Writing good content is hard.
If you want your blog to be good enough that your readers return to your content, you need to put in a lot of effort. Your content needs to be useful to the reader, but also unique enough that they know you’re the blog they should come to. On top of all of this, you need to enjoy what you’re writing as well.
What Makes Content Unique?
First things first is talking about what actually makes content unique. Unique does not mean you have to be completely out there and different for every single post you create (honestly – that would burn you out so fast!). Plus depending on your niche, this might not even be possible as you may be depending on other sources on the internet. The concept of being “unique” is wide and almost ever changing due to the mass information across the internet.
Uniqueness may depend on the popularity of the concept at that particular time. Think about it, when the latest film comes out there’s a wave of content around that particular film and then it slowly tails off. This is because that first wave was the “unique content” about the film and it’s release, and after that, in general, content becomes more of the same and so less unique, and less appealing to an audience. So unique can also mean on time.
You can also use how you’re presenting the concept to change the unique factor. For example, a book review on a blog can contain most of the same information and thoughts as a book review on YouTube, but the differing formats make these pieces unique from one another in a specific way. This uniqueness can help entice a larger audience because each piece of content is aimed for different people. [Note: This does not mean you can plagiarise written reviews for video content or vice versa – it just means you can make your own work more unique by changing the format.]
On top of using different platforms you could use more images, infographics, voice clips and more to help illustrate points you’re making. These visual tools help to make your content more unique as you’re improving the attractiveness of the content to an audience. Most people don’t want to read a textbook, but will happily listen to a podcast on the same subject. Uniqueness can depend on the type of content you’ve created.
Another way to make content unique is to include your subjective opinions where applicable on the concept. I clarify this because some concepts need credibility and authority for someone to have a subjective opinion on – for example, despite me writing about books and bookish content, I couldn’t write a book about how to be an author because I don’t have that knowledge. But, my subjective opinions are in all my review posts, which makes them unique compared to other bloggers reviews. So, subjective opinion can make a post more unique.
Why is Unique Content Important?
Writing unique and original content is important for a few different reasons. The first one, is that if your content is unique and no one else has that particular information (whether this is fact based or subjective!) – your readers have to come to you. That timeliness we mentioned before can be an important factor in gaining views.
Unique content can also be more interesting for a reader. Having a completely different take on the (for example) the newest fantasy book in your review can encourage people to want to read your content. This is also why titles are important, as it can highlight the unique-ness of your content, which will entice readers.
It’s not just readers that like unique content, search engines like it too. When indexing websites, unique content is often ranked higher than similar content, duplicate content, and even plagiarised content. Because of this, creating unique articles can help your overall SEO score, especially if your unique content is also flagged as good quality.
Your content should also be unique from your other content. Reposting new articles about the same concepts over and over again can reduce interest from your readers. If each of these posts also covers very similar topics within the concept, it could also create duplication on your site, negatively impacting SEO.
What Makes Content Useful?
Whilst making content unique, you don’t want to go so far as for the content to be useless to an audience. You want to include aspects in your content which allows your reader to take away something – whether that’s direct instructions, a moral of the story, information on a concept, a wild new Harry Potter theory, is up to you. But if your content is only useful for you this gives the indication that you may not get a large amount of views.
The main part of being useful is knowing who your audience for that piece of content is. Knowing who this content is aimed at means you can provide an “answer” to what they’re trying to gain from the post. For example, a book review is useful for a reader who wants to know if they should read that book. A book discussion is useful for a reader who’s already read the book and wants to engage with others who’ve also read the book (as a general assumption but not always true!). So usefulness depends on knowing your audience.
The purpose of the content also alters the usefulness. Each piece of content you write will have an overall purpose for why you’re writing it. It could be that you want to inform your audiences about the effects of X in your niche, or maybe you want to build awareness for a product you love? Maybe you’re trying to build a community and drive conversation in the comments, or maybe you’re just trying to sell products for a brand campaign? Whatever purpose you have, will ultimately change how useful it is for different people.
Ensuring your own content is accurate and factual when talking about a concept is vital to show that your overall content is useful to the reader. Of course, when you’re using your opinions in a piece these are subjective and not factual – however, making sure it’s clear you’re giving your opinion helps make your content more reliable and boosts credibility. Useful content often includes information which is reliable and credible.
Why is Useful Content Important?
Useful content is important because it’s often the reason why people are reading your content. People read to learn new things, get opinions, reviews, ideas, morals, stories and so much more. If you’re hitting these reasons why then you’re going to start seeing views as people visit your site.
From an SEO standpoint too – most people will search out the content they need at that particular time. Getting your content right with a great headline and description, your content can get even more views through search engines.
How do you Write both Unique and Useful Content?
So I bet you’re now thinking “How do I write this though” and that is the complicated part! Writing both useful and unique content has multiple moving parts but I think the first and most is making sure you know who your audience is. Use Google Analytics to gain more information on who you’re talking to with your content – different locations can use different information, their age can change context of posts, and even their interests. Using this can help you work out the purpose of each of your posts, which can lead you to making the content in the right format, with the right amount of opinion and fact.
You’ll need a strong headline to create interest for the post wherever you’re promoting it. Making sure the title shows off the unique-ness of the content, as well as it being useful for the audience is important. This is especially important on Search Engines, where your post speaks for itself outside of extra copy you’d have when promoting on social media or via email.
Not everyone learns purely by reading, and so you could include photos, images, infographics, video and even audio to put your points across. If a particular concept is easier to digest as an image or video, then it makes it more useful when in that form. So take some time to design some extra visual aids before going live to make it more unique.
Making your content useful can also mean making your content actionable. After your reader is finished, what do you want them to be able to do? If you’re writing how-to guides, your aim would be to get them to follow the guide – so the action would be encouraging them to try it out and share it with you. If you’re writing a book review, the action would be to purchase and read the book, and so you’d include links for purchase. My Blogging 101 series usually encourages readers to ask questions about their own blog, or audit, or create a checklist, basically it has an action to do. These are just three examples, but make sure each piece of content you create has a “next action” for the reader.
As a whole, being unique and useful also helps when you’re being engaging. You could write the most unique and useful post about [insert very boring subject here] but if your writing is basically like a textbook… it won’t interest people the same way. Make your content engage with your audience and be thought provoking. Leave your reader asking questions, create stories which link your posts to something relatable, and ensure your introduction immediately captures attention.
It’s not just new posts you should be looking at either! I’ve spent the first quarter of this year taking my time to go through my old posts and update and reformat to be more unique and useful for an audience. This takes a bit of time, but so many of my earliest blog posts just weren’t useful for anyone! On top of this, it has helped me build in more links to other posts which may also be useful.
Questions to Ask Yourself
When you’re done writing your first draft, here’s some questions you should ask yourself about the blog post in front of you.
- Why? (at the end of each sentence, try and form a why – if it’s not possible, you’re done – if it is possible, does your content need to be extended?)
- What’s the purpose of this blog post? Which audience is it aiming for?
- Have I given the readers the best information I possibly can? Is this factual? Or clearly my subjective opinion?
- Are there any words I can take out to make my content more succinct?
- Can I use this content in a different format like a video or audio clip to make it more interesting?
- What is the next step from this piece of content?
- Is it complete?
