You’ve heard it before, especially if you’ve read one of these blogs here at Be Uniic. Content is crucial in the marketing landscape now, especially for startups. Not only does it help you with building up SEO reputation and driving organic traffic to your site, but it can also be used as a lever to showcase your expertise. Expertise, that’s the focus. Most companies or marketing organizations will falter with content marketing and make it so that the only reason it’s being done is for organic ranking purposes. However, what if there was a method to the madness besides that? What if content marketing was backed by the hope to develop long-term value for a company? Well, that would mean companies have to shift their content from good to great. Great content continues to pay its dividends over time through quality, distribution, and consistency.
Good v Great Content
Conceptualizing good content is really easy. Here’s a quick cheat sheet:
- Is it written correctly (please avoid AI generated)?
- Does it meet SEO criteria?
If you’ve answered “yes” to both of these, then chances are you’ve written what many would consider as “good” content.
Great content on the other hand is a piece of content which transcends the expectations your readers may have. It also is a piece that delivers ongoing value for those visiting your site (now and future visits). When companies begin to develop this “great” content, they’ll see a dynamic shift. Not only is the content heavy on SEO technicalities, but they’ll also listen to their audience – the prospective audience more than any other – and answer their questions. Your customers will always have questions, great content will always be the answer to those questions.
What Makes Great Content
Quality: Quality is the foundation of which great content is built on. This could mean your content is original, has relevance, has some sort of depth, and provides engagement across the board. Quality is something that’s often overlooked when companies look to keep content valuable and relevant over time.
Distribution: We’ve said it, SEO is a huge part of the distribution aspect. SEO for startups allows a startup to reach a broader audience in order to eventually develop their ideal customer. Outside of the basic SEO, content can also be repurposed into social media posts as well as build partnerships (think guest posting and what not). Scaling, or distributing your content further, enables you to make sure content is reaching its intended audience.
Consistency: Don’t be all over the place; as easy as that. Consistency reinforces your brand messaging and authority. The issue many face is that they have a bad blend or mix of quality and quantity when it comes to pushing consistency.
Guidelines for Your Content
The best advice Be Uniic can give is when you’re building and scaling content, focus on things outside of just SEO. Thing about things such as:
- Is your content providing educational value for your users?
- Is your content establishing your brand presence for the niche you’re targeting?
- Is your content easy to read and easy to navigate?
- Have you hit the mark in terms of answering the question or issue raised during the content conversation?
- Why is the content being written?
Now obviously, there are other things to keep in mind, however, these are some of the guidelines we follow.
When you make the shift to great content, sometimes you need to audit your existing content as well. We recommend just going through the content with your build out quality checklist and making sure all past content fits in. Another key point is we recommend eliminating AI out of your content writing process. We’ve seen a ton of companies with AI generated content and there are some negative consequences…
Takeaways:
When it comes to content, we know it’s important. Your company, regardless of if it is established or a startup, can benefit from making the shift from “good” content to “great” content. Not only does great content fit into the SEO best practices, but it also establishes credibility, offers resources for your ideal customers, and builds out the path of users trusting you when it comes to their new and evolving pain points. Are you looking to scale your startup in 2024? Feel free to reach out to Be Uniic today!
