Recovering From Writing Bad Content

It happened: you wrote a bomb in content writing that failed to garner the views and reception you hoped for. You might feel like you have officially hit rock bottom and have failed as a writer. Nevertheless, you must remember the truth: everyone fails or makes mistakes at one point or another.

One day, you will write a dud, face some form of failure, and must recover from it, but how? Do you reuse content, dump it all together, or leave it as is? Every piece of content varies, and how you handle failures differs each time as well. You can handle these failures in multiple ways—which ultimately remains up to you.

Should You Even Try Saving a Dud?

As you look at a failed article or page and see the results and turn-out, you might feel hopeless. You may even begin to question: Is there any point in even trying to save a failure? The answer? It depends. When you need to consider saving a less successful piece, you must place yourself in the audience’s shoes. What reads or sounds well, and what is or fails to be interesting?

First, you should consider whether your content provides a unique outlook, knowledge, expertise on information, or has relevance. If you say no to all of these, then yes, you should probably move on to other content to write or improve. But if you can say yes, you have the potential to polish it into something better. If you have a similar piece that does all of these but had greater success, you should prioritize it instead. Doing so not only clears out clutter but focuses optimization on a stronger piece.

Optimize and Raise Visibility

If you have lackluster performing content with low conversion rates, the writing itself needs tweaking and optimization. You may struggle to decide where to begin, but what better place to start then, well, the start? In fact, many pieces with low conversion rates typically lack interest because of their beginnings.

An article or page needs a good “hook” to grab the audience’s attention, one that stirs curiosity to continue reading. These can be a personal anecdote, rhetorical questions, quotes, or noteworthy statistics. On the flip side, a good CTA—or Call to Action—helps conclude and leave an impact on readers. Sometimes, simply adding extra media such as videos, photos, graphs, and podcasts add extra life to a page.

After taking the time to optimize, adjust, and pretty up a page, consider: can your audience finding your content easily? Sometimes, the issue may not be the writing itself but how accessible it is through your website or search engines. Consider promoting a lesser performing piece or moving pages to more visible locations on the site. You should also consider and ensure your pages properly utilize SEO for work to easily show up through search engines.

Lacking a Content Tilt

Now that you have probably given your content a good once-over, perhaps you have done everything. You promoted your work heavily, it utilizes SEO, it has a great CTA, and has the hook it needs. And yet despite that, your content has still underperformed—but why? Put simply, you might be writing your content too straightforward, reading stale, and boring without a “tilt.”

A content tilt helps not only capture the readers’ attention beyond the hook but keeps them invested to the end. The content tilt is what makes your work stand out above the rest, both creatively and attention-wise. When you just copy and paste another idea or format, you fail to capture audiences towards your work over others’. It feels overly familiar, common among other content writers, and provides nothing new for the audience. When you look at your work, consider not only how to improve it, but how to make it unique to both seasoned and newer readers. But after your consideration, then you should ask yourself: would you or any readers miss anything from this piece?

By utilizing many of these tips and tricks, you can make writing more interesting for yourself and reading more engaging for your audience. If your content marketing team is struggling to create interesting, unique content, you can seek assistance. Through services such as law firm marketing, social media management, and blog distribution networks, Actionable Agency can help. By offering many marketing solutions and web development for law firms across the country, we extend their reach and develop their business. At Actionable Agency, we can provide an analysis of your current strategy and website of your firm to help formulate new solutions. For more information, call us toll-free at (855) 206-9689.