A Step-By-Step Guide for Creating Compelling Content

Written by Joshua Smith - Published 20 December, 2024

The competition for attention on the internet is fierce, and website publishers who rely on search engine traffic must master the art of creating compelling content. By focusing on trending or popular topics and following a strategic process, you can capture new visitors and keep them coming back.

To make things a tad easier for you, following is a detailed, step-by-step guide to help you craft high-quality content that ranks well and resonates with your audience. This has been broken down into 10 key steps, each of which also contains a handful of sub-points. This structure is deliberate, in that it can potentially serve as a practical checklist for you, to ensure nothing important is overlooked. We hope you find this helpful.

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Step 1 - Identify Trending Topics

• Use Tools to Discover Trends: Platforms like Google Trends, BuzzSumo, and each social network's "trending topics" or "popular hashtags" lists are excellent for identifying what’s currently popular. Of course, you don't want to jump on every trend, so narrow down to those relevant to your desired audience niche.
• Follow Industry News: Stay updated with news sources, blogs, and forums related to your niche.
• Engage with Your Audience: Pay attention to questions and discussions in your audience’s communities (e.g., Reddit, Quora, or niche-specific Facebook groups). If you have a forum or comments sections on your website, ensure that you engage - just as you would on social media. When you're lucky enough to receive a user-generated post that isn't spam, thank them for their feedback and start the process of building a positive connection.

Step 2 - Research Your Keywords

• Keyword Tools Are Essential: Use SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Ubersuggest to find keywords with high search volume and low to medium competition. Personally, we here at NET-ADS use Ahrefs extensively and find it hugely useful.
• Focus on Long-Tail Keywords: These are more specific phrases that cater to niche audiences, making it easier to rank. These days, unless you're a big brand with a well-established web presence, it's hard to rank for highly-competitive, generic terms. Localized keyword combinations (those that include the name of your target city or suburb) are an example of long-tail targeting, but specialized phrase can also deliver powerful results if they're likely enough to be searched, but unlikely to be the focus of bigger websites.
• Analyze Competitors: Review the keywords that top-ranking pages are targeting. You can use this to try to compete directly with leaders in the field or, as suggested in the previous point, use this to seek out keywords that aren't as popular, in an effort to cut through.

Step 3 - Craft a Clear and Engaging Title

• Use Power Words: Words like “Ultimate,” “Essential,” “Proven,” or “Step-by-Step” can make your title more enticing. Think about whether your readers are looking for highly detailed, long-form content that they can't find elsewhere, or if they're likely to be in a time-sensitive skimming mood, and make clear in the title what you are delivering, ie "Three-Minute Snapshot" or "Definitive Guide."
• Incorporate Keywords: Ensure your primary keyword or phrase is incorporated naturally within the title of the article.
• Be Specific: Titles like “10 Ways to Save Money on Groceries This Week” are more engaging than vague ones like “Money-Saving Tips.”

Step 4 - Outline Your Content

• Organize Ideas Logically: Break your content into sections with clear headings and subheadings. The article that you're reading at the moment has done this, as well as incorporating bullet points extensively. Bullet points can be useful for guides like ours, as they are designed to be read like checklists, but for most content, you'll want to use these sparingly. THe use of text emphasis (strong and em tags in HTML speak) can be useful in identifying for both serch engines and readers what phrases are of greatest relevance.
• Include Visual Elements: Plan where images, infographics, or videos will enhance understanding. If you have the time and capability, creating these as unique elements can help to further your brand authority and build your reach into YouTube and social media. If you don't have time to create your own supporting elements, an abundance of supporting images are available to support most topics with Creative Commons licenses that allow you to use them for free (often with attribution). Videos, of course, may be found on YouTube, social media and documentary streaming sites - many of which make it easy for you to embed videos into your content.
• Think About Readability: Use bullet points (sparingly), numbered lists, sub-headings, and short paragraphs to make the content easy to skim. Use fonts of an appropriate size and ensure that both the color contrast and font style make text easy to read.

