First of all I want to thank Chris for allowing me to post on TripleSEO – it’s a real honour. I’ve been a long-time fan and read his posts as one would a bible.
With so much content around it’s more important than ever to make sure your content stands out.
Improving the credibility of your content can help it go further and make it more memorable.
Here are a few simple hacks that shouldn’t take too long to implement and give your next content piece that little extra ‘umph’.
Use Canva
Canva.com is a great site where you can (for free) upload your image and spruce it up using many pre-made styles.
With a little experimentation you can create a great blog post cover image or create fancy section separators.
This makes your post stand out immediately and shows the extra time that went into creating it. I borrowed this one from Brian Dean.
The Lazy Quotes Method
The lazy option here is to take someone’s quote form their own website and stick inside of your content with a link to the author, their name and the quote itself.
Like the first point, it shows care to add extra detail, a bonus here is that if the author of the quote is popular on social media – he/she may share your content if you ask nicely (or if they actively listen for their mentions).
Don’t overdo it though – too many quotes and you’re basically curating content and Google may not give you any brownie points if most of your content is borrowed.
The Slightly Less Lazy Quotes Method
A slightly less lazy way is to do a bit of research and ask 2-3 experts in the field for short quotes exclusively for the article. This increases the chances of getting their attention post-launch. More importantly it adds credibility to your new piece of content.
Research & Statistics
Many articles don’t include any credible sources of information, only someone’s thoughts or collated snippets of information.
When you include some real statistics and data, something magical happens in the brain of the reader – they trust the whole article a whole lot more.
Don’t Give the hard sell
For many of you this point may sound obvious, but trust me, there are still those out there that try to sneak their sales agenda into every piece of content their brand publishes.
If you use “salesy language” it instantly lowers your reputation and trust and the chances of social shares and links diminish with every mention of ‘buy my stuff’.
Keep the language informative and focus on value to the reader, not on the features of your offering.
Don’t go text heavy
Use a lot of:
– bullet point lists
– short snippets of text
– punchy, straight to the point sentences
See how quick this was to digest? Avoid the ‘walls of text’, when content is broken down into easy to read chunks there are higher chances of someone even attempting to read it all.
Tell a story
Some writers are great at this and relate their content to their personal life, John Doherty is quite good at this, I find it really hard.
Whether it’s an infographic or an article, a natural flow and a storyline make consuming it better and increase chances of it spreading via social shares. I think it’s because English isn’t my first language.
I’ve actually learned everything I know about SEO myself from the Internet, only then having a chance to work in an agency environment after a few years of grinding on my own.
I hope you find these tips helpful and employ some in the future content you or your agency outputs.
If you have any additional ideas in how to make the content more credible, please tweet at me or leave a comment.