When you look at the type of content that you can have on your website it can be broken down into promotional, product/service related and educational. A lot of websites, especially in their early stages, will be focused on the first two. However the educational piece shouldn’t be undervalued – regardless of what industry they’re in people like to make educated decisions on purchases and they’ll pass on their details to you and be more inclined to convert if they think you can give them that knowledge.
What kind of content makes good educational content?
- Blogs are an obvious choice, they don’t have to be really long – as long as they are informative and to the point, with a clear message 200-400 words is perfectly adequate. Use these in email newsletters to encourage traffic & web leads, can also be used in your social accounts to promote newsletter sign up.
- Guides go that one step better, they take longer to write but if you break down into sections and tackle one at a time they can be a great source of content and have a high perceived value. Pop these behind a download form to collect web leads.
- Reports are like the halfway house and are usually based around data or research. This could be in the form of an online survey you’ve sent out or even a quick poll you’ve done on your website or social media site. Again pop behind a download form and then spread the word through your other online channels.
- Industry news is always a popular choice, people like to stay up-to date with the latest news from their industry, plus it shows that you’re in the know aswell. Great for SEO traffic but also for newsletters and social content.
How do I get this content?
For blogs you can write them yourself or find others who can do them for you. These people could be in your business but perhaps a different department or you could even outsource to a freelancer. For both of these be careful that they are good writers, you’ve seen examples of their work and they have a genuine interest in the topics you’d like them to write about.
Guides require experts, if you can find one within your business then show them the value of creating the basics of a guide that you can then edit and build on. People like to have their name to guides, it gives kudos and shows their knowledge.
Reports require a bit of analysis so make sure whoever writes them are capable of looking at data/results and turning them into something that shows trends and insights. Add in external statistics (referenced of course) to give it extra backing.
Industry news can be sourced from numerous online sources, as long as you reference where you got the information from. Sign up to industry newsletters and start collating items you feel are interesting and relevant.
As with all content you should be planning out an editorial calendar which will help you allocate resource and keep focussed – I’ve done another blog that tackles this subject. If you’re doing one of these a month then you’ll have better content for your marketing campaigns and a new way of collecting web leads on your site.
