31 Tips for Creating Engaging, High-Value Content

1 Go back and delete all your exclamation marks. All of them. I know, it's scary. Just try it. Then reread the sentence and see if it sounds stronger!!!!1!!!

2 Intros are often the hardest part of the article. A lot rides on that first sentence to hook the reader. The rest of the first paragraph must provide a clear synopsis of the article while intriguing the reader to read further.

Make a list of crutch words you notice yourself using too often. Strengthen the sentence by editing phrases like these: "Whether you're this or that," "It is important to," "If you're looking for," "There is."

But don't let those crutches stop you from getting a first draft down. Go ahead and use them to get your words down, then smooth out the copy afterward.

3 Don't be afraid to write in the first person. Your opinion becomes much stronger when you include your first-hand experience, and using "I" reminds the writer that there is a real human being behind the content, one that relates to them and is helping to educate them to make good decisions.

4 "Just to be clear," Kelly would laugh about how often I said that phrase, but wow did it help prevent a lot of issues. You need the content you invest in to work. It costs a lot to miss the mark. I almost always wrap up a conversation about content by saying "Just to be clear, what we are trying to convey to the reader is X, Y, and Z." The writer puts their magical editorial spin on it, and we're all on the same page about the point the piece needs to make to be unique and helpful.

Just to be clear, today's tip is about making sure everyone's aligned on not just the topic but also the angle.

5 "A brief gets the content it deserves." "Your briefs are too rigid." "Your briefs are so detailed." ^I've heard both about the same brief.

Do I include an outline? Yes. The strongest writers I work with know that the brief is just the bar. If they find something different in their research, they can take the liberty to include it, rearrange it, or offer a different angle on a played-out topic.

6 Myth I actually heard once: You shouldn't link to the top URLs ranking for a keyword.

Instead: Cite the original source and go ahead and link. Your site's authority is the sum of its internet network, and linking to the most authoritative piece on a subject indicates that you understand who the other experts are in your niche.

It's unbelievable how many instances I've seen of major sites laying "claim" to a stat by not citing the source or linking the source to another page on their website.

7 If you can't get an expert quote, quote an expert. Find the leaders in your space and show examples of their direct opinion from books or social media. Some of the best gems out there are not yet on the internet or are poorly covered.

8 A huge chunk of searches is through Google Images. If you're bothering to find, compress, upload, or even make original graphics, then just finish the last step and apply the alt text—you have a much higher chance of getting 3-4 images to the top of the image search for that query. If you have a big chunk of original images in a row that relate design-wise, you're more likely to get clicks through to your website, helping your non-image results as well.

9 Back to intros... After agonizing over your first sentence, go back and delete it. Most of the time, the first sentence can be a bit fluffy or redundant, and the second sentence is stronger.

10 Most people picture an actual calendar when they think of "content calendars." The calendars I use are more like chronological lists. I will not be able to tell you what I'm going to write about in March, but I know the next 100 articles I need to write. Just because you aren't matching content to specific dates doesn't mean you're not totally organized and working in order (most of the time).

11 SEOs like to talk about writing about 0 MSV (monthly search volume) words. What's even cooler than a 0 MSV word? A word that's not even in the database yet.

If I hear the same topic brought up three times in different situations in a short period, I'll write about it. It's not quite anecdotal because it's too random and coincidental to not be a pattern, and it's not going to show up in a KW tool until it's a pattern. So I get to be first or early on the topic just by keeping my ears open in real life.

12 Will natural language processors understand smart brevity even more? The best place to start with smart brevity is headers.

Use the header as a conclusion rather than a label.

Consider the unhelpfulness of... "How much does it cost?" "Pros and Cons" "Alternatives"

Compared to... "The upper-end price reflects the quality" "Pros and cons include amazing customer service and a few privacy drawbacks" "Your alternatives might be a different product altogether."

13 In my first job, I answered the office phone and got reamed out by a client for a mistake in a report.

My supervisor told me, "Everything we produce is a production of this company, not any one individual." It totally changed the way I see my work contributions.

