Create Optimized Guides to Build Trust with Your Audience
Guides are ubiquitous on the web, and for good reason. Providing valuable and comprehensive content, guides can change someone’s knowledge or experience of a particular topic, which can lead to beneficial action, like converting a casual reader into a subscribed follower or turning a fan into a customer. By learning how to create optimized, comprehensive, and useful guides, you can build trust with your audience through high-quality content. So, how can you create a guide ultimate-style? Let’s dive in!
What Is a Guide?
A guide is a comprehensive educational piece of content that aims to teach an audience about a particular topic, whether it be introducing them to a subject, teaching them a set of concepts or ideas, walking them through a process to achieve an end goal, or showing them the steps to complete an action. An effective guide will meet the reader at their level of understanding, speak to them in terms that they understand, and take them to the next level to expand their knowledge, while also building trust between the person and a brand.
How to Create a Guide Ultimate-Style
- Understand your audience’s knowledge level of your topic. Research your audience’s knowledge level about your topic to write a useful guide, and don’t forget to explore the audience’s current understanding of the topic, including their top challenges. Post a poll or survey on social media, or post a question asking for feedback on what your audience would like to know about X topic.
- Research and outline your topic. Research your topic on Google and other sources such as books, interviews with experts, or videos. Take note of the key areas readers care about and include them in your guide, as well as additional insights based on personal experience, insider knowledge, or unique facts that similar guides are missing.
- Split your guide into sections, organized by sub-topic. Organize your guide into sections, with each section covering a specific sub-topic, and order the sections logically. If your guide includes any instructions or steps, ensure they’re numbered, clear, laid out logically, and easily read.
- Use keyword-rich headings. Use descriptive headings that help readers find the information they’re looking for and include keywords in your section headings for SEO purposes. If adding the focus keyword in your section headings doesn’t make sense, consider including related terms and phrases instead.
- Go deep. Include examples, descriptions, comparisons, or definitions in your guide to provide comprehensiveness and show real-world applications of what you’re talking about, sensory details that can widen readers’ understanding, additional context by comparing things your audience may not be familiar with to things they are familiar with, or definitions to lay the groundwork for understanding a topic or difficult concept.
By following these tips, you can create optimized, comprehensive, and valuable guides that build trust with your audience through high-quality content.
At Bridgewell Marketing, we specialize in creating high-quality, optimized content that satisfies search intent, improves online visibility, and drives conversions. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your business grow online.
