The 5 Pillars of Great Content
I recently asked myself: What makes content great? Here's a summary of my thoughts and some advice for my future self.
The Ingredients of Great Content
In this post, I want to share my thoughts on the question: What makes content great? Below you'll find the 5 pillars that I think matter most.
Great Packaging
The first thing a person sees before
If you want people to love your content, you need to make sure you present it in an appealing way. That means the title, thumbnail, and description need to be crafted with purpose and quality.
Deliver the Expected Value
Imagine you're browsing the web, and a compelling headline with a great thumbnail catches your eye, and you click on it. In that moment, you already have an expectation about what you want to see.
If the content doesn't meet your expectation, you'll click away, give it a dislike, or write a negative comment. These negative signals will reduce the extent to which the algorithms distributes the content.
It is essential to deliver the value you promise on the packaging. Or, using the iPhone analogy, the greatest unboxing experience won't matter if the phone inside is broken.
Targeted Distribution
Imagine you're at the best steak house in the world, but you're a vegetarian. You probably won't care about the steak or all the praise it’s getting.
The same principle applies to content: there needs to be a match between product and audience. So, make sure to share your content in the right groups, communities, and platforms.
By distributing, repurposing, and redistributing old content, you're already far ahead of the game - most people just hit 'post' and wait for luck to happen.
Signal Domain Authority
The extent to which the author's expertise matters depends on the type of content. For example, I'll gladly watch a coding tutorial if it solves my problem, regardless of who’s delivering it.
However, there are some topics, where I prefer to listen to people who can signal their expertise. This is especially true for topics like health, finance, and entrepreneurship.
If the content you publish falls into the second category, then signal why you're the right person to listen to.
Provide Actionable Advice
This applies more towards content that has educational or informational value. But people love actionable advice - it's the reason why we see so many self-help books.
Actionable advice can take many forms here are some specific examples:
- A framework to save time managing an e-mail inbox
- A strategy to invest your money in the stock market
- A method to save taxes on your income
- A project to learn a new programming language
The key takeaway here is that your content should provide value that can be acted on.
In a Nutshell
Since the last pillar I covered was actionable advice, it's only fitting to end this with a bullet summary of action items.
- Be deliberate about the packaging of your content
- Deliver the value that you promise on the packaging
- Understand where your audience is and distribute it accordingly
- Publish within your zone of genius and signal domain authority
- Provide actionable advice that can be acted on immediately
That's all for today. Feel free to share your thoughts with me via my socials linked below.
