Content is everything … blah blah blah

Content Planning.

WordPress is a fabulously flexible platform on which to base your content strategy. But the content cannot be drivel or PR/marketing speak. Ever.

Quality is the watchword here, and that means no spam, link baiting or over-optimised pages designed for computers and not people.

The worst offenders are corporates and PR machines who, incorrectly, think people give a damn about their organisations. Are you really excited to read about the launch of latest Oki-Poki 3000 laser-guided sock-washer? No-one really cares about your company, certainly not enough to read dry PR releases. Harsh, but true.

Products might hold some interest, but folks are more interested in stories or learning. Show, share or teach something of interest and people will pay attention. Write dry marketing-pr speak and people will switch off.

Done well and it’s a great way to sell products – people come for the story and stay for the product or service. Done badly and it actually turns people off the company. Worse still is no content, if your business doesn’t have a view or opinion on anything then it’s never going to gel with clients. Ever.

Producing a stream of good quality content is simple if you’ve got a content-based framework such as WordPress. If you’re not lucky enough to have a modern CMS then consider adding a WordPress-like CMS onto the side of your site. Or better still, migrate your digital world over. It’s not as hard as you think and vastly cheaper and more powerful in the long run.

What you get is great SEO, lower PPC marketing costs, better brand reach and really good sales channel.

Finally, make the content personal – speak to the reader directly (yes, that’s you who’s reading this now). Get them engaged, pick a fight, enrich their lives, or simply educate them.

Happy writing.