Tips from 5 Top Marketers On Creating the Best Content

Nowadays, the Internet is flooded with all kinds of content and content is the king of digital marketing.

Articles, blog posts, ads, cheat sheets, ebook mockups, templates, videos. You name it.

Yet, as we all know, the quality doesn’t necessarily follow quantity. Actually, it rarely does. That’s why most of the content that we see while browsing the web is not original and serves no greater purpose.

The reason for that is the fact that people simply copy one another’s work and by making a few changes here and there try to make it their own piece. That’s certainly one approach to content creation but it certainly won’t take you far.

Thus, the question is: How to create the best content?

And by the best, I mean the most enticing, entertaining, informative, and purposeful content. To answer the above question, let’s take a look at what top marketers have to say about content creation.

After all, they’re the ones who build their careers on creating the best content. And, what’s more, still produce one of the best content pieces no matter if it comes to video, articles or blog posts.

Ready to learn?

Seth Godin - Be remarkable

“You need to play a different game, and your game is slow and steady”

As I’ve mentioned in the introduction - nowadays, copying others' work and using it for your own purpose is quite popular. Even if it’s not 1-to-1 copying it still isn’t an original piece you create.

And that’s why Seth outlines being remarkable as the most important indicator of the best content.

This means you shouldn’t try to replicate what others do and instead focus on your target audience, find what they would like to see, hear, and watch and then create content that’ll be appealing to them.

Therefore, instead of chasing results similar to what others gain, you’ll be able to focus on your own goals and create what you’re really passionate about.

In his book, Purple Cow, Godin shows why appealing to only a narrow audience is much better than trying to hit the masses. Namely, in the process of adapting every new idea, it takes only a small group of innovators and early adopters who are willing to try it out. Only if these two groups like what you’ve created, the rest - the majority - will get to know it.

Combine that with Godin’s 1000 true fans philosophy and you’ll understand why creating the content that is like nothing else out there is the best option.

Gary Vee - Experience instead of theory

“Trust is on the rise because transparency is on the rise”

One thing that we know about Gary Vee is that he’s the living form of crystal meth!

I’m joking, I’m joking…

On a more serious note, what Gary shows us is the fact that every piece of his life, whether personal or business, can be turned into a piece of content. And that’s what Gary’s best advice is.

Instead of thinking hard what your next piece of content should be, show the process. Describe how you’re doing the thing that you’re doing and therefore give your viewers and readers an in-depth look into your experience.

Why is it the proper way?

Because people crave actionable tips and they want content from actual experts. And by experts, I don’t mean that you had to be working in the industry for the past 20 years. It’s just a matter of on-hands experience and real skin in the game.

If you give advice show why you think it will work and whether you, yourself have tried it.

If you explain how to do something, show that you’ve already done it.

Start documenting what you do and instead of prevaricating and procrastinating use your own knowledge to create something original and personal. Something that will be useful and informative for your audience.

Neil Patel - Quality over quantity

“5,000 words might not be better than 3,000 words when you’re just comparing word count alone. Similarly, a giant 45,000-word guide might not outperform a 20,000 word one at the end of the day. Instead, the priority should be on quality at that point.”

There’s a stigma around some of the marketers out there that all they care about is generating traffic and nothing else.

The same goes for Neil Patel who’s one of the top marketers when it comes to content marketing strategies and content creation in general.

Yet, what Neil does and believes in completely contradict what the majority might think about his work.

Namely, Neil describes quality as one of the main factors of a successful piece of content - especially, blog posts.

That’s because the length of blog posts is often talked about when it comes to how well it ranks and how much traffic such a piece of content generates. And as Neil said, it doesn’t matter how many words your writing contains. The only thing that matters is quality.

To prove that, Neil compared tens of blog posts that he wrote, 3000-word ones and even 20000-word pieces.

Interestingly, all of them - the short ones and the long ones - were generating the same amount of traffic and appealed to his audience in the same way.

Therefore, we can see that the quantity is not a viable factor. The additional paragraphs are great, but only if they bring something unique into your seo content. Otherwise, they’ll be treated as unnecessary and will certainly do more bad than good.

All in all, focus on quality and don’t try to hit that x words mark.

Brian Dean - Focus on UX

“If you want people to read and share your content, it needs to be more than “great content”. Your content also needs to LOOK great.”

Your content might contain hundreds of actionable tips and valuable insights but what if it just looks unappealing?

Probably, most people would bounce immediately. That’s because the inside of the content doesn’t matter if the ‘upper layer’ is poorly designed.

Think of food. It doesn’t matter if the dish tastes great when it looks like a poorly put-together piece of random ingredients.

You have to first show that your content is worth checking out and then prove it with its actual body.

That’s why Brian Dean from Backlinko suggests that you focus on UX.

That means you should make your content clear, properly structured, and easy-to-skim.

That may be even more important if you work on affiliate marketing content.  Avoid offering too many features which will be confusing. Make sure the structure is simple and understandable for users. Keep track of the performance with the use of Affiliate Tracking software to stay flexible.

No matter what type of content you produce, good UX is what makes people want to tune in. For a podcast, it might be crystal clear sound. For a video, it might be 4K quality and author-made subtitles.

Think of what is the first point of contact that your audience judges your content upon and then master it to perfection.

Rand Fishkin - Deliver answers, not questions

“[...] if you can’t serve up a great experience, you’re not going to perform well in search.”

The other consequence of content abundance is the fact that people are not that eager to dig through your content in order to find what they’re looking for.

More straightforward - people want the answer right here and right now.

This means that if you force your audience to browse through your content in order to find what they were promised to get, they’ll likely bounce soon.

That’s why Rand Fishkin says that your focus when creating content should be on delivering answers and providing your audience with a great experience.

That also connects to Brian Dean’s tip on exceptional UX. The better the design of what you create is, the easier it will be to find what your audience is looking for.

Therefore, structure your blog posts, articles, videos, and podcast in a way that makes it easy to find the promised answers.

For example, if your blog post promises to explain how to tie your shoes, make it easy to find the answer.

If your video consists of 5 tips to sales prospecting, make it easy to skip from a tip 1 to top 2 and 3.

Don’t let your viewers look for the answers and rather present them in an easy-to-access way.

Take the tips and put them to the test

Now you know the gist.

Yet, tips themselves are nothing but a few words put together to create a nice-looking sentence.

To make use of them you have to actually put those tips into work.

Test them out when you’ll be creating your next piece of content and check whether you notice any difference.

Are people liking it more?

Are you getting more views?

Are you getting more social shares?

Try them out and hopefully you’ll see great results!

Good luck!

BIO: Jakub Kliszczak is a Marketing Specialist at CrazyCall; a cloud-based calling software that provides customer service teams and sales teams with essential tools to serve their customers and reach new leads. He’s passionate about digital marketing, working on new ideas, and taking things from 0 to 1. In his “free time”, he prefers to read non-fiction and hit the gym.