What Does Creating Content Mean?

Maybe you’re really green at this whole thing, so I’m going to tell you what I mean by creating content. It means writing about your niche, you know, the thing your website is about, to put it plainly.

Now, don’t be thinking, “What do you mean? I have to write something? I can’t do thaaaat!” which is exactly what I thought when I first realized I had to actually write stuff to get anywhere. I was terrified! I just sat there thinking “what can I write about?” and all the “what ifs” I could imagine.

“what if it isn’t good enough?, oh heck, what if It isn’t good at all?, What if I stink at it!??” 

These questions kept rattling through my head until I realized the fact that if I don’t even give it a try, how would I ever know? Maybe, I’ll actually be good at it, or maybe not, but if others can do it so can I. Darn it! I gotta at least try….otherwise, I’ll be quitting before I even got started! Oh, No WAY! I can’t have that on my conscience! Quitting before I even start? How dare I even think that?

How to Get Started Writing Content

• Pick your niche-something that you’re passionate about, something you love doing!
• Find a low-competition keyword related to your niche

First of all, once you have picked your niche, your niche not your nose, then there’s a few things to consider.

• Who is your audience? Age, male or female, job, income, experience in the niche. Exactly who are you focusing on to be reading your content?
• What are you trying to accomplish with your post? In other words, what is the point you are trying to get across to your readers?
• What are the results you want to achieve with the post? e.g. Do you want to help people with a problem? Show how to do something? Get more people to follow you or meet new people within that niche?

How exactly do I figure out who my audience should be?

Forums and Related Websites

Well, a good way to find your crowd is to go to the places that they hang out. Find niche-related blogs and forums that are popular on the first pages of Google. Check them out and see what is most talked about, but first make sure it is a forum that is actually thriving! I’ve come across quite a few that I could swear I heard crickets chirping, tumbleweeds rolling, you get the picture!

Before wasting your time on a, well, for lack of a better word, dead forum, make sure you check the dates on the forum posts. If you don’t see anything with a recent date then don’t bother! Keep on looking for those with more recent posts. For Heaven’s sake, don’t go writing your little heart out on a forum comment that’s a year old. Even a few months old, I wouldn’t bother. Even a month is a long time really for a forum to go without any posts. Who knows if anyone is ever coming back or not to that forum?

The same goes for blogs. If nobody has commented on them for more than a month, I would keep on looking for something that is alive and well to find your potential peeps! But, this one could be an exception, depending on the content of the blog and the rest of the website. If you find it is a rather new website and you just love what they are saying there, well you never know, it wouldn’t hurt to throw a relevant comment their way and see what happens.

 

Social Media

There’s also a wide variety of social media sites that you can find your potential audience. You may even already have an account with some of the big ones, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to name the ones that come to mind. This is still something I’m working at learning how to use these better myself so I’m not going to go too far into this quite yet right here.

You can find people interested in your niche using the social sites by interacting with others on there and following those that have interests related to your niche. They’ll usually follow you back especially if they see you’re serious about the niche. I’ve been following those that follow me, at least if they don’t seem scammy. Otherwise, if all they do is have a promotional, gimmick type of message on their profile, I won’t bother.

For example, in Google Plus, you can search for niche-related communities to join other people in and get an idea on what types of problems they need help with or even things that are really interesting to them. The same goes for Facebook groups.

The most important thing when using social media sites  is to interact with the people there. Don’t just share Your stuff….be generous and share other people’s posts, pics, whatever! This is one thing I do know about all of these sites is people will follow people that they find helpful, interesting, and engaging. So share and comment on things other people post on there.

Try it out yourself.  Sure, maybe there’s some that might not answer,  “like” or “plus” your comment, but chances are usually at least one person WILL!

So, what’re you waiting for? Get out there and “talk” to people!

 So, which one to use? Related Forums, Blogs, or Social Media?

It’s really all up to you, but I’ve been doing all three types, at least to get a start and see where it may lead. You can find out which ones you prefer to use or work better for your niche. Some may work better than others and it’s really a good idea to learn them and test out yourself to see how well each may work.

