The 26 Surprising Rules Of Great Content Creation

The 26 Surprising Rules Of Great Content Creation Great content creation is a lifestyle. You live and breath it; almost everything that happens to you makes you think this could be a blog post. Here are the rules. You probably already know them, because youre living them now. The Rules Of Great Content Creation 1. Live what you write. Believe in what youre writing, or it will show. You can talk it if you walk it. Otherwise, youre guessing out loud and your audience can tell. If you find yourself writing what you dont believe anymore, change what youre doing, rethink your beliefs–do something. Try to get the two as parallel as you can or youll start to feel resentment and have a hard time living with yourself. 2. Your critics and fans are the same. Be ready for both criticism and adoration from the same people, over the same content, and in the same day. Take one as well as the other. They go together like light and shadow. 3. Always be reading.  Read not just blogs and books that are related to marketing or blogging or your niche. Read outside your usual realm. Read fiction and non-fiction. Read history and philosophy. All things can apply to the content you are creating in some way some day. You wont regret your knowledge stockpile. Ever. 4. Dont write too much. Write every day. Write extra, because youll be editing and cutting. Write as the habit it should be. But dont write so much that youre burned out. When you feel burned out on writing, pick up a fiction book and read. Reset your mind in a different path. 5. Write with daring. The post I wrote last week was different. I sat down to write and thought in exasperation I cannot write yet another typical blog post. Not today. So I wrote something else. It might not appeal to readers. It might not be the top-post. It might garner laughs. I might wish later Id not written it. But I needed to write something that was different even if only so I could write fresh the next day. 6. Write so your readers enjoy it. You have a chance to brighten someones day, give them the change in direction they were hoping for, or change an attitude. Your goal isnt to write a great blog. Its to write a great day for your readers. Your goal isnt to impress someone else. Its to write so the person who reads it is glad that he or she did. 7. Think of yourself as a writer, not a content creator. One changes the world, the other packages up a product. There will be days when feeling comparable to a factory wont inspire you much at all. On those days, think of yourself as a writer. You have a great history of noble and great writers to be inspired by; less so with content creators. Think of yourself as a writer, not a content creator. Its a different mindset.8. Think of yourself as a content creator, and not a writer. Some days you have to ship, whether you have a grand philosophy to share that day or not. If need be, compartmentalize your creative self. Understand you have a job to do, that it might not feel noble right now, but youre gonna do it the best you can, and that it doesnt define who you are later. 9. Stretch yourself. Stretch how you write, the topics you write about, and be sure to stand up periodically and actually, physically stretch yourself at your desk so you dont fall asleep. Get the blood moving to your head. 10. Wander away from the pack. Try something that everyone else doesnt swear by. Ignore that great advice. They say short, you say long. They say now, you say tomorrow. It might not work, they might have been right, but at least you strengthened your writing backbone a bit and tested out your own feet. And, who knows. You might end up finding something new that becomes the next must-have advice. 11. Network, and be friendly. No one hugs a porcupine. Be friendly online. You dont have to be fake. If youre not feeling friendly when you read that blog post comment, come back when you do, and not a moment before. This is how you connect with people. 12. Promote your work before yourself. Its not about you, its about what youre writing and what people want. Remember this: unless youre a famous celebrity and people have oddly fixated on you, people really only care about themselves and what you can do for them. They care less about that new puppy you blogged about and more about the 5 Ways They Can Save $100 Each Week. Dont be a self-promoter. Be a work-promoter. People are interested in themselves. Let your work feed that. Promote your work before yourself. People want you for what you can do for13. Blame no one. You wrote a blog post that bombed, started a flame war, was grossly inaccurate, was hilariously bad, caused people to unsubscribe from your email list, or was pistol-whipped by search engines? Your fault. You wrote it. Not a big deal. Move on and keep writing. 14. Inquire after your readers. Ask questions, in your blog posts, in your comments, on social media. Actually ask with the desire to hear. This is not you throwing out a fishhook to snare the next sucker for your online webinar. This is you asking another person and letting them share their opinion. You will learn something. 15. See words in a new light. Words are not just a means to an end. They are capturing the electric thoughts in your brain so others can understand them. They are powerful and not merely governed by rules, not merely a rigid part of a formula. Expand your vocabulary. Experiment with the sound of the words as you read them in your head, the juxtaposition of words, the hidden meanings and puns that you can create based on how you use words. Dump your cliches and stand-by phrases. 16. Understand your blog is dangerous. Oh, is it ever. Its the printing press and the pen that defeated the sword and the freely spoken word, all rolled up into one and then some. Your blog can be powerful. Will you use it to harm, to help, or to simper and whine? Your blog can be powerful. Do you use it to harm, help, or complain?  #ContentMarketingRules17. You are the oven. As a blogger, you take all the raw materials–the studies, the blog posts, the articles, the books, the infographics–and you interpret them for your reader. You do the hard stuff so they can have ten or fifteen minutes of enjoyment reading. Dont be annoyed that this is what you will do. Be sure you know how to distill your knowledge down for this purpose. 18. Expect completely unpredictable returns. You will not understand why your least favorite or most ridiculous posts get the most traffic. You shouldnt chase after it. People will read what they will read. Dont restructure your blog around a topic purely based on numbers. One-hit wonders are found on every blog. They throw off the curve and thats how it is. 19. Tip your hat to search engines, then turn your back. Ultimately, you are not feeding a search engine. You are not here for a robot. You are here for human readers and you should never, ever let anything trump human readability and enjoyment no matter how much racket the robot makes. 20. Its all about who you know. You can work 10 years or 10 days and have the same success. It depends on who you know and who they know and if theyll share and tell. That may be discouraging. Whatever it is, it isnt a blank check for shoddy work. You do your best work over the days and the years. 21. One-time hits are great, but not that great. A one time hit is like a punch. It happens, it dissipates, you might have some collateral effects for a while, but you quickly settle back to the status quo. Your content shouldnt be created out of an infatuation with hit counts. Thats chasing after the wind. Even if you catch it, so what? One-hit wonders on your blog will happen. They dont define your blog.  #ContentMarketingRules22. Accept your title. Are you a professional blogger? A part-time blogger? A hobby blogger? It doesnt matter what you are, so long as you know. Thatll help you understand what tools youll use, for one thing, and how much sleep youll lose over things like leads and conversions and affiliate income. Know what kind of blogger you are, and proceed to write without shame. Theres room for everyone. 23. Be authentic, but know if youre a jerk. The word now is authenticity and trust and thats the best way to write but do you know if your authentic self is even likable? do you care? Does your audience care? Be authentic enough, but temper it with a kindness and patience for your audience. Youre not a hypocrite if you do that, nor is your writing fake. 24. You are writing in permanent marker. What you write online is forever. Even if you robots.txt your site so the Internet Archive cant access it, the things you write online do not come with an eraser two or three years down the road. Be friends with your draft button and think before you hit publish. 25. Find your own growth percentage. Im not talking about traffic or conversions. Im talking about what percentage of content will you write according to the winning formulas of the day, and what percentage will you write simply to grow your knowledge and skills whether they are a traffic win or not? There might be overlap, but there might just be a few posts here and there that no one cares about that still changed your own life. 26. The best way to learn to be a blogger is to be a blogger. To learn, you have to start. To get better, you have start when youre at your worst youll ever be. You can read all of the how to be a blogger posts you want, but until you start you wont understand. To be a blogger, you must be a blogger.