Nowadays, anyone from anywhere in the world can make content, but not everyone can create content that actually works or makes an impact on their target audience. Content is everywhere on the web, and you interact with it regularly. From YouTube videos to blogs, content takes on a lot of forms and can vary greatly from website to website.
With a plethora of content available on the web, it seems easy to jump on the bandwagon and start making your own content. You’ll get to do what you love the most, and people will flock to your website, right? Well, yes and no. There’s more to content creation than just starting a blog or a YouTube channel. While there’s no exact formula when it comes to content creation, there are a number of steps you can follow that will help make your content more effective.
How to Create Content that Actually Works: A Content Creation Guide for Beginners:
What Is Content Creation?
So what exactly is content creation? From an outside perspective, it might seem like an easy task. After all, content creation can essentially be broken down into three simple steps. All content creators have to do is come up with an idea, execute it, and publish it to theirpreferred platform。
尽管这在某种程度上可能是真实的，因为这三个步骤是内容创建的关键方面，但这过分简化了事物。内容创建需要大量仔细的计划，战略执行和技能。
简单地说，内容创建是一个需要的过程内容创建者to:
- 提出会吸引您的听众的想法
- Determine the form you want it to be in and the platform you want to publish it on
- Come up with acontent creation strategy，其中可以包括SEO，市场和角色研究以及内容审核
- Publish your content
Types of Content
如前所述，内容可以采用很多形式。当最佳使用时，这些可以吸引更多的网站流量。您可以自由地仅坚持一种类型或实验不同内容类型的组合。这是一些更常见的：
- Blogs
One of the most popular content types, blogs are used by many brands as part of their content marketing strategy. What makes blogs great is that they can easily be discovered on search engine results pages (SERPs), and they’re generally easy to read and share. They’re a great tool for establishing a relationship with your audience, as they’re easily accessible.
While blogs as content come with a lot of benefits, they can also be subject to pitfalls. Not maintaining your blog and optimizing it for SEO and leads can adversely affect your site’s performance.
来源：seths.blog
- 长格式含量
长格式含量, such as how-to guides and in-depth articles, are like blog posts on steroids. They usually fall around the5,000至15,000字数and offer more value.
- Infographics
If you want to convey information in a way that’s easy to understand, infographics provide you with a welcome alternative. Because they present data or information in a visual format, they tend to be easily shareable by your audience.
- Memes
Memes are everywhere. They’re hugely popular and can be used in practically anything, from blog posts to serious articles. They provide readers with something humorous. But while they’re easily shareable and adaptable, memes usuallyoffer little to no additional value。When they’re not utilized properly, there’s a risk that your audience might not resonate well with them.
- Videos
Videos are another type of content that can effectively engage your audience. You can upload your edited videos to your YouTube channel and promote them to all your other social media platforms.
- Reviews
评论，无论是产品，视频还是图书评论，都是向观众传达您对某个主题知识渊博的有效方法。反过来，这在特定主题上建立了您的权威或专业知识。
- Case studies
如果您想将自己确立为行业的思想领袖，那么您应该研究的一件事是发布案例研究。这些是对特定主题或主题的深入研究，并且经常从研究中使用您自己的数据。
- White papers
In a similar vein to case studies, white papers also provide readers with an in-depth look at a specific topic. A typical white paper presents the reader with a problem and then proceeds to provide a solution for it. According to HubSpot’sLindsay Kolowich Cox, a good white paper has the following characteristics:
- Sufficient length
- A well-organized structure
- Denser than eBooks
- 具有适当的格式
- Utilizes the appropriate style
- Downloadable materials, such as eBooks, templates, and reports
访客访问您网站的原因之一是他们想获得具有价值的东西。您可以通过可下载的材料（例如电子书，模板和数字报告）为他们提供所需的内容。这些是出色的原始材料，并且相对容易创建。要产生潜在客户，您可以要求观众选择您的新闻通讯或电子邮件订阅列表，以便他们可以访问您的可下载材料。
这Importance of Content
Content has become a crucial and inevitable part of daily life. You’ve probably heard the phrase “Content is king” countless times. While that may be true, there are some exceptions to the rule. Not just any kind of content can make it to the top.
