How to Create Valuable Content

You’ve likely heard it from all corners of the internet: to make your brand stand out, you must create valuable content. But that edict often brings a wave of questions: What exactly does “valuable” mean in this context? What is this elusive value, how is it created, and can AI truly help in crafting unique content in this style? This guide will delve into these questions and provide a comprehensive approach to creating content that genuinely resonates.

The digital landscape is increasingly filled with “noise” — pointless content saturating social networks and websites.

While we have access to more information than ever, a significant portion of what’s shared is irrelevant, poorly developed, or lacks a clear focus. Many attempt to be everywhere, covering all social platforms and demographics, embodying the “jack of all trades, master of none” adage. This scattergun approach results in dispersed efforts, creating content that serves little purpose beyond filling a void. Many marketing campaigns unfortunately reflect wasted time and missed opportunities, often stemming from an unwillingness to invest the effort needed to create something genuinely meaningful that connects with an audience. Herein lies a significant opportunity: if you do it well, you can effectively sidestep the competition. After over 15 years of writing online, one conclusion is clear: if you’re going to create trash, it’s better not to write at all, as it merely adds to the noise. If you publish something, ensure it carries your soul or your brand’s essence and genuinely aims to help others. To gain people’s attention and trust, you must earn them, regardless of whether you intend to sell a product or service afterward.

What Exactly is Valuable Content?

At its core, “valuable content” is content that is useful to a specific group of people. It’s interesting, relevant, and provides a real benefit to them. This type of content, because of its inherent value, rarely goes unnoticed. With the right focus, it helps you build a strong reputation, prompting people to talk about you or your brand, thereby increasing your popularity and conversion rates. It’s an indirect method of convincing certain people to believe in you.

While some define valuable content as a tool to attract users, attraction is more a consequence of its success, not its primary reason for being. While almost all content might possess some minimal value, only pieces that go the “extra mile” to genuinely help users become favorites and remain in their memories. These interested individuals typically belong to a “target audience,” a specific group you understand how to assist and wish to reach. A bit of strategy is required; if you’re clear about who you’re addressing, you’ll know what information they’ll find useful or relevant. When your content helps someone, you build trust, making them more receptive to a product or service that is equally useful. Content marketing, in essence, leverages this utility to draw people to your brand and build your reputation.

Some might see this as a waste of time or fear sharing their “secrets.” However, the internet is already saturated with content where nearly everything is explained, yet courses and services related to that information still sell. It’s crucial to recognize, though, that much of this existing content is hastily done — poorly explained, inadequately researched, or haphazardly written. This not only fails to add value but can also damage the reputation of the brand it represents. Your audience deserves better and will appreciate the effort you put in.

Who Should Be Creating Valuable Content?

Almost any business can benefit from creating this type of content. From small local businesses to multinational B2B companies, valuable content has been shown to increase conversions. Conversely, focusing only on your brand, your unique selling proposition, and what interests you rather than your audience is a significant misstep — a common rookie mistake.

If you’re unsure whether your content is valuable, ask yourself if you would read it if you weren’t affiliated with the company. For a more objective take, ask someone you know (who fits the target profile) to read it and provide an honest opinion. With so much noise everywhere, people are becoming increasingly selective, choosing to consume only what is useful or entertaining. Most people are tired of being constantly bombarded with advertisements. Therefore, the most effective advertising today involves earning the trust of your target audience. When they eventually need your product or service, they will think of you. Give them time; you’ll have a better chance of being top-of-mind than your competitors, often without the escalating costs of traditional advertising.

A Note on Written Content: Do People Still Read?

A common objection, even from those interested in creating valuable written content, is the assertion that “people no longer read”. If this were entirely true, why do so many companies continue to invest in creating written content? Are they all on autopilot, enjoying wasting money? No, because valuable content works.

When someone with a genuine need lands on your blog, if your content is truly valuable, they will read it — devour it, even — because it offers a solution to their problem. They might start by scanning the article (which is why clear structure, headings, bold text, and perhaps an index are crucial, especially for longer pieces), but they will end up consuming it eagerly. There are many scenarios where written content is not only necessary but also more useful than lighter formats like video. There’s room for all types of content. And if people are indeed reading less than before, it becomes even more critical not to waste their time with fluff. The goal should be to create something practical and genuinely valuable.

