Krishnan's Personal Website

In today’s digital era mankind is more active on the internet than it is in the real world.

People are more active online than they are offline. We might not know even the names of our next door neighbors but we know a lot about somone living in a faraway land. 

If we take a close look at how we know a lot about a random person on the internet, the answer most probably would be through their blog or their YouTube videos or their Instagram reels. In a nutshell it would have been some form of content that they posted online. 

So for people to find you and know about you or your business, content is the key. 

In this article I have shared some strategies that I have used in my career to successfully grow my blog to thousands of page views and lead generation. Though the strategies and lessons are from my experience in growing a blog, the underlying logic applies to other types of content as well. 

That being said, let's get down to learning about the strategies. 

Be Consistent

If you don’t create content consistently then it is of no use. I have talked about this in many of my articles and I can’t stress on it enough. 

Consistency is a very very important factor here. I have seen many people succeed with even shitty content by being consistent, but there is not a single individual who has managed to succeed with inconsistently creating content. 

One of my blogs for a SaaS product took almost 3 years of consistent posting to get some meaningful traffic and leads. 

So if you are setting out on your journey to create content then be prepared to be consistent for a longer period of time. Consistency does not mean creating content every day or every hour. Create a schedule and stick to it. For this blog my schedule is to post two articles every month. 

Prepare To Run A Marathon

Building a blog or a YouTube channel or an Instagram page is going to take a lot of time. So be prepared to play the long game. 

Your content strategy will not succeed if you are being consistent for a short period of time. Most of the influencers who are overnight sensation today have once been normal folks like any of us. 

The only thing that they did extra was to post content consistently over a period of time. 

The world is the least bothered about your content and opinion, so do not expect people to come rushing to your blog or social media page to consume your content. For the first three to six months of producing content the max you can expect is to get some audiences here and there who found out about you from Google search. 

The longer you post high quality content consistently the better the chance of your content showing up on the first page of Google search results.

"Read about how to build a blog from scratch"

Don't Use AI

With the advent of tools like ChatGPT, the internet is flooded with a huge number of AI generated articles. 

If you read these articles carefully you will notice that none of these articles cover the topic in depth. It will just be a high level overview of the topic. These articles are nothing more than a  meaningful version of lorem ipsum. 

You will be able to fill your blog up with AI generated content but they will create no value for your readers and eventually they will stop visiting your blog. Search engine’s are also working across the clock to identify AI generated content to remove them from their search results. 

The goal here is not to fill your blog up with random text, but to create authentic well crafted pieces of content. 

If I have to interpret this for other types of content, I must say that the content should not be copied from someone else. You cannot download or clone someone else’s content. It should be an authentic source of content. 

Start Small

When we are starting our journey of creating content we are so charged up that we start creating all types of content. One day we are writing an amazing blog post and the next day we are busy shooting and editing a YouTube video. 

This going all in attitude is not going to help you in the longer run. In addition to that, focusing on multiple platforms will also reduce the quality of the content that you are creating. 

No matter how aggressively you create content you will not become an overnight sensation. 

So the goal here should be to focus on one platform and one content type and once you have a consistent amount of audience in that platform only then you should think about branching out to another platform or content type. 

In my case I had been responsible for creating content strategies for a good number of B2B businesses and in every one of those instances I would start with writing long post articles and publish it on the official blog. Then I would choose one social media platform where my target audiences would hangout. Just one social media platform, that’s all. 

Don't Chase Money

It is obvious that we all create content to make some money. But that should not be the primary goal. If you chase money you might win for a short while but you will eventually lose. 

The primary goal should be to create content that either helps people solve their problems or adds value to their lives or businesses. 

In the case of a blog I usually go with writing two to three long detailed articles for the first two months. Nothing else, just a long detailed article that is presented well. 

In the case of a blog article make sure the article is not just a paragraph of text. Add some images or tabular columns. Make it interesting. In the case of a video shoot high quality videos and edit it well to make it interesting. 

Don’t Chase SEO

A simple google search on how to devise a content strategy will lead you to a number of blog articles talking about doing keyword research and other stuff. Though these things matter in the longer run but definitely not when you are starting to create content. 

Your mantra is to create authentic good quality content. Nothing more and nothing less. 

If it’s a personal project then create content on topics that you are interested in. If it’s your business, write content that helps your target audience know more about the problem statement and the problem your business is solving. 

Put some high quality content out there and then let’s worry about the other things like keyword research. What is the point of generating a huge amount of keywords and storing them in a spreadsheet when you are not writing good quality content. 

 

Don't Chase Viral Content

In the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic an article written by the protagonist Rebecca Bloomwood, played by Isla Fisher becomes viral overnight. The entire town talks about it. 
If you are reading this article and come this far you might have guessed by now that these things often happen in movies and are mostly the director’s figment of imagination. 

So if you are creating content for your personal brand or business you must stick with creating authentic good quality content. While sitting down to write an article your focus should be to create articles that help your target audience or add value to their lives or help them earn more money. That’s all. 

Everything else is simply a wild goose chase. Running around and trying to create viral content is like trying to win a lottery.

However if you consistently produce good quality content there is a high probability that one of your content will definitely go viral at some point. 

So chase quality and virality while creating content. 

 

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