Welcome back to part 3 out of 3 of the Lockdown Website Revamp Series. Today we’re talking about building an audience through creating timely, original content that your audience will find useful and valuable at any time, not just during the lockdown.
Creating helpful content for your audience takes time but it’s one of the more important things you can do for your business or nonprofit organization.
How to compete with the noise
There’s an absurd amount of content that exists on the internet. You may be wondering what exactly you could contribute that people can’t already find. You also may be wondering why people would even care.
Trust me, there is plenty for you to talk about. Just because there is a lot of content out there doesn’t mean that people have answered the specific questions you are uniquely situated to answer.
You can answer questions that you have had to answer in your personal journey in life and business, and I’ll share with you a few ideas for coming up with new content in the next section.
Once you start coming out with content and once you start helping people out, you will start building an audience of people that:
- Like you
- Trust you
- Have been tangibly helped by you
And this is a great time to do it. Not only because of all the uncertainty being created around the lockdown. But because there are so many more people online and on social media these days, which means they have more time to read your content.
Publish a blog
The best way to start doing this, in my opinion, is to build a blog. Creating a blog is a great central place to start storing that information.
You can then move on to posting links on your social media or create pieces of micro-content from the information on your blog to start posting. Social media and email promo will probably drive most of the initial traffic to that content, but then it disappears. Your blog is the hub for all your content because it remains under your complete control for the long haul.
What type of content should I post?
The first method for coming up with content is to simply answer the questions that people are always asking you.
There’s obviously a reason you’re getting asked these questions. And if a lot of people are asking these questions, a lot of people will get value from your answers. So start there.
Secondly, with everything going on right now, what is your audience worried about? What do they need? Where are they confused? What are some questions you can help answer? How can you provide the most value?
Between those two ideas, you could easily come up with 15-20 blog posts that should be really interesting and helpful to your audience.
Stay connected to your audience
Then you can consider making a bigger piece of content or a helpful resource that requires an email to download so you can start growing your email list. This will allow you to build your list of contacts that you can potentially follow up with or send an email newsletter to every so often.
And on that note, don’t forget to link your social media. Your website/blog and your social media should work in tandem, not exist in two unrelated universes.
If you’re already pretty active on social media, you can start posting more helpful content on there. Posting content that is unique and different is always a great way to grow on social media, which can then trickle down to more followers of your blog, more subscribers on your email list, and more people that support you with their hard-earned dollars.
The purpose of creating content is to be helpful!
Remember, the number one reason you are posting content is to help people. You’re not doing this just to sell people on something, you have to trust that the content you post will result in goodwill that leads to more customers, but you shouldn’t be focused on just selling.
You don’t want to come off the wrong way, and being focused on serving your audience will ensure that you don’t. So do your best to help people.
And that just about wraps it up guys. I hope you enjoyed this series. If you missed the first two posts, check them out here:
- Lockdown Website Revamp Part 1: Perfecting Your Online Presence
- Lockdown Website Revamp Part 2: Selling Online Now and In The Future
Know any business owners who need help moving activities online? Consider sharing this guide with them.
Stay safe, stay sane, and I’ll see you on the next one!
