Source: http://www.slideshare.net/lcarnihan/great-web-content-by-lee-carnihan
Does your audience literally understand what you’re saying?
Are you using their language, phrasing and words?
Or using marketing spiel?
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
Is this really you speaking?
Do you say what you mean and mean what you say?
Promises mean nothing until they are kept.
No one needs a brolly in the bath.
Are you a recognised leader in your field?
Do people look to your content for guidance?
Does it set the standard?
Don’t be a zebra.
Be a peacock.
If if doesn’t wow, it doesn’t win
Does it raise an eyebrow?
Does it get the heart racing?
Does it inspire action?
Are you the only one saying this?
Or are you a me-too?
You can’t sell rifles and bibles.
Whatever device I choose to view your content in,
make it responsive to that device
Your content doesn’t have to actually win an award,
just be good enough to deserve one,
or at least a round of applause.
How does your content help me do what I need to get done?
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.
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.
Allow me to share your content and let me show my appreciation for it.
Let me tweet it, comment on it, like it, or give it a smiley face.
What is “likeable” will depend on local culture too.
Is the content you’re creating your bread and butter?
Or are you just creating it because everyone else is?
Quite simply, give me your content when I need it.
Not when you want to give it to me
Does your content rank in search?
If not, where else will I find it?
Help me find it.
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?
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.
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?
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 - list text hereand relieve the pain?
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”.