最高的是高质量的。他们引人入胜，为读者提供了很多价值。它们可以吸引您的页面流量，并鼓励您的访问者在您的网站上采取行动。此外，当用户发现您的内容很有价值时，他们更有可能与之互动并共享它，从而有助于内容的寿命。
生产高质量的内容还巩固了您在各自行业中作为思想领导者的声誉。您产生的是您行业中的知识，技能和专业知识的反映。以最好的方式展示您所知道的知识并使观众轻松访问它，作为创造者，可以帮助您与观众建立关系。反过来，这可以鼓励他们与您的品牌互动并互动。
创建高质量的内容还带来了内容创建者的其他好处。这些包括：
- Better online visibility
- Increased website traffic
- 提高了品牌知名度
- Better ranking positions on SERPs
- Capability to reach your intended audience
- 在具有成本效益的同时产生更多的潜在客户
- 增加收入
创建高质量内容时需要考虑的其他因素包括：
- 这right information for your niche and audience
- Internal links
- Keywords
请记住，访问者来您的网站寻找内容，分享Jennifer Kyrnin。All the other aspects of your site or page, such as the design and user interface, complement your content to deliver something of high value and quality to your visitors.
What to Know Before Creating Content
Before you actually get down to work, there are several things you need to do or know about before you start creating content.
Know your goals
As with any endeavor, it’s important for you to determine your content creation goals. These will help guide the direction you’re going with and can determine the type of content you’re going to make. Note that it’s always best to create content that aligns with your marketing goals.
If you don’t know where or how to begin, you can always ask yourselfwhyyou’re creating the content you’re about to make. What are you looking to achieve with your content? Do you want to gain more traffic or more conversions? Perhaps you want to work on improving audience engagement?Jeff Haden强调有潜在的价值目标。根据him, without a “strong why,” your efforts, regardless of what you come up with, “will fall flat.”
Moreover, you need to come up with a way to measure or determine whether or not you’ve achieved your goals. For this, you need to set your key performance indicators or KPIs. Your KPIs will help you measure results and determine whether or not you’ve achieved your goals. Your KPIs can include SEO, website traffic, sales, and revenue.
了解您的听众
你真正想要的是创建的内容an exciting prospect, but amid the excitement, you might lose track of who your target audience is.
Content creation requires research. You will need to know and understand your audience before engaging in actual content creation work.
One of the tried-and-tested methods to gaining a better understanding of your audience is by creating abuyer persona。This can be a time-consuming process, but it gives you more in-depth results when it comes to defining who your ideal audience is.
More than creating a buyer persona, you need to engage with your audience by actually getting them involved. You can interact with them and ask them for feedback. You can also check out your audience demographics to give you an idea of who your readers are and where they’re coming from.
根据Jodi Harris，在评估您创建内容的功能时，需要考虑三个关键问题：
- Who will make the content? This includes contributors or collaborators.
- 你怎么ensure that your content format matches your content creation goals?
- 您如何创建观众真正喜欢并与之互动的内容？
这Content Creation Process: A Content Creation Guide
Get Inspired or Gather Ideas
Every great piece of content begins with an idea.
但是提出一个绝妙的主意是创造者必须面对的最困难的事情之一。你怎么generate a novel or interesting idea? What will make your work stand out from a sea of content?
One way to approach this seemingly Herculean task is to focus on your audience. Use what you’ve researched to your advantage. Find out what their pain points are or what they’re frequently searching for, and start from there. You might uncover questions from your research that can make for a great topic.
您还可以与团队进行集思广益，以提出内容创建想法。您可以从各种方法中获得灵感，包括关键字研究，与受众的互动甚至竞争对手分析。
不要忘记质量的价值
可能很容易征服很多内容，或经常为您的网站使用长篇文章。虽然长度可能不会直接影响结果，但您需要了解和考虑的回报率降低。Neil Patel。这样想,只是因为我的内容s longer doesn’t mean it’s better than something with a shorter word count. A 50,000-word guide might not be as effective or as definitive as a shorter counterpart.
When it comes to content, quality, more often than not, trumps quantity.
Find the Right Tools
这right toolscan help you create more effective content. There are a number of tools that are readily available online, such as Canva for creating graphics and designs and Grammarly for checking your writing. There are also tools that let you create a buyer persona. Forsocial media influencers, you can use tools that can make your photos and videos stand out. These include VSCO and CutStory.
审核您的内容
内容审核对初学者和资深内容创建者都非常简单且有益。与传统审核类似，内容审核正在盘点您到目前为止提出的内容。
It enables you to get a better understanding of the type of content, topics, and categories that your audience typically engages with.
To begin your audit, create a spreadsheet where you’ll compile all your content. For each content piece that you’ve created, you then create columns where you define categories, such as keywords, buyer persona, content type, category, analytics, and more.
