With the number of blogs crowding the internet, it can be difficult to find your footing much less stand out in the content marketing world. However, with a simple set of rules, you can get your content to hover confidently above seventy-five percent of the multitude.

Successful companies like Amazon and The Huffington Post abide by these rules and, because of that, have seen immeasurable success.

Why can’t you?

Since you have read up to this point, there’s no reason you too can’t experience that level of success. You just have to immerse yourself and your content in the tips below.

Find Your Niche and Be Original

Maybe you aren’t plagiarizing someone else’s content, but originality goes beyond not copying and pasting. Discover your niche and expand on it. Being original doesn’t only help you rank better on search engines like Google, but helps you build integrity and reliability also.

Be Brief and to the Point

With the amount of information on the internet, the average person has the attention span of an undisciplined dog. When you now consider other parts of our lives — our jobs, chores, relationships — you begin to see why it’s paramount for your audience to easily find what brought them to your page. Dawdle over getting your points across and you will lose your spell on them.

Create Attention-grabbing Content

Give your audience something to take away from every post. Is your blog about horses? Strategically placing a new horse training or grooming tip in every post can go a long way in engaging your audience. It’s like waiting for the next episode of Game of Thrones. Your audience knows you are going to post a new tip next week and they can’t wait.

Use Captivating Titles

Some people say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but the truth is that we all do that every day. It’s the way the world works. A great title is like the beautiful wrapping around a Christmas present. Make it a promise, a mystery, a question that identifies with your audience…

Your First Sentence Matters

If your first sentence doesn’t resonate with a reader, that reader will most likely click away to a YouTube video or something else. The bad news is: it doesn’t end there. Your subsequent sentences have to matter also and build on one another.

Update Regularly with Fresh Content

If you want regular traffic to your site, whether via search engines or word of mouth, you ought to post, not just regularly, but new ideas that satisfy your niche also.

Now, think of your website as a TV series. Every week you release a new episode that further explores the world and characters. In this case, you post great, new content that explores your niche. This is what leaves them coming back.

White Space is Good

It forces you to use short paragraphs. No-one wants to read a massive lump of words because it’s tiring to the eye and brain. Using white space efficiently creates a sort of ‘pause’ for the reader, as in stopping after a distance to catch your breath. Here is a good example of an excellent use of white space

Use Video and Audio

Some people favor watching videos to reading, and a good audio can be useful to folk who are extremely busy. A mother, who wouldn’t read while cooking, just might decide to listen to your podcast instead.

There you have it. Stick to these rules and the many others across the internet, and your content may yet rise above its peers.

Find out how Macaulay Gidado can help with your content marketing.