#3 Be Flexible
There are some digital marketers who break this third rule to their own demise. This rule frees you up from the air tight restrictions that caused you to develop content that is not in the best interest of your readers.
The parameters many marketers stick to include things like a set word count for their blog posts or a specific page count for an info product they are getting ready to publish.
While it’s true that many consumers will look at the length of a product, whether it’s text or video modules, and judge the value of it based on that, you never want to stretch something out or even restrict yourself if you have value and knowledge to share.
Inexperienced writers who are trying to get their online business off the ground will come up with a topic for their blog or eBook, write about it, and realize they don’t have enough to charge a certain amount.
It’s not unreasonable to want to have a set price point for your product so that you can earn a certain amount and also promise a minimum commission to your affiliates. However, instead of simply filling your blog or information product with fluff to stretch it out, you either have to go back to the drawing board and find more relevant information to include or accept what you have given to the audience initially.
The last thing you want is your readers or buyers to only be able to find a few pieces of good information in your content. You want every paragraph to be of value to your target audience.
Other strict parameters that you should ignore include keyword density. While the use of keywords is definitely beneficial, if you are striving for a certain percentage instead of naturally discussing the topic with your target audience, you might inadvertently over stuff your content with words and phrases that make it unreadable.
One thing you might want to do when it comes to these types of parameters is simply write the most valuable piece of content you can initially. Then, go back and polish it up with a variety of keywords that you feel will not hinder your content if you include it.
There are many successful content marketers who write short blog posts and shorter than average eBooks, who are known for the immense value they provide to their audience.
In fact, many people would be willing to pay more for a shorter, concise info product then one that was beefed up just to hit a certain word count. It is a waste of time for the consumer and an insult to their intelligence.
#4 Optimize Your Content for Humans and Bots
The fourth rule for creating great content might seem to go against the advice you just read above, however, the two work in conjunction. This rule reminds you that you should always be considering both human and search bots whenever you create your content.
While you never want to stretch out your content or step it with keywords, you do want to remember to optimize your work so that it has the best chance of success with your readers and search engines.
Always create content initially for your human readers. You want them to feel the emotion they should feel, take certain actions that you want them to take, and generally admire your expertise so that they will continue following you and allowing you to serve their needs.
However, you also want to make sure that the search bots that come to your site to crawl it for the purpose of indexing in the search engine gets the information they need in order to understand what your content is about.
Only then can they properly categorize it and give it as a result to their users who come to the search engine to search for information on your niche topic. That means you do need to use a variety of keywords in your content.
You also need to optimize your images so that when the search bot encounters one, they can see that the filename and alt tags are relevant keywords for your niche. You can also place keywords in the tags that you are using before you publish your blog post.
If you are using social media for your content, instead of or in addition to a blog, you also want to use these keywords as hashtags so that your human followers will be able to find your content on these platforms whenever they are looking for it.
When you are writing your content initially, you want to make sure that not only have you gathered plenty of research to deliver a thorough and comprehensive piece of content for your audience, but you also need to remember that Google and other search bots appreciate these pillar posts that serve the audience well.
We’ll talk about this more in depth in an upcoming rule, but by optimizing your content, you will be able to track the results and see how well your optimization efforts are working for you. Keep in mind that things change with both human and bots when it comes to preferences.
You need to stay on top of any changes Google makes or any other general SEO guidelines so that you know what is preferred or important for you to rank well. Additionally, humans evolve with their preference for content, too, which we’ll cover next.