Writing practical advice seems quite straightforward, doesn’t it?
You love sharing your knowledge.
What can go wrong?
You pick a topic you know well. You write a step-by-step explanation. A little editing and voilà … your tutorial, guide or how to post is ready to publish.
Reality is often different.
How often do you read how-to posts that are superficial and useless?
How often does reading educational content feel like a waste of your time? Too overwhelming, too much blah blah, or not concrete enough?
Writing a practical guide is like cooking for friends
Imagine a childhood friend comes to visit with her kids. You’ve not seen each other for a few years. What will you cook?
First, you need to know what they like to eat. Do they like spicy food? Is anyone allergic? What if one of the kids has become a vegetarian?
With writing it’s the same. Think about your audience before picking a topic:
- Are they struggling with the problem you want to write about?
- Do they want to solve this problem?
- Can you help them solve this problem or is the problem too big? Can you narrow it down?
It’s easy to fall into the trap of writing what we know, and forgetting to share what our readers want to learn.
Create a recipe in easy steps
You’ve cooked chicken fajitas for your friend and her kids.
They love your fajitas so much, they want the recipe so they can make it at home.
What will you write down?
An advanced chef doesn’t require as much detail as a beginner. You might not include exactly how many spices you use. Or you might skip the instructions for making guacamole.
With writing educational content it’s the same. Think about your readers … which details do they require to implement your advice? Could they choke because your advice is not detailed enough? Or are you boring them with too many details they know already?
Writing a recipe for fajitas is easier than writing a how-to for topics like leadership, self-improvement, or marketing, because these topics are abstract.
To help readers implement advice for an abstract topic, use images, metaphors, and examples, so readers can visualize your ideas. Make your advice concrete to captivate and educate your audience.
Educational content is the staple food of content marketing
Practical advice is shareable advice ~ Jonah Berger
Useful content also builds your authority, increases your credibility, and gets readers to trust your advice. That’s how you earn the opportunity to sell.
But how-to guides only work when you inspire your readers to implement your advice.
So, when you next share your tips, think about your hungry reader …
Is she printing your recipe and cooking your favorite dish tonight?
Recommended reading for creating educational content:
3 visual thinking tips to delight your readers
Abstract vs concrete language: How to share the big picture
How to use metaphors
Hey Henneke,
I agree with you 100% on this. Your how to posts must be practical enough for your readers to instantly implement themselves. I’ve read quite a few how to/educational posts that had me dumbfounded or just bored me to death. Most readers just want you to get to the point without all the extraneous jargon. This goes along with the 4 different personalities and how you can streamline your content towards each one.
Thanks for sharing Henneke! Have a great weekend!
Yes, it happens quite often that how-to posts are boring, doesn’t it? But it can be hard work to make them fun. I guess too often people are creating content for the sake of it without thinking about why they’re creating it.
Thank you for stopping by again, Sherman!
Off topic: I LOVE YOUR ART! 🙂
This is such a helpful post. Thanks so much. I think I need to work harder on the hunger aspect, on feeding at mealtime and not giving too many between-meal snacks.
Also, do you have a post about what to do when people click on your offer a lot but never bite, such as maybe how the free offer landing page could be better?
It’s like if the friend, above, came to dinner but never sat down at the table? I know I offer well-loved info, but it seems no one wants to click to get it. Such a small price!
Ha yes, good point. What’s the right frequency of blogging? I personally don’t like blogs that post daily, but some daily blogs are very popular. I’ve even considered changing my schedule to every other week.
You may find this blog post useful: http://www.copyblogger.com/guest-post-landing-pages/ (it explains how I created my landing page for my free snackable course plus also reviews a landing page for an ebook)
I just learned so many new things after reading this post; you’ve given me so many new ideas to work upon. Thank you for posting it 🙂
You’re welcome 🙂
Hi Henneke, love this post, great and colourful alright, who wouldn’t want to doing into a post like that.
Good cooking choice as well, when can I come to eat?
Love and Blessings
Annamarie
You can come for dinner any time! 😀
This is another great way to explain the age-old advice “show, don’t tell.”
Yes, you’re so right! I hadn’t even realized it 🙂
Good advice and something I still struggle with. Some topics I’m sure will resonate with readers and I publish and hear crickets chirping. Others (especially personal anecdotes) get tons of hits. Its not always easy to predict, but you’re right, in the end its about what the reader wants to read.
Yes, I agree – it’s a continuous process of learning. I don’t always get it right either. 🙂
Deliciously appetizing – as always Henneke! Your posts are a joy to read and your graphics just keep getting better all the time!
Thank you, Marie 🙂
Great article. Yes -Slice and dice to give the audience features that you are sure they want from your research rather than a generic description of a chicken fajita.
Yep, chicken fajita sounds a little boring, doesn’t it?
Make sure you don’t forget the benefits that go with those features!
Perfect timing, today I’m copy-editing content that is a little blah and needs that spark. You have great suggestions that I can put to work right away. I love your posts – keep them coming!
That sounds great. You put a smile on my face, Jane 🙂
Happy editing!
Great article Henneke – I use analogy, metaphor and non-technical diagrams to describe brain functions. I’ve wanted to use hand drawn figures in my material, but have been afraid it would “lower the tone”. Your copy blogger link has convinced me otherwise. I’ll give it a try. Thanks again; there seems to be no limit to your understanding of getting a message across! Paul
Yes, give hand-drawn images a try 🙂
You might enjoy Dan Roam’s book The Back of the Napkin. He popularized the idea of using simple images, and has many tips for creating the right images to clarify your ideas.