Select Your Format
Next, you need to determine which format you’d use for which content. With all the content types available, it can be difficult for creators to find the best one to use. To help make things easier, you need to go back to your buyer persona and audience research. Which format does your audience enjoy the most? Which types do they often engage with?
Whatever format you decide to use, there are four key qualities that every piece of content should possess, according toSeth Godin。这se are:
- 情感
Determine what type of emotion you want your audience to feel through your content.
- 改变
How is your content affecting your audience? Does it necessitate any change in them?
- Alert
你怎么alert your readers whenever you have new material?
- Share
你怎么encourage your audience to share your content with others?
Create an Editorial Calendar
Creating an editorial calendar is a crucial part of content creation. It guides you on your content publishing journey, enabling you to know when to publish which content and which platform to publish it on.
One of the easiest tools you can use for this is Google Calendar. You can also useproject management tools, such as Asana and Monday.com. When setting up your editorial calendar, make sure that you take into account your goals. Try to schedule your goals in such a way that you’re able to achieve them in a faster and more efficient way.
Transform Your Ideas into Content
After careful planning and coming up with a content creation strategy, you can then start creating your content. As with the previous steps, you have to refer back to your buyer personas and audience research. Determine what type of content will make them perform your desired action.
You can also refer to the results of your keyword and market research. If you’re specializing in blogs or long-form articles, you’d want to follow SEO best practices to optimize your website and your content for search engine rankings.
这creation process is also an ideal avenue for you to showcase your authority to your audience and establish yourself as a thought leader.
After creating your content and before you decide to publish your work, it’s important that you do some content editing. It’s a good idea to get another person to take a look at your work and get a clear and unbiased review. This way, you can deliver content that reads well, is free of errors, and makes sense.
If you find it difficult to come up with new content, you can rewrite an old article or breathe new life into your old content. Update your old work and relaunch it like you would a new piece, suggestsAndy Crestodina。He adds that for this to work, you shouldn’t change your old content’s URL, especially if other sites have already linked to it. Moreover, you can change its content type. Say you have an article that needs updating. Instead of rewriting it as an article, you can turn it into an infographic or a video.
发布您的作品
现在，您已经准备好发布您的作品了。检查您的编辑日历，以便您知道哪些内容将转到何时以及何时发布。尽可能地遵循您的日历，以保持一致性。如果您运行自己的网站，则发布内容就像单击一个或两个按钮一样容易。如果您想在其他地方发布工作，请查看您的编辑日历，以获取将内容推向其他网站的最佳时间。
出版工作后，这项工作仍然不会结束。您需要致力于向听众推广内容。为此，您需要根据您的买家角色制定促销计划。有几个渠道可以促进您的工作。这些包括：
- 社交媒体
- Email marketing
- Paid promotion orpay-per-click（PPC）
跟踪您的进度
这re’s still some work left to be done after publishing your content.
You still need to measure the results and find out if you’ve reached your goals or if you’ve hit your targets. You can measure your results through Google Analytics, social analytics tools, and Google Alerts. Knowing your progress and having figures to back you up can help you craft a more aptcontent marketing战略。它还可以帮助您为预定的受众提供更引人注目和引人入胜的内容。
Growing as a Content Creator
根据您品牌的范围，content creation can often begin as a one-person job。但是，随着您的业务扩大，满足受众需求并产生内容的需求也是如此。
If you’re looking to expand your content creation operations, there are several avenues you can look into. These are:
- Do your own in-house content creation
If you’ve already established your creative team, which can include writers and editors, graphic designers, and a marketing specialist, you’re free to go the route of in-house content creation. Depending on your budget and time considerations, this is usually the most cost- and time-effective option.
- Work with a content creation agency
If you want to go the hassle-free route, you can opt to work with a content creation agency. They can take care of your content creation needs from start to finish, requiring little involvement on your part. However, this can be a costly option.
- 雇用自由职业者
即使没有创意团队或内容创建代理商，您也可以继续生成优质的内容。您可以找到专门从事特定利基市场的自由职业者，与代理商相比，它们通常是更具成本效益的选择。
Final Thoughts
For some, content creation comes across as something easy. After all, you get to do what you love and have the means to share it with the world. But, in reality, content creation is often a challenging endeavor that requires a lot of careful thought, time, and effort. It’s easy to get lost with the myriad of steps and factors you need to consider before you can actually start creating your own content. But with this content creation guide, you can get a head start in generating valuable and engaging content that your audience will love and can help you grow your brand.
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