How to Create Valuable Content: Preparing the Ground

To avoid wasting time, you first need to understand what is truly valuable to your audience. Here are foundational steps to ensure your content hits the mark:

1. Define Your Target Audience: Knowing who you’re addressing is paramount; otherwise, you’re shooting in the dark. For instance, helping “Mary,” an elderly lady who plays cards with friends, requires a different approach than assisting “Mike,” a young criminology graduate aspiring to become a police officer. You need to define a single persona to speak to directly, which helps your content stand out. Let’s say you run an online academy for competitive government exams. “Mike” is likely your target. While you could write for Mary, it’s a poor target due to indirect conversion and her unlikely Browse habits for such topics. Once you have a general idea, refine your focus:

• Collect data: Observe your existing customers or your competition’s audience to identify behavioral patterns and demographic data.
• Analyze: Find patterns among potential “Mikes” and define commonalities. Detail their habits, interests, problems, and needs (e.g., age, location, purchasing power, language, profession, education level, gender identity).
• How can I help?: Determine how your product/service can genuinely solve their problems — so much so that they’d be willing to pay for it. If not, you might need to re-evaluate your target audience or offering.
• Test: Validate your assumptions about your target audience through surveys or direct engagement to see if your understanding of their profile and needs is accurate. This process is iterative, but having a defined starting point is crucial.

2. Gather Questions and Ideas: Once you’ve focused on your target (“Mike”), consider what questions or doubts he typically has. What worries him? What does he search for on Google or ask ChatGPT? This insight helps you provide value precisely when he needs it most. The best way to know this is to hear it from potential customers themselves. Engage with communities where your “Mikes” congregate — forums, Discord/Telegram/Facebook groups, or X (formerly Twitter) threads. Real doubts and questions surface in these spaces, often with peer-generated solutions that can inform your content. Keep track of these discussions to understand their knowledge gaps and existing understanding. This forms a strong basis for brainstorming and saves research hours.

3. Do a Keyword Study: Different profiles use very specific keywords. This is tied to their niche and associated language. For example, “high school equivalencies” might mean little to a general audience, but for “Mike,” who needs to know if his vocational training certificate is valid for a police exam requiring a high school diploma or equivalent, this phrase is perfectly understood and likely a search term he’d use. Conducting a thorough keyword study (using tools like Semrush, as mentioned in the source document) helps you observe how competitors use keywords and identify valuable new ones. This allows you to identify the most popular searches within your niche and prioritize content topics accordingly. It’s a way to ensure your content directly addresses what people need. You might also discover frequent questions you hadn’t identified through community research, some of which may be surprisingly easy for you to answer. At this point, you’ll know the needs you can meet and can start planning a content calendar.

How to Create GOOD Content: The Art of Execution

Many criticize SEO for being “full of junk content”. However, the real issue often lies in a disconnect: many people either know how to rank content or how to write valuable content, but not how to do both effectively simultaneously. When you master both SEO and providing superior value, ranking at the top becomes much easier because you’re giving Google what it wants: an excellent user experience. This is the hallmark of a skilled SEO writer.

So, what defines high-quality content beyond relevance to your researched audience and their questions? Here are criteria to demand from your content, whether you write it or hire someone:

1. Authenticity: People are tired of slick talk and deified gurus; the era of feigned perfection is over. Be authentic in your articles, be honest about what you’re sharing, and don’t hide your “shadows”. Transparency is highly valued, helps you connect with readers, and allows you to convey your message with greater clarity, using real examples. Share internal company experiences or personal ones; let it show there’s a human behind the content. Whenever relevant, cite and link to reliable sources, demonstrating that your information is well-founded and not fabricated. This also bolsters E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).

2. Practicality: Your content must be practical and actionable. The reader should be able to apply your advice and achieve a result. Avoid generic advice and don’t omit crucial details that tie everything together. If you hold back the “missing piece” thinking they’ll have to come to you, they’ll likely find the complete information elsewhere, and your content won’t succeed. This is where the true value of a post shines. While countless social media reels might offer fleeting entertainment, truly impactful articles and books offer lasting change.