Step 5 - Write for Your Target Audience

• Define Your Persona: Know your audience’s demographics, pain points, and preferences. Once you've done that, think of how you can address these and create a brand voice and purpose to meet that need.
• Use an Appropriate Tone: Match your tone to your audience’s expectations, whether it’s professional, casual, or humorous. Only use slang terms or generation-specific slang terms, if you can deliver that with some level of authenticity.
• Provide Real Value: Avoid fluff; focus on actionable advice, detailed explanations, or unique insights. Almost all questions have been answered in some way by other websites. Think of how to deliver a richer experience to your visitors, so that they respect the effort you've invested and feel that their own time has been valued.

Step 6 - Optimize for SEO

• Place Keywords Strategically: Include keywords in the title, headers, meta description, and throughout the content naturally. Remember that you are writing for humans, not for search engine bots, so while it's important to keep the search engines happy, keyword placement should not feel forced or spammy.
• Use Internal and External Links: Link to relevant pages on your site and credible external sources.
• Add Alt Text for Images: Include descriptive keywords in image alt text. This is valuable for attracting people through image searches, as well as for making your content more accessible.
• Ensure Mobile-Friendliness: Make sure your content is easily readable on all devices. Many people now argue that online content should be designed with a mobile-first focus in mind, since that's how a bulk of content is consumed. If your audience is primarily office-bound, though, it might be more important to craft your lauout to appeal to those on larger laptop and desktop displays, but still with mobile-responsiveness in place.

Step 7 - Incorporate Visual and Interactive Elements

• Use Eye-Catching Images: Original or high-quality stock images can make your post more appealing. These days, this can also include the use of AI image generation tools like Midjourney and DALL-E, which with the right prompt can produce stunning work to aid engagement with your content.
• Include Infographics: Summarize complex data visually. Depending on the depth of the topic, this can include having some key data in tables, graphs, flowcharts, or eye-catching illustrated formats that helps to draw emphasis and interest to key data points.
• Embed Interactive Content: Tools like quizzes, polls, mini-games, image carousels, comment sections, or calculators can engage visitors longer.

Step 8 - Edit and Proofread Thoroughly

• Check for Errors: Use tools like Grammarly or Hemingway to identify grammar and readability issues. As with image generation, AI tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude AI and Google Gemini can assist in checking an enhancing your content. Just be sure not to lean on these tools too heavily, or you may strip your work of its authenticity and accidentally produce something that is overly generic, which would defeat the purpose.
• Optimize Sentence Flow: Ensure the content reads smoothly and logically. Use sentences of differing lengths, and favor shorter sentences where possible.
• Get a Second Opinion: Have a colleague or friend review the content and let you know if it comes across as interesting.

Step 9 - Promote Your Content

• Leverage Social Media: Share your content on platforms where your audience is active. If you're creating a particularly in-depth feature, you may be able to create multiple social media assets about different aspects of the content.
• Send Email Newsletters: Notify your subscribers about new posts via email. Although it's an old form of digital media and often overlooked, this remains a hugely powerful engagement tool for building long-term relationships with readers and customers.
• Collaborate with Influencers: Partner with industry influencers to amplify your reach. THis doesn't necessarily mean calling a Kardashian. It could involve sharing your post with friendly publications within your industry, embedding links to a quote from an influencer in the field and letting them know about it, in the hope that they'll share it with their social media followers, etc.

Step 10 - Monitor Performance and Iterate

• Track Metrics: Use tools like Google Analytics to measure page views, bounce rate, and time on page. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools can provide additional insights into the popularity of your content on their platforms over time.
• Refine Your Strategy: Analyze what’s working and adjust your approach for future content.
• Update Old Content: Keep older posts relevant by refreshing information and optimizing for new keywords. An aged domain with long-established content is a huge asset, but even then, Google and other search engines don't like to see content go stale, so a quick refresh every once in a while does help.

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What Are You Waiting For? It's Time to Get Creating

Creating compelling content on trending topics is both an art and a science. By following the steps above, you can produce content that attracts search engine traffic, engages readers, and converts visitors into loyal followers. Remember, success doesn’t happen overnight but stay consistent, and your efforts will pay off!