Your content is often one of the first lines of communication you’ll have with an audience, so you’ll need it to be as effective as possible. To help you out, here are a few questions to ask yourself before going live.
1. Is It Informative?
Users want answers. They want information. Give it to them.
Your content should tell your target audience everything they need to know— the who, what, when, where, why, and how. Before you publish, read it back to yourself, and make sure you’ve answered these questions. A little ambiguity is fine, but a blatant lack of information is just frustrating.
Don’t let your content be a wasted read.
2. Is It Simple?
Don’t be fancy. Keep it simple. Simplicity aids communication and makes information easier to digest. Plus, it keeps you on level with your audience.
If something is small, say it is small. If it’s large, say it’s large. Don’t try and show off your complex vocabulary. Save that for your novel. Your message should be strong enough to stand on its own without having to dress it up with big words.
Cut the hifalutin verbiage and shoot it straight.
3. Is It Concise?
This goes hand in hand with keeping it simple. When you’re crafting content, hurry up and get to the point.
Marketing mastermind Gary Vaynerchuck once said, “Our society is experiencing ADD at scale, which means time and attention are commodities. They are by far the most valuable resources in the game.”
That is some serious truth.
When visitors hit your site, you’ve only got a small window of opportunity to hook them in (less than 6 seconds). You don’t have time to waste. Before you publish, read through your content. If there’s anything that doesn’t add value or delays the point, cut it.
4. Is It Consumable?
Honestly, everything on this list works towards making your content consumable, meaning it’s right and ready to ingest and retain.
However, truly effective, consumable content is always in the right place at the right time and crafted specifically for the culture of your audience.
Example: If you’ve got a heavy mobile audience, then your content needs to be short, sweet, and easy to read and access on a smartphone. If you’re targeting a demographic that responds well to visuals, then you better produce some pie charts and infographs.
Your content isn’t just a solid block of information. It’s a conversation. It’s malleable. Form it to your audience so they can consume it.
5. Is It Motivating?
Let’s be honest for a minute. Shake It Off makes you want to dance. You just can’t help yourself. Go ahead, try not to dance. We’ll wait:
You danced didn’t you?
Your content should have a similar effect. It needs to be so enticing and compelling that it motivates people to act. To do this, you need to know your audience, know what drives them, and know what they want. If your content doesn’t reflect that, take a step back and rework it before you go live.
And don’t forget the call to action. You can jabber all day, but if you don’t call people to act, it’s pointless.
Here’s an example: This is the end of the blog. We want to hear from you. Leave us a comment or tweet us at @widenet, and tell us what you find most useful about our blogs. Or, ask us something you want to know.