But it's hard to remember that when you're writing. Editors might be involved, SEOs, people who just have opinions. It can feel like your words are up on a pedestal for everyone to judge.

But when you remind yourself that the success of this piece is a result of our entire team, it becomes a little bit easier to look at a piece and see places to make it even better, rather than hope no one nitpicks it.

14 "If you're not a little bit embarrassed by it, it's too polished." I'm one of those people who doesn't even like journaling because I cringe when I go back and read my weird thoughts.

There's something about going live on the internet over and over again that makes it easier to put yourself out there, take risks with your content, and widen your comfort zone.

Perfect is the enemy of done. Go live.

15 "Every time you do something picture yourself doing it 1000 times." I have a sticky note next to my monitor that says "always be enterprising." It's about 7 years old now.

It was a lesson from a mentor: If you intend to repeat any of your processes, prepare them for increasing velocity.

1. Write down all the steps.

2. Consolidate steps if you can into the smoothest, most efficient process you can manually.

3. Automate the parts you can. This is more about reducing clicks than inventing some complicated script. EG: set your tickets to automatically change statuses based on assignee.

4. Record the video, train, and set time expectations for each step.

5. Choose which parts are easily repeatable and can be taught to others.

16 Don't be fooled by these LinkedIn SEO influencers using the Pareto principle wrong.

I've seen a few people say something like, wow, 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts, making 80% of your efforts a TOTALLY MISPLACED WASTE OF TIME.

It's kinda insulting to be told that 80% of the time we likely have no idea what we're doing or "executing wrong" or whatever leaders like to say now when they don't like to hear the data.

Counterpoint: The other 80% leads you to the 20% of success. Your content authority depends on breadth and depth of a topic, not to mention the hundreds of backlinks on those 80% pages propping up the 20% that are likely in a menu and linked within the text. There's just too many variables to be able to control what ratio of your content is going to be considered successful under your terms.

Example: Zillow, Bankrate, and Nerdwallet all have or had at one point, 30,000+ zip code pages for mortgage rates. All 3 of these websites are pretty much equally authoritative and equally able to solve the query. So let's assume they all have 1/3 of the share of the top rankings for these pages.

Does that mean they shouldn't have made 67% of them?

You gotta hear 100 no's to get one yes. All of the work leads you to where you are.

It's the entire ecosystem, my friends. Just build good things, groom them and merge away what no longer works, and you won't waste a moment.

17 Adrienne Fuller > 301 redirect > Adrienne Kmetz.

I legally changed my name last summer—an SEO's nightmare?

Here's my SEO tips for my friends who are name changing in the middle of their career:

1. Put the (nee Former Last Name) in your LinkedIn, Muckrack, and other public profiles for as long as you want; I did 6 months.

2. Make your profile picture the same between LinkedIn, Twitter, Muckrack, and your author bio.

3. Put "also written under the name First Last in publications like..." in your author bio. I also put the number of years I've been writing to make it clear that I'm not a new person.

4. Next, I'm working on schema and will add "AlternateName" and see what happens. Stay tuned.

5. I am NOT re-naming my previous articles. I was that person then when I wrote them.

Any other tips?

18 "Lead with empathy" is a content principle that means meeting the reader where they are in their journey. We'll never be able to get into the minds of every single reader, but they all relate in one way: they want clear, honest information that helps them move forward.

Empathy =/= pity.

While it's tempting to assume that empathy means commiserating, the most astute writers give the reader kindness and simplicity instead.

The most relatable articles are the ones that deliver what is promised straightforwardly and without judgment.

19 Lately I've been using a simple social-email-website flywheel to produce content for organic, then an email, then LinkedIn. The fun part about this process is that I don't always go in the same order.

Some days I'm feeling a LinkedIn vibe, and later I turn it into an article. Some days I write an email and it turns into a LinkedIn post. If you've got your process down, don't be afraid to go counterclockwise every once in a while to shake your brain up.

