A Focus for your Content

No matter what you’re working on, a coherent theme will tie it together and help keep it focused. I’m not referring to a nice layout and color scheme or anything like that, although those are important too. I’m talking about a focus for your content.

If you go to a site called The Great Shoe Emporium, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what you’ll find there: shoes.

If you see photos of pet fish and brunch outings on that shoe site, you will be confused. Maybe you went to the wrong place, or perhaps the site was hacked? Maybe they just don’t really know what they’re doing. After all, if they’ve got a collection of irrelevant things on their site and don’t take the time to curate, they might put the same effort into their products or services.

Picking a theme helps keep you focused and increases your value and usefulness to your audience. You’re not publishing just for the sake of putting content out there or searching around for the right things to capture attention, so you can concentrate on producing high-quality content. Theming helps you present yourself as an authoritative resource on a topic, allowing you to grow your audience, keeps search engine algorithms happy, and allows you to expand more in a field which already interests you. In short, choosing a theme is a win for everyone.

Don’t Fence Yourself In

I’m not saying that there can’t be some variety in your content. There is nothing wrong with having a collection of things you’re interested in tied into your overall theme. There can be different branches to your content that allow you to explore different things while still keeping relevant.

A fantastic example of this would be podcasts like RadioLab. The overarching theme is exploring science, creating documentaries with stories, sound, and information to teach people answers to questions they may never have thought to ask. This theme doesn’t restrict them. Rather, it helps create a framework for consistently delivering engaging and informative shows. It’s been working for them for 15 years. (It’s working for me right now. If you haven’t listened to RadioLab, you are missing out!)

Explore the Limits

You definitely don’t need a broad focus to your theme to make it work. But what if your brand’s theme feels a bit too tightly focused to keep things interesting? I interned for a company selling root beer and creme soda. On the outset, it looked like a one-and-done subject. It took some creativity, and it took building in “sub-themes” to make it work, but there was more than met the eye with that subject. I created a weekly recipe feature, I wrote up the history of the drink, the ingredients, learned more about root beer than anyone needs to know. And it was awesome. We gained audience, and I found out that I could make something that seemed fairly limited and blasé into something that I enjoyed and could make other people enjoy.

All these years later, I’m still into root beer. Not only was I successful in growing an audience and expanding our sales, I gave myself a new interest.

If you’re still not sure about keeping things to a strict theme, consider the benefits of a “personal blog” to collect everything that catches your fancy without distracting from your topic. You can also subcategorize things, making it easy for specific parts of your audience to navigate to what drew them to you. There’s a place for all the photos of your fish, discussions about your bad date, and vacation photos. If you’re working on a personal brand, that place isn’t on a forward-facing site or blog that represents you. Keep things separate and you’ll make things easier and more successful for yourself.

So how do you know you have a winning theme? You can sum up what you’re putting out in a sentence or two. That’s right, I’m bringing up the advice about elevator pitches you’ve seen touted everywhere.  It’s true though; if you can say what you’re doing in a few words, people understand and know if you are offering what they want. You’ll also be able to keep yourself on track.

Going back to that first example I used, if you’re running a page for the Great Shoe Emporium, your theme might be “Information on footwear and fashion.” So, when you took all those cute photos of Bubbles the betta fish that you want to share, you know you should save them for some other venue. Bubbles neither wears shoes nor understands fashion, and a pet is not a fashion statement. You keep your content relevant, and everyone is happy.

If you’re not sure how to choose a theme for your content, or you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to me in the comments. If you’re looking for something a bit more in-depth or hands-on, you can also reach me via my Contact page.