Another great post! I love your cooking analogies! They really clarify, plus they’re fun! Thanks!
Thank you, Terri! I’m guessing that quite a lot of readers here also enjoy cooking. 🙂
😉 Don’t forget to put the cherries on top!
Oops. Did I forget the cherries? 😉
Outstanding drawing today … very helpful!
How long does it take you to create something “delicious” like that?
Close to ten hours! Not something I can do every week.
This was like a special “one-off” project – a personal challenge. But it was so much fun to create that I might try another one another time 😀
Firstly, I have to say I love your drawing here, Henneke. I’m not an automatic “Pinner” but I had to pin this one. How long did it take you? It’s bril!
I like your food analogy regarding writing content that educates and teaches and thinking about what you want people to get out of both. Or what you want people to do as a result of reading your content or eating your meal.
Sometimes, I think it’s easy to think that your writing a great How-To post that’s full of meaty content that solves a problem for readers. But all too often, it’s a problem you think people have. Or maybe it’s clear it’s a problem for them. In reality, it’s not a problem they consider they have. It’s not a problem they want to solve. It all comes down to knowing exactly what will make people want to read your content.
Yes, choosing the right problem can be tricky. For instance, sometimes people think their problem is a copywriting problem (“I can’t find the right words”), but their real problem is a marketing problem (they don’t know who their ideal customers are or they don’t know what their ideal customers are looking for).
Thank you for pinning the drawing, Tom. It took me about 10 hours to create. I won’t do this every week 😉
Drawn in by your post which drove me to utilize your tips for improving my power point presentation. Thank you. Bon Appetite.
Yay! That’s great to hear.
Happy writing, Amy 🙂
Thanks for sharing this!
I have learned a lot from this short, but well-written essay, on how to provide the audience the content that they would read–and recommend.
I have been writing for newspapers and online news, and journalism–except for the feature and investigative articles–sometimes disallow the writer to write in a more intimate manner. Straight to the point, with no flowery words. Metaphors, sometimes, are considered a taboo.
Keep the articles coming. Thank you!
Yes, blog writing is more intimate and more personal than writing for newspapers.
A blog post is more like a conversation with a reader rather than a one-way news update. In newspapers, you won’t find the word “you” or “I” used often.
Thank you, Noel!
Hello Henneke,
This week’s post made me smile because the last part:
“But how-to guides only work when you inspire your readers to implement your advice.”
is completely true. To an extent that you inspired me to do my first Slideshare presentation, which I precisely published today by the way 🙂
Thanks so much for all your writing tips, they’re really inspiring!
Yay! Congrats on your first SlideShare. It’s looking great 🙂
Yes, I 100% agree that useful content must contain examples. And visual images go a long way to help readers engage…provided they’re relevant and high quality.
Henneke, your pencil drawings continue to delight and entertain. Love your stylized letters and colours.
Thank you so much, Gay. This project was like a personal challenge. It was a lot of fun to create it!
Good to see you again 🙂
Excellent post, Henneke.
You’re spot on with this topic and awesome analogy. You have to choose what your readers want and prepare it in a way they’ll enjoy. And more importantly, learn from.
That’s why knowing your readers is so important. Excellent post and love the infographic too.
– Andrew
P.S. how long did it take to come up with that analogy. It was truly perfect for this post.
The idea for the infographic was relatively easy – a while back I was doing a course about illustrating recipes and I had generated several ideas quite quickly.
But drawing the whole infographic took ages. I worked on it over a period of 10 days or so, doing the drawings bit by bit. It was fun to do! 🙂
Hello Henneke.
“Do you feel educational content is a waste of your time?”
I take a long term view and get a good return on the effort I put in to making quality content.
Writing content that ranks well in Google IS hard. But it serves me well for months or even years.
P.S. your graphics make learning FUN!
Thank you, Philip.
I’m going to change that question as I can see it’s ambiguous. I meant: “Do you feel reading educational content is often a waste of your time?” I feel a lot of so-called educational or “how-to” content isn’t created for readers, it’s just taking up online space, because it’s not detailed enough, overwhelming or boring.
And I agree with you on the long term view – it can take a while for a new site to start ranking well in Google.
Hi Henneke,
What a delicious infographic!
Yes knowing your readers is the most important step.
Then feed them with your best metaphors and they’re guaranteed to have the most amazing meal ever 🙂
Yep, let’s keep cooking up more metaphors 😀
Fabulous article as always! Love the visuals in this one.
Churning out articles after articles with no value gets you nowhere – no brownie points with Google, no loyal army, no subscribers. Your first and foremost reason for writing a blog post should be educating your audience, giving them value – not filling up the blog space!
Thank you, Maham. I’m glad to hear you like the visuals in this post 🙂
And yep, I agree with you – if you don’t give value to your readers, why would they make time to read your content?
Good to “see” you here!
Yeah… You are just spot on. Content Marketing must be useful and practicable. Just that it really take a lot of time to create such contents with the craze now about providing fresh contents on your site to rank well on Google, it’s becoming a challenge.
But on the whole valuable and practicable content is a no brainer.
Thanks for this insightful post.
Yep, creating good content takes time, but it’s worth the effort!