20 You know your own limit. Sometimes I just take a step back and realize I have way too many pieces 3/4 of the way done. There are moments when I'm so aware of my writer's block that I initiate a routine of sorts:

1. Rest.

2. Change work locations, even if that's just outside for a few minutes.

3. Let myself procrastinate for a few hours, then set a time when I will stop whatever I'm doing and force myself to finish the oldest piece on my plate.

4. Listen to a POWER SONG and jump around.

5. Sit down and start writing.

6. It's amazing how starting turns into momentum after just a few minutes.

7. Don't put rules about when you have to stop. Sometimes I write late into the night; sometimes I'm up early and writing to the sunrise. Just because you took a quiz that says you're a bear or a lion or whatever doesn't mean you need to stick to some kind of schedule. Keep going if you're on a roll.

21 It's really easy to make positive feedback generic—"great job with this piece"—and constructive feedback specific—"can you smooth out this sentence?"

Bring that same specificity to your positive reinforcement. "I love the way you used an analogy here that's trending" or "this use of slang works because its meaning is easy to understand at all ages."

Actively saying "YES, more of this!" leads to higher quality faster by encouraging the writer to expand on their strengths, rather than giving whack-a-mole feedback that isn't holistic.

22 Another thing about unclogging writer's block: Give it to someone else. Sometimes having someone else chime in, leave a comment, or a suggested phrase can be all you need to get the spark going again.

23 Not everyone's problem will be solved by your page, and often it's not the content's fault; in fact, it probably did its job, which is to help the reader make an educated decision. If they get to the bottom of the page, give them a specific next place to go that recognizes that fact. "Ready to learn more? Read our guide on X. Don't think this is right for you? Here's our guide on alternatives."

Especially if you have the guide but the link isn't in the menu, help the reader along their Yes/No decision tree to either another guide or the next guide in the funnel.

24 Tell familiar stories. Content comes alive with the power of storytelling, and we hone that skill by using it. Every time we tell a familiar story, we mentally get the creative liberty to use different adjectives, emphasize different parts, the timing of the punch line. Telling it multiple times is just like writing and editing - as we go over the story again and again, the delivery gets better and better.

25 Analogies aren't just fun; they're immensely useful to help readers understand complex ideas by relating them to things they already know. Predictive processing means the reader uses less energy to form structure around a new concept in familiar terms and features.

26 I don't follow any of the rules about good writers. I don't write every day; I don't read a lot; I don't write a ton of personal content either. Don't feel like you're a bad writer just because you're not at the gym at 5am pumping words. As long as you're writing, you'll get better.

27 Overindex on uniqueness. It's never not worth it. Everything on the internet is redundant in one way or another. There's big rewards for writers that insert their personal experience into the content, make original graphics, seek out quotes, and create new angles by combining stats together. If you only have a short amount of time to improve your content, uniqueness is one of the highest leverage improvements you can make.

28 Grammarly is free, y'all.

29 After years of writing for a compliance-first publisher, it's now second nature for me to avoid using superlatives like "best," "highest," "cheapest," or "most." In a world where anything can be true on the internet, integrity stands out. As you scan back over your content, look for any claims you can't back up or aren't 100% sure are true. It's entirely possible to reframe it into something equally or even stronger, that's also true.

30 The best part about advice is you don't have to take it. Thank you for following along, and let me know what you want to learn next :)

31 Podcast posts with no transcriptions are one of the easiest places to get free content. After transcribing 20 podcasts and editing them, and leaving 20 others with only show notes, I'm noticing that the posts with only show notes don't even rank at all for the target word, whereas the posts with transcriptions rank in the top 20 consistently. With AI tools all over the place, lock yourself inside for a weekend, initiate your free trial, and have yourself a little transcribathon.

Consistent, thoughtful content strengthens brand identity. The tone, values, and expertise conveyed in your writing shape how audiences perceive your brand. There are a million ways to improve content quality – these are just the ones that work best for me.