3. Consistency: Your company or personal brand’s principles should be reflected in your posts through your expression and shared content type. Stay focused. If your expertise is helping people pass national police exams, don’t dilute your message with general news, police history, or crime stories. Concentrate on your young target audience and solving their specific doubts. This builds truthfulness and consistency, positioning you as “the expert in X topic”. Scattering your content across various topics to see what sticks can make you seem unfocused and untrustworthy. Maintain this brand identity and problem-focused mindset in all client interactions. If you broaden your topical focus, ensure it’s a natural, justifiable progression and maintain overall consistency. Inconsistent messaging can undermine authority.

4. Give It the Right Format: Several principles are more important than common myths about article characteristics:

• Proper Length: Content should be as short or as long as necessary to fulfill its purpose, without filler or fluff. Don’t omit valuable information, as comprehensiveness can aid ranking.
• Logical Link building: Provide links that are naturally relevant, helping to expand upon or complement the current article’s content. Avoid awkwardly forcing links where they don’t belong.
• Short Paragraphs: Cater to shorter attention spans by breaking text into paragraphs of 3–5 lines to give the reader “breathing room”.
• Highlight What’s Important: If your article addresses a specific question or problem, dedicate your resources to exploring it thoroughly.
• Correct Language: Speak in your target audience’s language. Using their dialect or idioms can be very effective.
• Speak to them directly: Address your target reader personally, not as part of a crowd (e.g., “you” instead of formal terms or “we”/”you all” where inappropriate). Exceptions exist, such as using “we” to soften a potentially harsh point. Don’t preach from a stage; talk to them like a friend.
• Spelling or grammatical errors: Impeccable formal presentation is key to being taken seriously. While occasional stylistic liberties are fine if you’re skilled, ensure the content shows care and craftsmanship.

5. Recyclable: This is about maximizing your investment in valuable content. American content creators excel at recycling content, and it’s a practice worth imitating. A valuable blog post can be reinterpreted, shortened, or expanded to become social media posts, an infoproduct, or more. Distribute your work across different channels where your target audience might be. If “Mike” is often on Instagram, why not turn that useful blog content into one or several Reels? An ebook can be subdivided into articles or posts, which can then promote the ebook itself. It could also become an infographic for Pinterest or Instagram. This extends relevance and reach with minimal changes to the original.

6. Test and Correct: Your brand’s growth is an ongoing process. Don’t just create content and leave it; review and rewrite it as needed until it resonates with your ideal customer and achieves your goals. Experiment, don’t be afraid to try new things, and avoid getting stuck in one system — this accelerates learning about what works. Monitor Google Analytics: see where traffic originates, how people engage with your content, and if it leads them to your contact form or other desired actions. You’ll only know if you need to adjust your approach or calls to action by being attentive and checking results. Sometimes, content might perform better in a different format, like a YouTube video, a course, or a promotional email, rather than a blog post. Continuous testing will help you understand these nuances.

Can Valuable Content Be Created with ChatGPT?

Considering that good text needs authenticity, practicality, consistency, proper formatting, and reusability, can you create truly valuable content solely with ChatGPT? The answer is a nuanced “yes… but no”.

ChatGPT can generate technically correct texts that adhere to most spelling rules (though it can make mistakes) and can, to a degree, mimic a specific style. However, it’s crucial to remember that ChatGPT is a text generator trained on a database it doesn’t truly “know”. It generates text based on predicting the most likely response to your prompt, without understanding the content it produces. This makes it risky for writers, as it can provide false information that sounds very convincing. ChatGPT lacks the criteria to determine if its output will be valuable to your specific user or target audience. Its content often sounds similar to what already exists and won’t genuinely carry your brand’s essence, spirit, or unique experience. If you feed it a detailed prompt with your message, target audience, brand voice, questions to answer, and keywords, the result is often quite flat. Give those same instructions to a professional SEO writer, and you’ll receive something with soul — unique content that distinguishes you. As AI usage becomes widespread, texts generated by tools like ChatGPT will increasingly look alike. Don’t make the mistake of being just another one; aim to STAND OUT.

However, ChatGPT can be very useful for recycling content. You can ask it to read an article you wrote and convert it into a different format, like a YouTube video script or a series of social media posts. The result won’t be perfect, but it can be a significant time-saver.

The Takeaway

Creating truly valuable content is an investment of thought, effort, and a deep understanding of your audience.

It’s about moving beyond simply filling space and instead, crafting messages that are useful, authentic, and genuinely helpful. In a world saturated with noise, meaningful content doesn’t just get noticed — it builds trust, establishes authority, and ultimately, drives success.