to read it instead of straying off it. They will also look at your website as a reliable source, and hopefully keep coming back to it in the future. This will once more help your SEO rates with longer viewing sessions and an increase in views.

Think of the situation like a restaurant. Your website or platform is the venue and your content is the food. If the food is terrible, the restaurant won’t do so well and customers, in this case, users, won’t return.

Long story short, if you have dull, irrelevant content that isn’t worth their time, a user will pick that up pretty quickly and consequently leave your site. To avoid this, you’ll want to create top-quality content that has purpose and persuasion.

Make the content relevant

As mentioned earlier, we pointed out how your content needs to be worthy. This means not just putting up content for the sake of having text and images there. It needs to be rich content that is of use to the audience so they can take something from it at the end.

Your content, from the text and headings through to any videos or images featured, need to be relevant to your user and the reason they stumbled onto your page. If they have looked up, for example, ‘How to paint walls quickly?’, you will want to ensure the content is relevant, with images and videos that have to do with painting a wall.

The worst thing you could do is make the user feel like they are going to find the answers they want in the search results and instead deliver an off-topic subject on the actual page. This is click-bait and can have a nasty effect on your SEO when the user’s jump-off the page within seconds. Not to mention it is all misleading.

Make your content easy to follow and clear

When providing content that will educate, you want to ensure your content is clear and precise. This means it should be easy to follow and information the users want should be easy to find.

The user should easily understand your writing and it should be set up in a layout that makes sense, i.e. Step One, Step Two, Step Three and so on. Not to mention the content itself should be straightforward. From the photos you select to the style of writing, everything shouldn’t take too long to think about.

Be clear about what you want the user to take from your content

Think about the reason for this content. Whether you are writing a blog or sketching up FAQs, consider the purpose and why a user will be looking at it. Is it legal advice they want? Or maybe it is a cooking tip? Write down your main points and ensure they are clearly delivered in the end result.

While writing, you should remember your reasoning for the content. Stick to the purpose and stay close. Don’t go too far off-topic and remember why you are creating content. You want your it to make a difference, so get to the point and make it worth the reader’s time.

Make it original and exciting

If you want to produce content that is useful and educational, you’ll need to make everything original. Be different. Stand out from the rest. Give your readers something that will remind them of you and your content.

Whether it is persuasive writing or a unique graphic, you’ll want your content to be one-of-a-kind and that isn’t the expected, basic run-of-the-mill content your competitors create.

Some tips include:

• Coming up with your own distinct writing style
• Adding some humour into your content
• Being interactive with your users
• Making it exciting with a mini game or quiz
• Getting your users to think or reply by asking questions
• Referring to relevant pop culture and trends
• Giving examples and understandable details
• Throwing in a meme

Follow up with a strong and useful conclusion

This is when you need to finish strong. No matter the form of content, whether it is a video, article or social media post, you should always finish off with a strong message or call to action.

A blank or stale ending can ruin your whole purpose, so make sure you finish strong to get your point or aim across.

Do this by finishing on a high-note by reinforcing your key message or by leading them in the right direction. From letting them know how they can do something to solve their issue or where they should go next, you should leave them with a message, their next step or at least a plan.

Now you know how you can create educational content with a purpose, get creating! Remember the above tips and you’ll be producing content that will be useful to your users.

Still not so confident? Let us do it for you! As a digital marketing company offering full-service SEO and social media services, we can help you. With our experience and content creation skills, we can provide you with our services and professional advice on how you can develop your work.

Give us a call on 1300 090 401 to find out more about how we can help you.