Where I live, people say “Good wood is better than good paint.” to indicate that quality beats appearance. It is not true under all circumstances, of course, but it actually applies to almost all. Do you know what I am implicating here? Well, in the WordPress world, it is extremely important to have an eye-catching website that could bedazzle visitors at their first visit, which is certainly an advantage. But look definitely cannot decide the second, the third, and the visits after those (if there is). Guess what can?
Bingo! Your WordPress content!
WordPress content is of the utmost importance nowadays as we talk about WordPress in particular, and blogging in general. It has even grown to be more significant after the expansion of content marketing! As e-commerce is reported to be growing by 23% year over year (statistics by bigcommerce.com), I think it is time for every WordPress website owner out there, doing business or not, to start improving the content of their websites to attract more viewers. Lacking a proper strategy for that? Then I will be more than glad to offer help!
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome you all to another WordPress Guide of mine: 9 Easy Yet Effective Ways to Better Your Content!
Here is what you will be instructed to do:
- Clarify Your Objectives
- Plan Your Content
- Do Research Before Writing
- Write For Easy Scanning
- Avoid Using Jargon
- Always Keep Track of Progress
- Pay Attention to Frequency
- Be More Specific by Using Numbers
- Go Straight to the Point
Done with the quick glance? Let’s go!
Clarify Your Objectives
You may not realize it yet, but to develop clear and solid objectives is essential for your WordPress website. Before deciding what to do with content, ask yourself some questions such as “Am I going to just inform my clients and readers? Or should I become a thought leadership?”; “What do I really want? Draw as much as traffic to my website? Or do I want it to become an influential WordPress website?”, etc. Having questions like those and answering them can help clear your mind as what you wish to achieve with your website, hence you will be able to map out a content plan that revolves around the desired goals.
However, some objectives you set might clash with each other. Therefore, they should be outlined and set in priority order from the beginning.
Before you get down to work, it could be useful to note that, sometimes, owners have low expectations of their website and so develop objectives that do not meet its capacity, which is such a waste. In other cases, they overvalue their ability and set unachievable goals, which should be avoided too. So, please be extremely sensible and reasonable when clarifying objectives!
Plan Your Content
Now as you have set out your objectives, it is time to sit yourself down and complete the content plan. What do we need in a content plan? Do as follows:
- Structure your content by identifying the target audience, what they expect from your website, what post type they want (for each type of website, customers may want to see content displayed differently, i.e. product showcase, storytelling, case studies, etc.)
- Plan the generation of content! If you own a small site that should be on display right after birth, you may want to add full content while building. Otherwise, a better approach would be building the website with all the pages, posts, widgets and some necessary content so it can go on display, then add more content later as the site grows. This way, you can communicate better with your audience.
- Plan content display, more specifically, where content will be shown on the website. For smooth conduct, it is essential to understand well about listings and widgets. Then, for each section of the site, decide what content to show and where to show it, including:
- – Headers and banners
- – Navigation
- – Widgets
This is basically it! If you take these effective ways and some time to plan around before building your content, the progress will be much more at ease and efficient!
Do Research Before Writing
Simple logic: To reach out and touch the heart of your audience, you need to know as much as possible about them.
Since there are so many websites out there doing the same job with yours, developing content is, undoubtedly, very competitive. That is why before you put pen to paper, it is advisable to do some research. Focus on the competition you are facing, your audience and what they like, and the keyword opportunities for your website to prevail. Without some research, you may waste a lot of time structuring your content and still fail to connect with your targeted clients.
Write For Easy Scanning
Fun fact: People will not read your article word-for-word, they scan it!
Thus, what you should do is to make your articles easy to read by dividing it into short paragraphs, short sentences and do not forget the clear headlines! If the content is suitable for tables, charts, and lists, do not miss the chance to use those. They present an excellent way to convey your ideas thoroughly in a way that is simple to understand, no matter how complicated they are.
Avoid Using Jargon
What is jargon? Simply put, they are special words or expressions usually used by a profession or group and are difficult for others to understand. See the italic part? That is exactly why we should avoid jargon. Although using jargon sometimes (i.e., in novels and poems) may show how knowledgeable you are, in most cases, it is quite annoying and pointless.
Look, we are talking about the real world, the highly competitive world of WordPress. Here is where, if you utter incomprehensible stuff, be sure you will see your customers run away into the arms of your clear-talking competitors.
Always Keep Track of Progress
It will all be worthless if you write content which no one bothers to read or that which does not lead to any targeted actions (i.e. clicks and sales). Thus, it is recommended that you keep pace with your website content’s progress, then use the collected results to improve future performance.
So, what exactly should you do?
Well, you should have a schedule for checking the best performing content of your website, for example, the content that draws the most traffic to your site or that being read the most. Then, evaluate it against other pieces to see what it has got to be more popular. From this point, you may start analyzing by asking questions. These questions could be:
- What is the engagement rates (i.e. page views, visits, bounce rates) of the top contents VS other pieces?
- Are the new contents performing well when it comes to traffic and other key metrics?
- What is the difference between the poorly performing contents and the top ones? Is it the writing style? The topic? The format?
After a thorough comparison, I believe you will see what need to be done to raise your content to the level of the top ones and beyond!
Pay Attention to Frequency
For an average reader, what they do expect from a professional website is a consistent and reliable posting schedule. Thus, to show how highly trustworthy your WordPress website is, you need to plan a schedule for posting every week. The tip here is not to overload your readers with too many posts a week, but not to get too loose either, or they will completely forget about you. From what I’ve learned, the recommended number of posts is different for each type and scale of business. Normally, 1 to 2 post a day would be the best.
Anyway, although the number of posts you write may vary depending on your resources, it is best to keep it as regular and frequent as possible!
Be More Specific by Using Numbers
In this modern age, sometimes numbers work more effectively than letters! Indeed, it gives out information in a faster and more precise way, so that readers will find it easier to understand what you want to express. In addition, numbers also stand out visually in a crowd of letters, making it more convenient for both writers and readers when it comes to representing and understanding facts.
Therefore, try to transfer some of your information into numbers by doing research beforehand. For example, instead of saying “Many websites are now powered by WordPress.”, you can go into details like “27.5% of all websites in the world are now powered by WordPress.” (from expandedramblings.com)
Go Straight to the Point
The last thing, stop beating around the bush!
I know many people love to write flowery paragraphs, but in reality, it is a no-no for Internet users, especially for the highly busy WordPress residents. In fact, according to some findings, readers only absorb about 18% information on a page, and this percentage declines as the number of words increases. Hence, when writing, remember to go straight to the point, give readers what they need to know and what you want them to know, quickly and directly.
In other words, make every word in your post worth their time!
In Conclusion
See? Bettering your content is not that difficult if you have in hand the right strategies, right? Hoping with what I have just presented above in the WordPress guide – 9 Easy Yet Effective Ways to Better Your Content!, together with your own wit, you will raise your content to the legendary level!