5 content best practices

For the past 8 years, content has been my professional focus. I’ve taken on content editor, communications specialist and senior content marketing roles across a wide range of sectors. During this time, as I read, took training courses, spoke with peers and tested things for myself, I’ve been growing a toolkit of content guidelines and best practices.

So, what better way to start my very first LinkedIn article than by sharing the top 5 content rules that I follow each day, to help you improve your own content?

The below are broad content guidelines that you can apply to most marketing, editorial and sales content types, from emails to blog posts, videos and social posts, whether B2B or B2C. Of course, some best practices can apply more than others based on your (company’s) own tone of voice and target audience. I could go on here, but as no one likes a long intro, let’s get stuck right in ⬇️

My 5 content rules

1. Focus on your goal
2. Lead with an audience benefit
3. Break through the content clutter
4. Make it easy to understand
5. Always end with a call to action (CTA)

Content rule #1: Focus on your goal

Content isn’t about creating nicely worded texts ✨and pretty pictures 🎀.

Content should serve a specific goal. This could be sending a designated message, or generating a specific action or reaction from a defined audience. Keep this in mind throughout your content creation process. Start with your goal in mind, keep referring back to it as you progress, and check that you’ve accomplished what you set out to do once you finish.

Daisy Quaker shares her tip on how she sets her content goals: “When I start a new post, I print a paragraph [describing where I want to take the audience] right at the top of my Word doc. I revisit it multiple times while I’m writing and reviewing the draft.” And she does all this with a focus on bringing empathy into her content.

 Which leads us nicely onto my next content best practice.

Content rule #2: Lead with an audience benefit

Don’t focus on what you want to say. Focus instead on what it means for the reader, viewer or listener. What’s in it for them?

As Dale Carnegie once said, “People aren’t interested in you. They’re interested in themselves.” So, tell your audience how you’re going to make their lives easier or better. Highlight the value of your content. Open with an audience benefit. Does it help them achieve a goal, answer a question, or overcome a challenge? Make sure you make that clear to them from the get-go.

This content guideline could be as simple as the following substitutions:

• Instead of saying “We’ve launched a new product,” say “We can save you time and money with our new product.”
• Or instead of writing “Here’s a video all about marketing,” write “Improve your marketing skills with this video training.”

Content rule #3: Break through the content clutter

This content best practice was reinforced to me during my time at market research agency MetrixLab. When testing ads, the team not only test the ad creative itself, but also the ad’s breakthrough: whether the ad has the power to break through the content clutter. Because it’s all very well to make an amazing advert that everyone loves to watch, but if it doesn’t grab attention among all the other content competing for our attention, no one will end up watching it.

This same principle applies to all content. If you don’t break through the content clutter, however good your content piece is, no one will notice it. And therefore no one will click on it or stop to read, watch or listen to it.

So, ensure your content breaks through to your audience in your chosen platform. Use some kind of opening hook to catch people’s attention and pique their curiosity:

• What makes you stop scrolling through your social media feed?
• What grabs your attention when browsing a web page?
• What makes you open an email in your inbox?
• What video opening would persuade you to continue watching?

It could be a catchy title, an attention-grabbing content type, out-of-the-norm imagery… As long as it appeals to your target audience and stands out on your chosen platform.

For example, which of the following content types would most likely grab your attention: a text that explains a solution, or a cartoon that visualizes the solution? (Something I created back in my MetrixLab days.)

Content rule #4: Make it easy to understand

Quite simply: don’t make it hard for your audience to work out what you’re trying to say.

I find that many people, as soon as they put pen to paper, start using fancy words, complex sentences and confusing structures. This is often the case in academic writing. And — unless you don’t know what you’re saying yourself and need something to hide behind — I don’t understand why this is the case, nor why it is encouraged at school and university.

Instead, you should think about the language you use every day to get your message across clearly.

As Konrad Sanders mentions in his own blog post on copywriting tips, “If you want to sound intelligent and confident, talk about something amazing, in simple, easy-to-follow language.”

If you need help writing something clearly and simply, I suggest the following: pretend an imaginary (and not-so-clever) person is sitting next to you. Turn to them and start explaining the message you want to convey through your content. Where do you start? What background information does this person need to know? What words and language do you use? This helps you to be more “human” in your writing: to write as a person for a person.

Techniques to make your content clearer and easier to understand include:

• Keeping it short: sentences, paragraphs, titles, recordings.
• Speaking or writing in plain, everyday language. Why say “purchase” when you can say “buy”, “commence” when you can say “start”, or (my personal pet peeve) “utilize” in place of “use”? (Unless you do in fact understand the slight difference in meaning between the two words.)
• Getting straight to the point.
• Structuring your content. Dividing text up with headers, sub headers, bullet points and visuals. Breaking down audio and videos into clearly defined segments.

Content rule #5: Always end with a CTA (call to action)

Let’s say you’ve created a great piece of content. You captured your audience’s attention. You managed to get them to read your entire text or watch your entire video. Nice! But don’t leave them hanging there. Tell them what they can do next.

Of course, your CTA should align with your initial content goal (content rule #1): the reason why you created your content in the first place. Maybe you want to encourage your audience to keep consuming your content. Maybe you want them to sign up to your newsletter. Maybe you want them to drop you a message. Guide them to this next step.

My own CTA 📢 is to ask you to:

• Like and share this post if you found these 5 content best practices useful.
• And leave a comment if you have something to add, a question or even a counterargument: as content is more an art than it is a science!

Until then, I leave you with a final quote from Leo Burnett. It’s technically about advertising, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a best practice for any piece of content: “Make it simple, make it memorable, make it inviting to look at, make it fun to read.”