Content Ideas for Consultants - Useful Content (Part 2)


If you've already mastered Getting Started (Part 1 in this series), you have gained some momentum and are ready to expand your skills and tackle some content that is useful to your readers and time-saving for you.

Save Yourself Time and Be Useful

There are so many types of content that can fit into this category; my concern is overwhelming you. So let's start simple and you'll begin to see all the possibilities yourself.
  1. Think of a piece of information that you relay repeatedly, such as every time you take on a new client. If you can't think of it now, this will come to mind when you do it next.
    My example is about writing the introduction to your first newsletter. Every time I started working with a new client, I wrote them an email giving advice and examples. The quality varied, the examples varied, and I was wasting time repeating myself.
  2. Either now or the next time you have to, take the time to write an awesome version of that information, detailed and with examples.
  3. Take that article you just created and add it to your blog or next newsletter.
    My original example is Introducing Your Very First Issue, and last year I wrote an updated version, How to Write the Introduction to Your First Newsletter.
  4. Share a link to that article frequently. Link back to it from newer articles that reference the topic. Create social media graphics for a couple of key points - include the link when sharing.
    Are you surprised to hear that my original post from 2012 has had 23,354 views? That's the other bonus to writing useful content - people want to read it!
Now, whenever you take on a new client, you simply need to send them a link to your most awesome version of the useful information. You'll save time and appear super organized, as well. You can reference the information, and reuse it over and over again.

Other examples from my business are posts about anti-spam legislation, where to put your sign-up form, and how to review your newsletter statistics. I'm sure you can come up with more than one for your business but, if you're still feeling stuck, here's another place to start: if you have an FAQ page on your website, pick something from there and expand on it.

When you're finished with that, check out Content That Saves Time and Creating Content that is Useful for more ideas along this same line.

The next installment in this series will be about sharing your learning which, of course, will also be useful and, hopefully, interesting. (Subscribe to make sure you don't miss it.)

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