Your Content Sucks! Here’s What To Do About It…

0  comments

Did you really want to be a blogger when you grew up?  Chances are, blogging wasn’t even a word yet when you were dreaming of being a doctor, philanthorpist, or President of the United States.

And now that you are, you are finding that it is hard to just make great content fly out of your fingertips on demand.

This is a problem for even seasoned bloggers.  The end result can be “meh” content that gets little, if any, attention.

curation blogging

The Solution:  Curation and Riffing

Many people have told me over the years that I should be a stand up comedian.  Most of the time they recommended this career path, they were drunk, just for full disclosure.  My problem, as I have always pointed out, is that I am a “riffer” who can only seem to say something funny or snarky in retorts or by going off the “material” others throw out in conversation.

That kind of makes it hard to do stand up.

In blogging it is also incredibly hard at times to find the inspiration to fill a blank page with content interesting enough to be worthy of linkage or significant “thumbs up” from your followers on social sites.

That’s why almost every successful blogger on Earth has used curation and riffing to fill their pages with content people respond to.  They use daily news, industry specific news, and content from other bloggers they follow to start the conversation.  Or to create an almost entirely 3rd party sourced post with the addition of simple commentary of their own.

Finding Inspiration:  Lean on Who You Follow

If you are any good at following the right blogs, news outlets, and though leaders in your market, whether via Google Reader or through your social accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+, you already have most of what you need to turn your content quality up to 10.

At least you have tons of things to curate and riff on at your fingertips on a daily basis.  Filtering the good from the bad and presenting it in a blog post is curation and it is a necessary, in-demand service many successful blogs provide.  And they are rewarded with accolades, viral buzz, and profits from their ever-increasing fan base.

What you need then is a system you follow including all the places you check each day for news, funny stuff, or expert and celebrity news related to your industry or topic.  A system whereby you can easily filter and curate content for your blog that your readers will love and appreciate.

More and more blogs are going to a curation style of content because it is easier to put together, takes far less time, and Google isn’t penalizing anyone for using a majority of content snippets from elsewhere in their posts.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

Curation System Tips

1.  Make sure you include new editorial rules for yourself in coming up with blog content in your content development plan.  Chief among them:  start highlighting and using more content from other sources to take the burden off of yourself and align your blog with current trends, news, and people who are far more influential and respected than you are in your niche.

2.  Set aside time each day to read and keep up with the latest and greatest developments in your niche.  Use what you really like to create great posts for your readers.

3.  Use software, like my own Utility Poster, to help you with efficiency and content discovery.  Making curation even easier.

4.  Use curation to ramp up your output.  The more you post, the more chances you have of getting more good rankings and traffic.  Curation allows you to be like a Puffer Fish and appear much larger than you really are based solely on the amount of content you are able to produce.

5.  Listen and know your market.  What do they want?  What are they responding to on yours and other sites the most?

6.  Jump on trending topics fast and break news whenever you can.  (You can break news even if you aren’t technically the first publisher on a story.  You can break the news to YOUR readers by curating and riffing off of the original source.  The web is VERY big and breaking news on one site is totally new news to your readers in many cases.)

8835TXBDKWR6

Spread the love

Tags

blogging tips, content development, curation, riffing


You may also like

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}

Get in touch

Name*
Email*
Message
0 of 350