Your website content needs to be many things if you want it to be searched for and valued by your customers and go viral. So what makes great web content? This slide deck has the answers.

1. WHAT MAKES
GREAT WEB
CONTENT?

2. GREAT WEB CONTENT
SHOULD HAVE SOME, IF NOT ALL,
OF THE FOLLOWING QUALITIES...

3. BE UNDERSTANDABLE
Does your audience literally understand what you’re saying?
Are you using their language, phrasing and words?
Or using marketing spiel?

4. BE A STORY, OR LIKE A STORY
Nothing grabs our attention or holds it quite like a story.
Not all content can be written like a story of course but if it can, it should.

5. BE AUTHENTIC AND ETHICAL
Is this really you speaking?
Do you say what you mean and mean what you say?
Promises mean nothing until they are kept.

6. BE RELEVANT
No one needs a brolly in the bath.

7. BE AUTHORITATIVE
Are you a recognised leader in your field?
Do people look to your content for guidance?
Does it set the standard?

8. BE UNIQUE
Don’t be a zebra.
Be a peacock.
If if doesn’t wow, it doesn’t win.

9. BE EVOCATIVE
Does it raise an eyebrow?
Does it get the heart racing?
Does it inspire action?

10. BE SCARCE
Are you the only one saying this?
Or are you a me-too?

11. HAVE CONSISTENT VALUES
You can’t sell rifles and bibles.

12. BE ACCESSIBLE
Whatever device I choose to view your content in,
make it responsive to that device.

13. BE APPLAUD OR AWARD WORTHY
Your content doesn’t have to actually win an award,
just be good enough to deserve one,
or at least a round of applause.

14. BE USEFUL
How does your content help me do what I need to get done?

15. BE LOCAL / BE CONVENIENT
Wherever I am, you need to be there too.
I want your content to fit around me and the things I am trying to do,
not me fitting around you.

16. RECIPROCATE
Giving something away encourages me to reciprocate in kind.
Gated assets aren’t as attractive the first time we meet because
you have yet to establish you can be trusted with my details.

17. BE LIKEABLE & SOCIABLE
Allow me to share your content and let me show my appreciation for it.
Let me tweet it, comment on it, give it a thumbs up, a star, a heart, or a smiley face.
What is “likeable” will depend on local culture too.

18. BE COMMITTED TO THE CAUSE
Is the content you’re creating your bread and butter?
Or are you just creating it because everyone else is?

19. BE TIMELY
Quite simply, give me your content when I need it.
Not when you want to give it to me.

20. BE DISCOVERABLE
Does your content rank in search?
If not, where else will I find it?
Help me find it.

21. BE SEMANTIC: EVERYTHING IS RELATED
What is this bird? Where does it live? How fast do its wings beat?
What would I want to know next?
What should I know next?
What could I know next?

22. OFFER JUST ENOUGH CHOICE
Too much choice will overwhelm me and slow me down. It will confuse me.
It will lose you a sale. Give me just enough choice so that I feel I have a choice,
then let me compare quickly and easily.
Then let me buy.

23. ENLIGHTENING
Is your content revealing something I don’t already know?
Are you saying something old but in a new way?
What will I learn?
And why should I invest my time in learning it?

24. SOLVE A PROBLEM, RELIEVE PAIN
What’s my problem? I might not know.
What I definitely feel is the pain of the problem.
Does your content help me solve the problem
and relieve the pain?

25. DON’T OVERWHELM ME, HELP ME FOCUS
The more call to actions you throw at me,
the less sense I can make of each one and the more likely
I am to choose “none of the above”.

26. AND IF YOU’RE WONDERING
HOW TO TURN THOSE
QUALITIES INTO A
CONTENT STRATEGY,
TRY THIS...

27. SEND THE RIGHT MESSAGE
IN THE RIGHT FORMAT
TO THE RIGHT PERSON
IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT
THROUGH THE RIGHT CHANNEL
AT THE RIGHT TIME.
SIMPLE.

28. I’m Lee. I love design. What do you love?
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