Gone are the days when you could download a free keyword tool, pay a ghostwriter $4 per article for something barely readable, and stuff your keywords in it to make money. Search engines are finding ways to weed out the system gamers.
Your content is becoming more shareable than ever. Social media isn’t just music videos and cute animated gifs. Now it’s something where word of mouth and opinions are able to rank your words and messages for a findability factor.
As you create your blog posts for 2012, you’ll need to think less about keywords and more about getting your readers engaged. The more they like and share your content, the quicker it will rise in the SERP ranks.
How can you create engaging content?
First, you have to start to really understand your target audience. If what you’re doing is choosing a niche based on keyword search volume and sales potential alone, then it will be hard for you to express enthusiasm to and generate trust with your readers.
They want someone to lead them who is not only an expert in conducting keyword research, but who actually understands the problem they’re going through and knows how to motivate them and walk them through a viable solution.
It doesn’t matter if that problem is making money online or clearing acne up off of your forehead. The goal is the same. Create empathy by sharing your own story – even if that story is just that you recognize that people are suffering and want to help.
You don’t always have to have gone through an exact situation to want to help and become an expert in the topic. A doctor who treats cancer doesn’t do it because he or she had it – they do it because they want to help others battle this disease.
You need to learn how to convey your passion for a topic. This means that your content has to have personality. If you’re worrying about putting yourself out there in the public eye, then you have the option to do this under a pen name – but the passion has to shine through regardless of the moniker it’s under.
Your squeeze pages need to address their emotions, not just the drab facts involved. Your email autoresponders should be less about hard sales tactics and more about building trust by providing valuable information and creating a connection.
The blog posts you publish better be engaging on a level that has people responding in the comments section. Whether they disagree or agree, you need to get a response out of them.
Any eBook or short report you sell or give away should be thorough, and while it needs to present a soup to nuts solution, it should also be a good read – something that’s not boring. Something where they feel like you’re a friend who can help.
Marketing has been void of engaging content for the most part for far too long. It’s a positive step forward that search engines will now be rewarding those sites that have messages meant to change lives and get people talking.
