Visit any blog or website dedicated to blogging and you will find dozens upon dozens of articles, podcasts and guides about creating the best, most ridiculously fantastic content that has ever been created.
This raises a couple of questions. Since these articles, podcasts and guides often do not agree on how to create the best, most ridiculously fantastic content, how can they all be right? Also, if the advice provided in these articles is bona fide, why isn’t the world filled with spectacular blogs that provide tons of value and thinking material?
The reason for this is that there really isn’t one singular secret to any kind of online content. If someone tells you that they know this secret, they are not telling you the whole truth. More likely than not, they are selling snake oil and trying to make a few bucks from it.
To answer the question from the title of this article, there is no secret to great coaching content.
It really is as simple as that.
This may feel disheartening, but in fact, it is not. This only means that no one has the golden ticket and that the playing field is level.
So, what do you do as a coach to create content that will compete and hopefully make a few small wins along the way (maybe even a big one somewhere down the line)?
Say Something
Even the most casual of glances at online content will discover an insane amount of articles and other types of content that is absolutely, 100% hollow. There is literally nothing there. It is just grammatically proper sentences being put one after another. At times the authors really think they are writing something with actual content, but what is worse, sometimes they intentionally write articles that are devoid of anything worth reading.
This is why it is essential you actually say something with your content. It may be a novel idea or a comment on something that you saw discussed somewhere else. It can be a personal story or a new way to help your clients.
Whatever it is, just make sure that it says something. You need to say something.
Be Honest
Sometimes being honest can be a bit of a problem. Sometimes being honest means admitting things about yourself that you are not comfortable with sharing. Sometimes being honest means hurting someone’s feelings. Sometimes being honest means giving people the bad news.
In your coaching practice, you will know when to “circumvent” brutal honesty.
When creating coaching content, you shouldn’t do this. Writing coaching articles and creating other kinds of coaching content needs to come from a brutally honest place.
There are at least two reasons for this.
For one, this will result in unique content that will not feel like a tired, rehashed version of every other coaching blog. Also, all great literature comes from a place of passion and you cannot be passionate while being untruthful.
Honesty breeds passion and passion breeds great content.
Learn the Technical Stuff
In a perfect world, saying something and baring your soul should be enough to garner all of the readers’ attention. We do not live in a perfect world and there are “rules” to online content, rules that will decide how many people see your content, how they share it and even how much of it they will read.
For example, you can consult studies that show how people read content on their mobile phones. Or, you can learn a thing or two about optimizing your website for search engines. You should also find out more about how to use social media to boost your content. Do you know how to run a podcast series?
The list goes on.
Any reputable content marketing agency will feature a blog with useful and applicable insights that will help you get a hang of the technical stuff on creating and spreading your content.
In a perfect world, you might not need this, but in the world we live in, you do.
Closing Word
There is no secret to great coaching content, plain and simple. Be honest, say something and try to find ways to get people to read it.
It is a great start.