On an almost daily basis, I am often asked about my line of work. One common question, once I explain exactly what it is that we do at SJC Copywriting, is how we know what to write about. This is a simple question, but it doesn’t have a one-word answer. In fact, the answer could be considered flaky: it really depends.

This ambiguity is not to deflect the question, but to provide an opportunity for explanation. The real answer is that it depends on the client’s audience. Yes, we do writing of our own – as demonstrated by this blog – but the focus of most of our work is creating dynamic content for our long list of clients.

I like the explanation provided in this Content Management News piece: focus on the needs of your marketplace. We could easily fill pages and pages with content exploring the benefits a client offers to customers, why their product is truly the best and how to maximize an investment in the latest solutions – but do readers really care about any of those things?

To truly use content to its fullest value – leveraging the marketing potential – you have to ensure it offers something to the reader. If your site inundates the visitor with an overload of things they need to do for you, what value do you deliver in this experience? Excessive sales notes and “Act Now” commandments simply scare people away. You lose the power of the exclusive offer when visitors don’t understand how they will benefit.

Content marketing as a strategy only works when it is designed to extend value to the reader. Simply posting content for the sake of content to try and earn search rank results will quickly tag a site as spam or junk. In fact, Google now has human reviewers checking sites and trashing those with no reader value. Legitimate sites aren’t generally a concern, but the reality is the bar has been set higher than ever.

That said, what are you doing to extend value to your readers? Do you extend just enough that they want to come back for more? If you aren’t sure where to start, we can help. At SJC Copywriting, we know content and we know marketing – a combination of the two online can drive more revenue for you. The only question that remains is – what are you waiting for?