Whether you have a web-based business or promote a product (or service) online, it is content that will propel your efforts. Without focusing on the content creation part of your marketing plan, it’s almost impossible to begin to reach the goals you might have set for your business.

You’ll need content (and lots of it), if you want to –

• attract traffic to your site
• build a following on social media
• prove that you really know your stuff
• collect emails from prospects
• boost your site’s search rankings

Seth Godin says, ‘Content marketing is all the marketing that’s left’. And he has emphasized the point amazingly well.

Check out these content creation statistics:

• 60% of marketers create at least one piece of content every day. [Source: eMarketer]
• 78% of marketers agree that custom content is the future of marketing. [Source: DemandMetric]
• 72% of marketers believe that branded content makes a greater impact than magazine advertisements do. [The Content Council]
• 69% of marketers say that content is much more effective than direct mail and PR. [The Content Council]

The success potential of content is huge and proven!

You need to create lots of quality content to truly make an impact. It is through content that you can deliver your message and build an emotional connection with your audience. But the problem is that you’ll wrestle with content creation even if you’re a skilled writer. Often, you’ll miss deadlines wondering what to write or blog about next.

It keeps on happening to most of us.

Well, if your struggle with content creation, given below are some of the coolest tips that you can use to get the ball rolling.

By the way, I have created a course specifically to help you with content creation. You can check it out here.

Challenge Deeply Held Beliefs

Humans are quite good at assuming things. If you analyze the way most people think in your industry, you’ll come across many assumptions that have been there for a long time. Unchallenged.

Look for them.

Are there any rules that need to change? What are those beliefs that you believe should be discarded? Take a closer look and examine the current state of affairs to come up with such assumptions, and then start asking yourself how it can change. Can those things be done in a different way? If you apply this technique, you’ll definitely generate new ideas that you can use to create fresh and original content that your audience will like to consume.

Steal an Idea, and Make It Your Own

Different people have different ideas or opinions. Take a look around and you’ll find lots of interesting ideas.

Go, steal someone else’s idea – just anyone.

Copying someone else’s content and publishing it on your own website or blog is unethical – a punishable offense by the rule of law. But an idea is not the same as a piece of content. Right?

But what you should really do is lift someone’s idea and then cook it in a way that it becomes your own. And how exactly do you make it happen? There are many ways to do that. Pick someone’s idea and explain it with the help of an experience of your own. Write in support of an existing idea or refute it. Or, simply build upon it in your unique way. You can also pick an idea from a different industry and then repackage it to suit the needs of your own target audience or prospects. Not too hard, is it?

Share Your Success (or Failure) Story

Success stories have always been in great demand because they come along with valuable lessons of a lifetime.

They tell people what to do.

But stories of failures offer value too because they tell people what not to do. They make people aware of the pitfalls that need to be avoided or the hurdles that need to be dealt with. If you feel like you have exhausted topics for content creation, looking back at how you fared in your journey will equip you with some interesting ideas for your next blog posts.

Learn from Your Competitors

Be it any industry or niche, you’re always competing. If you don’t know it yet, find out who your top competitors are. Your top competitors are at the top for a reason. They’re doing their job really well.

And that’s exactly why you should learn from them.

Take a look at the websites of your competitors. What kind of content do they feature? What is their approach to a particular topic? If you dig deeper into their content creation techniques, you’ll learn a lot. Either follow in their footsteps or find new ways to do it better than how they are doing it. Researching and measuring yourself against your key competitors is a surefire way of improving your own content creation and staying ahead of the game.

Expand Upon a Popular Quote

Every industry has some of its famous quotes. Look for those quotes that relate to your own industry or niche.

Once you have some good industry-relevant quotes at hand, get ready to put your writing skills into action. Understand the meaning of those quotes on a deeper level and then explain it in a way that catches the attention of your target audience and teaches them something that they can use to improve their everyday lives. You can lend more strength to your expression by coupling it with suitable examples or facts.

Wrapping It Up

Almost every business owner or marketer struggles to keep pace with the demands of their content creation. To keep it going, you don’t just need lots of good ideas but you also need to plan ahead of time. The techniques or tips that you read about above will definitely equip you with ideas to inspire the creation of a bunch of blog posts for your site. Always remember that content marketing sees the light of the day only when you are consistent with your efforts. And that’s why you need lots of content that feeds the appetite of your audience or prospects for information – and tickles their taste buds too.

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Jane Sheeba

shares cutting-edge, practical blogging tips at her blog Savvy Blogging Tips. If you want to get a head start with blogging or want guidance to make progress, check out the FREE resource at this page.