Intelligent content is the way of the content future, and you need to make sure you are on board with this great method. I am going to take a look at just what intelligent content is, why you need it, and also focus on some great steps to help you achieve the best content this year.
What Does Intelligent Content Mean?
Referring to intelligent content not only refers to how the specific piece of content is written, but also what goes into your content strategy. Intelligent content helps you know whom you are reaching, and it can make the difference when someone clicks on your link on social media, another blog, or from the SERP. A leader in the niche, Ann Rockley, says that intelligent content has a rich structure, and it also keeps everything such as semantics organized. I am going to focus on why you need to have intelligent content for your page, and just how you can get it, easily.
Why Do You Need to Have Intelligent Content?
One of the most important reasons why you need to have intelligent content is because it can be what helps make or break your company's success. Smart content takes user experience into consideration, which is something you need to focus on when you make your website and any content. A major part of user experience and content is the same, or similar voice, as well as proper research. If you have different content throughout the web that doesn't have the same voice and that doesn't match up when it comes to facts, people aren't going to know if they can trust you. Inconsistency will breed discontent, and you will soon lose your clients and any visitors. Start focusing on creating intelligent content to make sure you have consistency; your clients will greatly appreciate it and you will be immensely happy with the results it produces.
Another reason why intelligent content is important is it is because your clients are able to find what they need quickly, without a lot of hassle. This goes hand-in-hand with user experience. If your clients are able to find what they want and need, quickly and easily, they are more likely to stick around and use your business continually. It will also help you convert visitors into leads, bringing in more customers.
10 Steps to Follow for Incredible and Intelligent Content
Now that you know what intelligent content is and why you need it, I am going to take a look at just how you can achieve it. Intelligent content isn't very hard to get, and by following a few steps, many of which you should already be doing, you will be able to see some great success. Let's take a look!
- Make Sure Your Content is Well Researched. One of the best ways to make sure your content is written intelligently is to make sure it is well researched. You might know a lot about a certain topic, but it is always wise to do your research and have resources to back you up. Google is not only helpful for people to find your site, but it is also helpful for you to find great research and resources. Look for sites that have high domain authority (you can use Moz's MozBar to find great sources) and take time to learn. This is definitely important if you are writing about a topic that you do not know too much about. You don't want to come across as someone who isn't knowledgeable, so you need to make sure you do tons of research.
- Always Have Well Written Content. Another way to get intelligent content is to make sure it is written well. You do not want to have content that is filled with grammatical or spelling errors, or content that sounds stiff and dry. Well-written content is vital to keep readers and convert them into leads, and it is also important when it comes to ranking. Well-written content means that you should be focusing on high-quality content, and we all know how important high-quality content is to the SERPs. A great way to write amazing content is to focus on something you are passionate about; your passion will come across in the writing, which makes it engaging and great.
- Make Your Content Industry Specific. Writing about trends is great when you want to stay relevant, but you need to make sure you always write things that are industry specific. You can gain inspiration from the latest movie releases or books, but if it doesn't relate to your industry, it isn't going to flow very well with the rest of your content. Make sure that you are always writing about things related to your industry to help set you up as an industry leader and to keep from confusing your clients and visitors. I regularly take inspiration from various trends, but I always make sure that when I write about them, I utilize them to show things pertaining to copywriting, social media or content marketing. Trust me, it is possible!
- Use Your Meta Tags to Help Customers Find What They Want. Like I said earlier, intelligent content doesn't just come down to how well you write a specific piece, but the structure of your content, as well. When you create your content, you need to make sure you are utilizing your meta tags to help bring in people who are specifically looking for a company like yours. It doesn't work if someone is looking for the top dog food and they accidentally come to your site that is all about construction. That is a bit of an extreme example, but I think you understand where I am coming from. Use your meta tags and industry related keywords to help bring in customers that will want and need to use your company.
