5 Factors to Make Your Content Stand Out from the Crowd!

Have you heard this phrase lately: “Content is King!”? This means your content must be unique, relevant and promoted properly, thereby increasing your readership and converting sales. But sometimes that’s easier said than done. How do you achieve that designation that makes your content popular with the right people? How do you make it go viral?

How to Make Your Content Stand Out?

It’s not an easy task; one that many marketing experts continuously pursue. Sometimes it’s sheer luck, but don’t count on that. And it’s not quantitative either—you can’t achieve it with some complex mathematical formula. So how DO you produce the content that will make you soar to the top of the internet charts? Here are five factors that may make you more successful in that endeavor.

1. Make it your own.

This is your “mission statement”, what brands your business compared to other similar companies. You need to make it unique—different than others. For example, you may produce the same widget from the same materials that 50 other companies in your area also manufacture. Do you make them faster? Have better quality control? Better customer service?

You need to find ways that define you as a company that is better than the others in some factors; however, don’t use  trite, non-differentiating factors such as ‘friendly,’ ‘honest,’ ‘reliable,’ and so on as brand values. They must be more concrete and substantive descriptors to get you noticed.

2. Make it real.

Abstract attributes don’t help much in the way of describing your uniqueness. Just saying your customer service is outstanding doesn’t provide much information. You need to define HOW and WHY you are better. For example, do you have a “chat” feature on your website? Do you have 24/7 availability? Do you have multiple ways of contacting you?

3. Create your style guide.

Write down your content marketing strategy—what you’ve developed in items 1 and 2 above, then expanding from there. This is especially important for young start-ups that evolve from one or two people with their particular ideals into a larger company with its own marketing team. Style is very different from individuals (founders) who are tied closely to their company, compared to a group of individuals hired to market that company’s product.

Your style guide needs to include what pronouns you use. Never combine different pronouns; stick with one throughout. For example, first-person, “we”, “I”, “us” should never be mixed with “they” and “them”. The same goes for your audience. Either use “you” or “the customer”; never both.

4. Define your tone of voice.

Decide on how you want your brand to come across. Do you want to be quirky or more serious? Of course, some of that depends on the product you are offering. You surely wouldn’t want to crack wise if you’re offering something like funeral services, but if you’re trying to attract customers to buy something like party games, you might want to use a lighter tone.

Your tone also reflects your personality, as well as your product. It should be as unique as you are.

5. Focus on your audience.

What are their needs and pain points? How do they like to receive their content (video, podcast, written, summarized, comprehensive, etc)?

Content should add value to the conversation and the community.  What pains can we address?  How can we engage the community by providing content that is remarkable and sharable? Remarkable and sharable content drives traffic and links to your website.

Developing a content marketing strategy is foundational for SEO today. You content should focus on the problems you solve for your audience, educate and inform, and entertain (as appropriate).

Contact us today!

At St. Louis SEO for Growth, we build content-driven websites that get you leads and will help you get found in search engines. We have the expertise to build your online marketing strategy so that you can concentrate on attracting and keeping customers.