One of the reasons many people claim that they have trouble creating content is that they don’t understand why they’re creating it. Every piece of content you create needs a reason for being, otherwise, you’re wasting your efforts. So let’s look at some common reasons you need to create content. To narrow down the purpose of any type of content you’re creating, you want to ask yourself a few questions.
Who are you creating the content for?
Use your audience persona, or a customer persona, to help you focus on the content you’re creating. The content you create for people on your email list, for example, will depend on how they signed up for the list, which freebie they downloaded, which product they purchased, and what your goals are for that list segment. The content you create for the audience you have that has never purchased or converted in any way will be different.
Where is the content going?
Where you’re publishing the content makes a big difference too. If you’re publishing it on your blog, it will be different to the content you send via email. A blog post can be very long while an email shouldn’t be. Also, the page you’re publishing the content on your site is important too. Is it a blog post, part of your ‘about me’ page or another page? What is the purpose of the page that it’s going on or the list that it’s going to?
What are you trying to communicate?
When you sit down to create the content, ask yourself what you’re trying to communicate and start brainstorming the answers. That way, you can keep looking at them as you’re creating the content. Try to keep it to one topic instead of spreading it too thin. You should have one overarching message you want the reader to take away from the content you’ve created.
How does the content fit with what you have?
Before creating any new content, you should always go through the content you already have to check what you’ve already published about that topic. You may be able to take bits and pieces of content that you’ve already created to make it into something new. If it’s totally new content with a completely new angle, how does it fit in with what you have and make it better?
What is the goal of the content?
Every bit of content you publish needs a point. Do you want to educate, inform, inspire or engage with your audience or a combination of these options? When you think about the goal of the content, you will have an easier time creating it so that it does exactly what you want it to do.
What do you want your readers to do?
Finally, you need to know exactly what you want your readers to do once they’ve consumed the content. You need to remember the call to action throughout the content, especially at the end by directing them in the action you want them to take. Don’t hint or just put a sign-up box at the end — instead, tell them what you want them to do.
Once these questions are answered, you’ll have a much better idea about the direction to go in with every piece of content you create. This is because it’s going to fit in with your overall goal as well as the goal you have for the individual piece of content.
Get the best results when you understand the purpose of your content
Use this approach with the next piece of content you create. Ask yourself the six questions above and use the answers to understand your content’s purpose. This will help you to shape the content and ensure that it gets the best results for both you and your readers.
Image credits
Main image: Mark Fletcher-Brown on Unsplash. Second image: Werner Moser from Pixabay. Third image: Jeff Stapleton on Pexels.
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