- Repurpose and Reuse Your Content Throughout the Year. A great way to continually create great, intelligent content for your readers is to repurpose it or create reusable content. You can repurpose content with blogs you've created by putting them into infographics, videos, podcasts, and more. This gives you the chance to get more mileage out of one piece, and reach a wider audience base.Another form of reusable content is something that is usually done in technical documentation such as warning labels for products or basic information. The majority of writing, whether technical or marketing, always provides you with content that can be reused or repurposed. Just remember, when you are reusing content online, you need to make sure it isn't an exact copy because that will trigger Google, which will slap a penalty on your site.
- Intelligent Content Should be Adaptable. This is a great example of why you need evergreen content and strategies in your marketing plan. We all know that writing about trendy topics is a great way to bring in clients, but you need content that is adaptable throughout the year to a wide variety of people. When you produce evergreen content, you are achieving this easily. Let's say you write something and publish it on March 25, 2015 - if it is on a trendy topic, it is going to be irrelevant on March 25, 2016. However, if you write it on an evergreen topic, it will still be important and relevant a year from then.Basically, if you've written on "The Dress," it will be obsolete soon. If you write about the top ways to bathe a cat without a lot of hassle, you've created something that can span the years and reach out to a wider audience. You might notice that evergreen content also has a knack for being relatable to more people than something such as "The Dress" or writing about the latest movie release.
- Hire an Industry Copywriter. An incredible way to make sure you are getting intelligent content is to hire an industry copywriter. The reason this is a great idea is because you will be able to have someone who always writes well, as well as someone who knows the topic and does excellent research. Hiring an industry copywriter also ensures that you get someone who knows about your specific industry and can write pieces that are well-informed, and intelligent. If you hire a generic writer to write something on legal documentation, you run the risk of it coming across as not researched or as if you do not know what you're talking about. This can cause a lot of strife for your company because you want to stand out as a leader, not as someone who seems to be questioning everything.
- Have a Content Strategy in Place for Your Content Creation. If you don't take much time to research content and what it takes, you might think you can easily produce content and be done with it. However, this will lead to content that is uninformed, unintelligent, and content that will drive customers away. You need to create a content strategy to make sure you have amazing, smart content that helps converts visits into leads organically, and brings in awesome success. A content strategy takes your web page, social media, and other forms of outreach into consideration, helping you develop a plan to reach out to your audience effectively and drive the best engagement from them. When you do this, you'll find that you have a lot more success and some very happy clients.
- Take Time to Analyze Your Content. Analyzing content takes more than just looking at how many comments you've received or if you are getting any engagement on social media. You need to delve deep into your analytics through things such as Google Analytics to see how well your content is doing, as well as seeing if there are any changes you need to make. You can do the basic research that is available to you, or you can hire a content team that can look at it and make sure everything is in working order by doing a content audit. This will help you see what you need to do with your content and help you make any necessary changes.Hiring a team that specializes in this will be great because you will be able to get a full content audit with detailed information. You will also know that the team running the reports are experts in the field of content analysis. Once you analyze, you will be able to improve your site, and get the most out of it with the results you want to see.
- Try Out Some Experiments and Track Their Success. Something that will really help your content become intelligent is by simply taking time to try out something new. Experiments are scary because you aren't ever sure if they will really work or be a miserable failure, but you will find that this is a great way to improve your content. As soon as you implement your experiments, track them and see just how successful they are. If you start to notice that the experiment is failing, then it is time to make a change and try something new. By testing the waters to see the different results you get, you will be able to create intelligent content that is exactly what your clients want and need to see.
Content Intelligence Can Help Further Your Reach!
By following the above steps, you will not only be able to create intelligent content, but you will also be able to create something great for your clients. In fact, focusing on intelligent content and writing for your readers is an amazing way to rank high on the SERP. Start implementing a few of these steps and try out a few new things to see just how well it impacts your company. Which steps do you plan on implementing first? Let me know in the comments!
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