4 Things You Can Learn From High Performing Content

If you have a successful blog or website, you should know that original content is just 50% of its success. The other 50% is ensuring that the content you have can perform well.

The most useful, well-written and researched article can also reach its lowest when you don’t support it with a promotion strategy. After all, content doesn't just get shared or attract traffic by mere chance. Most of the popular articles you see and read online were able to get the attention they deserved because of the owner’s promotion strategy.

As such, it is essential to create a well-defined process using SEO outreach and content optimization amongst other techniques. Here, we have listed four things that you can learn from any high performing piece of content. After reading this post, think about how you can apply the same tactics to improve your own content creation process.

1. High performing content has a captivating headline

What every content creator hates the most is having a great article un-shared and ignored. Despite being a solid article, it has a low CTR and a small share count. So what could be the problem?

Most often, the problem lies in the title. If it has a very uninteresting title, most readers won’t be curious enough to click on it and read the article.

Make a great impression by taking the extra minute to think of a compelling headline. Headlines, after all, are like first impressions. You only have a few seconds to convince users to read your content and it’s the first thing that people will read.

When it comes to increasing traffic (be it organic or paid), your article’s headline can make or break your article’s performance.  If your headline is a bit dry, many might ignore it altogether so make sure you think of a great headline but don’t rush it.

If you are having a hard time thinking of how to title your piece, here are some easy to use headline formulas.

2. The best content has the right visuals

A block of text that goes on and on can be tiresome and pretty dull to read so be careful when you publish your articles. Readers might be put off when they get to your blog page if there are no images. No matter how vital your info is, if it’s not presented in an aesthetically pleasing manner, you’re bound to lose your readers.

Articles that have images in every 75 to 100 words are shared twice as much as posts that have no visuals according to BuzzSumo. Why is that? Visuals help make content easier to digest and provide keyword opportunities for your primary keywords.

Not only is adding a visual element to your blogs a great way to boost your SEO, but it makes your articles more fun to read. Thus, increasing the number of shares it receives.

3. Successful content is shareable

Shares are a great way to measure how well your post is performing. Plus, for every share you get, you expand your reach, build links and get your name out there.

As such, it is vital that you make your content easy to share. How? Take advantage of sharing buttons and make sure your readers can easily share your content on social media platforms or via email.

One way to do this is to research your target audience. Which social platform is the most active? If it’s Facebook, share your content on Facebook. If you have a larger following on Twitter, then make your content Twitter friendly.

You can also try posting on all platforms to gather data to help guide this decision. On which platform does your content get shared the most?

When it comes to positioning your sharing buttons, avoiding putting them at the beginning or end of an article. Instead, use floating social share buttons so they are easily accessible to users. Don’t make your readers go looking for them.

As for tweets, you can include ‘click to tweet’ in your article so people can share key points without the need to write a post.

4. Great content is readable

This one may sound and look simple, but it is one of the most critical factors that will impact your content’s performance. There are a lot of high-quality articles that are hard to read and are pretty hard to understand unless you’re a real expert.

This might be the worst mistake that you can do as a content creator. After all, it is your responsibility to make your articles easy to read and digestible if you want to reach a wide audience.

Most readers are just casual scrollers. If they find that your article sounds like an academic paper with all the hard to understand words, they’re going to lose interest. The worst case scenario is that they’ll avoid your site at all costs, even if your post has a top position on google.

Simplify your post and avoid complicating things. Make them simple, concise and clear. This will make it easier for you to share what you know and easier for your readers to understand.

It’s also worth considering the tone that you write in. Sometimes writing a light-hearted post is better than creating something that’s too formal. Allow your personality to shine since you are writing for real humans and not machines.