In fact, everyone has an opinion on what they find works better, as you can see in this discussion, Where is the Best Place to Find Your Audience?

Ready to Write that Content?

Okay, remember those things called outlines? You know, the things with an Intro, body, and a closing? They break things up so it’s easier to focus on what you’re trying to write about. It helps so you don’t lose track of what you’re trying to accomplish.

Writing an Outline

Okay, I know, you’re probably thinking “an outline? Why? That’s more work to do!” Well, yes, it might take a few minutes or so to write an outline, but it sure helps in the long run. I’ve found it much easier to take the time to write a quick outline out first and then just fill it out, so to speak, as I’m writing content for my web site. Ahem, much easier than winging it, which I’ve done too and completely lost track of what I was writing about.

It doesn’t have to be perfect! It’s an outline to help you write and stay on focus of what you are trying to accomplish on your posts, pages, or articles.

• Intro- Write a short paragraph, three to five sentences, introducing your topic and what questions it will answer for your readers.
• Body- This is the main part of your blog post, article, or page on your website. At least 10 paragraphs within your actual post or page, consisting of two or three sentences is a good idea to make it more readable. Write down the main points you want to cover as headings to make it easier for your readers to find what they are looking for in your content.
  • Pssst! You do not need to write everything in your outline! I usually just write the main points I want to cover here and then fill it out as I’m writing the actual post/page. Don’t go overdoing it here. When I didn’t know better, I actually wrote everything first in my outline (oh, how silly of me!) and then wrote it all over again in my post, plus kept changing my mind about certain words, sentences, etc. It made it very frustrating, doing it not once, but twice!
    
• Conclusion- Write two or three sentences to sum up what you are talking about in your main content. This will remind your readers of your main point of the article or post. Remember everyone’s forgetful, at least I am, so it helps to be reminded!

 

Okay, just to help you get the idea of what an outline should look like, I'll put an 
example outline below. Here's an outline for a post on Finding the Best Keyword.
 

Example: Use Finding the Best Keywords as the title of your post, article, or page.

Remember, this is just the outline! Then go on to fill it out…

Intro- Finding the best keyword for your blog can be difficult. How do you know what is the best keyword to go with? Are there tools to help you find them? I’d like to show you how you can find great keywords that will get your content seen!

 

Body-

• Does your keyword make sense?
• What makes a certain keyword great?
  
  • High searches
  • Low competition
• Keyword tools
  • Free
  • Paid
• Check out your keyword in search results
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Yahoo
• Keyword density
  • Best places for keywords in your content
  • Writing naturally
  • Keyword stuffing-big No, No!

Conclusion- When you’re first starting out, finding the best keyword can be quite a chore, but once you learn how to use the keyword tools out there and remember to use keywords a “normal” person would actually type in the search bar, it gets a lot easier.

Once you get the hang of it, you’ll realize it’s not that hard to find keywords that are highly searched and have little or sometimes No competition. I’ve found quite a few in my niches since I’ve started out, so drop me a line in the comments below if you have any questions.

So, there ya go! An outline! Simple as that and it makes it much easier to keep your focus on what you’re trying to accomplish. Believe me, I know it’s so easy to get sidetracked when writing and completely forget what the heck you’re supposed to be writing about. Yes, I’ve done that before and went back to read what I’d just written and wondered what on earth was I doing? I forgot this and this and oh, that! lol!

If I can do it, so can you! So, quit sitting there thinking you can’t do it. You can! 

Figure out what it is that makes you tick, what you love doing, what inspires you the most, and you’ll have a niche. If you like something, chances are, other people do too. So, go find them wherever they may be on the world wide web and talk to them.

Find out their questions and problems and give them answers that will actually help them out.

Once you got your niche settled on, check out the keyword tools and find some great keywords. I would just pick one main keyword and then write your outline, fill it out as you write your content, proofread your post/page or article, and then share it with others!

I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment in the box below. Got any ideas on how to make it easier to get your writing done? What things do you do to make writing easier? 🙂

Best wishes!

-Sherry