You’ve come up with an idea, spent a couple of hours putting it together, uploaded it, pressed publish and… nothing. Tumbleweeds. But done properly, creating great content helps to build your business and your reputation. How do you build that audience? Here is my guide on how to create content your target audience will love.
Be an authority in your niche
What do you want to be known for? Having a laser focus on exactly what you do and who you serve enables you to create compelling, original content, which shows your expertise. Note that I said original: your views, your experience, your stories. Talk about a current topic by all means but put your own stamp on it. You are aiming to become somebody’s favorite and make them eager to sign up to your list so they never miss your content.
Talk about a current topic by all means but put your own stamp on it. You are aiming to become somebody’s favorite and make them eager to sign up to your list so they never miss your content. #Youpreneur Click To TweetBuilding up a library of articles or videos people can explore and learn from is vital to becoming an authority in your niche. Create the 101 guide to your specialty by following the steps below.
Solve your audience’s problems
What do your clients want to know about? The most useful thing you can do for people is to solve their problems. You can do this by writing or recording content which helps them achieve something they are trying to do.
For example, my audience is people building successful businesses around their personal brand so I write blogs like this one which help them to do that. Some other examples of this are 5 Tips to Get Started with Facebook Ads That Explode Your List and How to Create a Magnetic Opt-In Email Offer. You can see immediately that these are topics people in my niche are searching for on the internet and asking me about directly.
Are there topics people ask you about time and time again? Create guides to those. You could do a single post about each of them or create linked content where you gradually build up knowledge. This enables you to cater for people with different levels of understanding and experience of the subject. It also gives you material you can easily turn into an ebook or a podcast/video series. Always be thinking about how you can make the most out of the content you are creating to benefit your audience.
Use the 5 Ws
Most people searching online are complete beginners. They are searching because they don’t know the answers. They’re looking for someone to guide them and help them make good decisions. Remember: just because you are an expert in your field and know all this stuff, the people you want to work with do not.
As well as solving people’s problems, another really useful thing you can do for them is to answer their questions. Approach this is by using the 5 Ws: who, what, where, why, when and then add how. I would use them in a different order though. Start with ‘how to’, ‘what’ and ‘why’.
“How to” is a very popular search term. Think about how often you type it into a search engine. People who start by asking ‘how to’ are looking for someone to give them the answer. As well as ‘how to’ do things, people also want to know ‘what’ to do and ‘what’ works as well as ‘why’ they need to do something.
Get a piece of paper and write a list of ‘how to’, ‘why’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘who’ and ‘when’ questions that apply to what you do and which will genuinely help the people you are keen to serve. Think about their motivation for asking the question. They might not want to learn how to do what you can do. They might be looking for information about how to buy a product you sell or how to work with someone who offers your service. What is the intention of the people you want to help?
We’ve all been in situations where we have to figure out something for the first time. For example, when you move into a new neighborhood you always have lots of questions from ‘how do I get from A to B’ to ‘what’s the best xx restaurant’ and ‘where do I find xx service’. Think about how you would approach the topics you can help within the same way. Take your audience by the hand, show them around, and take them to those hidden gems they are going to love.
Once you write down one question, you will find that it leads to another question, and then another one. You can soon create a bank of related content which your audience will find irresistible.
Be consistent
Do you have a TV series that you love? You tune in week after week. If the next episode of that series didn’t come out one week or it played on a different day and you missed it, you’d be pretty disappointed.
As I said at the top, you want to become somebody’s favorite. That means you need to deliver content when you say you will. Be consistent. If your newsletter goes out every Friday, make sure it does. If all you can commit to is one in-depth guide once a month make that the thing you stick to. You don’t want to disappoint your fans.
Creating high quality, interesting and entertaining content which people are already looking for and putting it out regularly will enable you to build an audience and position yourself as an expert in your field.
Chris founded Youpreneur® in 2015. He is a serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker and author of the bestselling books “Virtual Freedom” and “Rise of the Youpreneur”. He hosts our podcast, live events and coaches our clients inside the Youpreneur Incubator. Chris is based in Cambridge, UK.
