The content you create needs to be designed for the human readers. If that doesn’t happen, your audience development will become static. The annoying factor is that there is much more than just writing for your readers if you are going to make it online. The content also need to please the search engines. Here are some strategies to help develop content that is perfect for both.
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Develop Personas for the Piece
One of the biggest ways to help with audience development is to have a persona for every piece of content created. This is a human face that the readers will relate to. The human face has fears, aspirations and passions that are all very similar to the target audience for the content.
Newspapers have been creating content like this for some time. It helps the print publications sell. The same now applies for all those placing content online.
Focus on the Quality Over Quantity
More content has been considered best for a long period of time. More content means that there are more stories for people to find through the search engines. The pages are continually updated to show search engines that the website is active, relevant and ready for readers.
However, quantity often means that the quality suffers. News is put out just for the sake of it, and stories end up with the same focus and aim. It drives people away from the content, because they’re not getting the quality that they prefer. They’re not getting the unique angles that are interesting and teach them something new.
It’s essential that you focus on the quality of pieces. If that means offering less, then that is more than worth it. Quality is going to get people bookmarking the site, coming back for more content and signing up to subscriptions to get the content delivered straight to them. That will help you with the search engines.
Focus on Viral Content
You need something that people are going to share with their friends. This makes content viral and helps with search engines and audience development. The content needs to be interesting, unique and answer the questions, problem or share the story that people have wanted to read for ages. As more people share the content, the search engines pick it up as relevant and popular, and that does your whole website some good.
Of course, keyword density and the use of synonyms come into this. Keywords are important for search engines to pick the content up. Without those keywords, people won’t even find the content to help it go viral. However, synonyms must be used to prevent keyword stuffing and to make the content look natural and human-friendly.
It’s a fine line. To help your audience development, your content needs to be perfect for humans and the search engines. Both require something different. While the search engines use keywords as a factor, humans want quality content that is written just for them. It takes time to develop content like this, but it is more than worth it when it goes viral.