Your Business and Digital Content: The “Write” Stuff Matters
Have you ever read an article and balked at the poor grammar it included? You may have paused and wondered if this company was one you could take seriously.
Maybe your situation was a little different —maybe the blog post you read from your favorite company was written coherently and even with perfect grammar, but it still just didn’t sit well with you. It might have had a voice that didn’t mesh with your understanding of that brand’s “personality”—or it was so bland that you stopped reading in less than thirty seconds.
What you experienced in these situations was likely a company that did not understand the correlation between engaging, authoritative content and brand reputation.
I’ve talked about this disconnect for years, but it is looming larger than ever in 2024 as companies continue to misuse the digital resources available to them for creating and managing their digital content. This misguided over-reliance on tools can spell disaster for any business that does not have a foundational understanding that they need a plan for their content — one that may not take them down the path of least resistance.
As a marketer or business owner, it is easy to get wrapped up in the technical side of digital marketing — website development, social media, and the many digital tools that you have at your fingertips to navigate on a daily basis.
For many content stakeholders, it can seem like the quality of content should be secondary to the operational side of marketing. However, if you really want to see a marketing strategy succeed, this lack of effort will not pay off.
The Truth About Content
You can have a beautiful website, a groundbreaking social media strategy, and a technically flawless SEO plan, and you still will not be winning all the customers you can if your content is lacking.
Solid content draws eyes. Solid content enhances brand reputation. Solid content ranks well —just ask Google.
There is never an excuse not to include great content as part of your marketing strategy — not because keywords are your priority, not because your budget doesn’t include a content writer, and certainly not because you don’t think anyone has the time to put out good content.
No one is fooled by shoddy content — especially not potential, on-the-fence customers who are already skeptical from day one that your business is for them.
Getting Started on Winning Content
Even those with little writing knowledge or limited time can begin improving brand content.
To start, review your brand’s or client’s website from the customer’s perspective. Is the content impressive? On the flip side, does the information position your client or brand as outdated or uneducated? Would you find this website impressive and helpful as an end user?
Once you answer these questions, take notes on your findings. Your notes can help you find the strengths of the existing content and weak areas or gaps that can be corrected.
Know Your Competitors
Next, spend some time on competitor analysis. What are other successful brands in your industry writing? What tone and vocabulary do they use? If you take detailed, organized notes as your complete your research, your next step—building an actionable content strategy—won’t seem so hard.
Develop an Editor Mindset
Once you have a basic content strategy in place, start replacing or editing your content—starting from scratch where any gaps exist—and ensure that someone with a good eye for grammar reads over everything before publishing.
As someone who has been editing content for over a decade, my advice is to go back to understanding the customer perspective: if the content has typos and nonsensical phrasing, a customer isn’t going to be impressed by it.
Once your new content is live, start tracking analytics across your website, social media accounts, and other digital platforms and see if the changes are bringing in and retaining more eyes—if the changes don’t seem to be working, keep tweaking your content until you see the results that you want and expect.
If you seem to be stuck and need more help, a content writer, content marketing manager, or digital editor may be just what you need to take your online communications to the next level.
Takeaways
Creating great content isn’t necessarily easy; it does take both creativity and skill to get it right. But the time commitment and knowledge levels needed to start improving your content aren’t as intimidating as you may think—and nothing should stop your business from publishing the best content it can.
