According to a study by Backlinko, the average length of webpages that rank on the first page of Google contain 1,890 words. Now, it’s fair to assume that if you happen to work in the super car industry or for a popular pop star, the blogs you write as part of your content marketing strategy will have no problem surpassing that number of words.
But what if you work in a ‘boring’ industry? What if your primary product is a range of doormats? How do you make that sound interesting? Creating content for a boring niche isn’t easy - until you consider the fact that it might not be boring at all. In this post, we’ve put together some brilliant, simple tips for how to write content for a boring industry.
Expand your horizons!
So - you make doormats, but who cares? Your blog posts don’t need to be about doormats. In fact, they absolutely shouldn’t be about doormats.The reason for this is simple. Content marketing is about establishing oneself as a thought leader within a particular industry. This is why the best blog posts written by businesses don’t self-promote - they display a deep knowledge of a range of topics applicable to their raison d'être.
Rather than trying to think up new ways to blog about doormats, talk instead about interior design or manufacturing.
Who says you only need to use words when blogging? The best blogs for boring industries make great use of visual accompaniments. These can be anything from relevant images to mind maps, diagrams and videos. Infographics are more than welcome, too, because of their innate ability to make reams of boring statistics and numbers far more interesting.
Clearly, you’re not trying to be the next Tommy Cooper, but when deciding how to write content for a boring industry, it pays to consider the benefits of injecting humour. By letting your sense of humour shine through, you’ll add some much-needed personality to the business. That doesn’t mean resorting to “doctor, doctor” jokes, either - just the merest hint of a light, humorous tone throughout your content will do the trick.
Providing it comes naturally and doesn’t detract from the main theme, humour can be a fantastic ally when blogging in a relatively dull niche.
What are your successful competitors writing about on their blogs? Clearly, if they are successful, they’re getting something right, which is why you can do a lot worse than be inspired by their blogging efforts. Is their ‘boring niche’ content getting plenty of social shares and inbound links? Does it rank highly on Google?
If so, take some of the topics they’ve covered and make them your own (just make sure you avoid plagiarising their content at all costs).
What might feel boring to you or a colleague could be gold dust to someone else in your industry. Let’s say you recently conducted a survey that uncovered a trend for people buying doormats more regularly in the autumn. For retailers or partners within you sector, such information could be transformative and enable them to conduct far more meaningful marketing campaigns.
Don’t keep useful stats to yourself in the belief no one will find them interesting, because, inevitably, someone will.
Every industry benefits from the presence of particular characters; people who appear on stage at events and turn what many would consider a boring industry into something far more engaging.
Hunt down the change-makers and influencers in your industry and request an interview. Given the personality traits of such individuals, they’ll likely jump at the chance to gain more public exposure, and, in turn, give you some fantastic content for your blog (and a highly valuable new friend).
Content marketing is all about telling engaging stories, and if your past blogging efforts read like mundane, boring press releases, you simply won’t attract or capture the attention of a meaningful audience.
When deciding how to write content for a boring niche, turn the products or services that are on offer into engaging stories. Doormats do far more than keep your house clean and tidy - they represent the first welcome people get when stepping into your abode. How many people will cross that threshold and place their feet on the mat for the first time? What memorable events will that innocuous item be part of?
Another great way to tell stories with company blogs is to interview staff. There’s a story behind every team in the company, from those who design the doormats to the tireless distribution staff who ensure they reach their intended destination.
Stories are at every turn in your organisation - use your blog to tell them to the world.
Earlier, we covered the benefits of using imagery alongside words when deciding how to write content for a boring niche. You can do the same with podcasts, which are rapidly becoming one of the most relied-upon forms of content for businesses big and small.
Podcasts are inherently interesting because they involve the thoughts of real people. Even a twenty minute podcast focused on a particular challenge your industry faces will be enough to get the right audience listening, and an accompanying blog that features a transcript of the recording will aid your SEO efforts considerably.
Remember the interesting industry expert you made friends with earlier? Well, they’d be a perfect guest for a podcast, thus increasing the content’s chance of being found and digested by a much wider audience.
Take a look back at your most recent blog posts. Are they stuffed to the brim with meaningless, undefined acronyms and phrases that mean nothing to anyone outside the four walls of your company? Business waffle is boring. It’ll turn visitors to your blog off quicker than poor web design or lack of smartphone compatibility. It’s absolutely no fun to read and doesn’t benefit anyone.
So, eliminate business waffle at all costs and focus instead on natural, conversational language that we can all relate to. Even if your industry seemingly runs on acronyms, that’s no reason to fill your content marketing strategy with them.
The word ‘confusing’ is often mistaken for ‘boring’, and your industry might be a case in point. Wherever you can, use analogies to explain complex topics. It suddenly becomes a far more compelling topic.
Complex isn’t boring - it just needs dumbing down for the rest of us!
For almost any website to rank well on Google organically, it needs great content (and links). That remains true whether you approach it from an SEO or content marketing perspective, because content and links remain the two most important ranking factors.
We hope we’ve demonstrated in this post that, no matter the industry within which you operate, there’s always something interesting to blog about. Dismissing something as ‘boring’ is lazy - get creative with our tips above!
