What Is Helpful Content? |

Ryan Biddulph February 22, 2025 blogging tips 🕑 5 minutes read

Kalkan Turkey

I always seem to be yammering on about helpful content.

For good reason, my Young Blogging Padawans.

Helpful content draws intrigued readers. Loyal readers amplify your blogging success.

Organic traffic? This manna from blogging heaven arrives in response to helpful content.

Customers, clients and referral business builders emerge from helpful content. Customers, clients and referral business builders trust you based on the helpfulness of your content. People buy based on content. People hire based on your content. People spread the business word based on your content. Basically, content proves that you know what you’re talking about. Truly helpful content shows off your impressive knowledge. You may brag about your accomplishments but your unbiased content ultimately proves your credibility.

Publishing helpful content sets the success process into motion.

What is helpful content?

Before we dive in, beware being highly specific as you explore helpful qualifiers. Helpfulness rests in the eyes of the beholder, not based on particular strategies, tactics or number-oriented goals. Kick that robotic level of thinking outside of your mind because it doesn’t work in this regard.

Most of us think like a robot. Do one specific thing. Get one specific result.

All well and good, but helpful content depends on abstract ideas not specific blog post words counts, set blog publishing schedules or other rigid tactics. I have read unimpressive 2000 word posts not at all helpful. I have consumed brilliant 800 word posts dripping with true helpfulness. One blogger made the error of trying to reach number goals with robotic, mindless actions. The other blogger mindfully followed one or all tips below to publish genuinely helpful content.

Keep these qualities in mind to create helpful content.

Highly Practical

Helpful content seems highly practical. Readers digest it, use it and enjoy the spoils of the content practicality.

Look closely at this blog post. Bloggers wish to know: what is helpful content? I laid out a series of practical explanations for bloggers to peruse before writing and publishing their next blog post.

Think practical. Write with practicality in mind. Baby step readers through processes with practical steps or tips. Create usable posts quite helpful with real world applications.

As a helpful guide, visualize yourself sitting in your reader’s shoes. How would readers solve problems? Share steps to walk them through their problems. See issues through their eyes to create helpful content for their needs. Make this process a little bit easier. Create content with readers at the front of your mind. Make posts practical to be most helpful.

Beneficial

Helpful content appears to be beneficial.

Readers benefit from acting on practical content.

For example, practically applying the tips here drives loyal readers to your blog. Helpful content gives people the opportunity to benefit in some way. For bloggers, benefits of following this advice include:

driving organic traffic
increasing blogging income
boosting referral traffic
growing referral business

As always, everything begins with publishing helpful content.

Beneficial content improves lives.

Imagine the benefits before laying down your rump to write any piece of content.

Truly Helpful

Either you help someone with minimal effort.

Or you walk the extra mile to be truly helpful.

Either half ass it. Or over deliver.

Truly helpful content drills down a little bit deeper than the average blogger. Mindful bloggers publish resources to stand out from the blogging crowd.

True; short form content also proves to be helpful at times. But true helpfulness means giving away the farm – and then some – consistently to really etch out your spot in any blogging niche.

I came across a skilled blogger recently who featured Blogging From Paradise alongside some of the most famous bloggers on earth. I do not see myself in their rare blogging air. Yet, being truly helpful colored their perception of Blogging From Paradise to the point of aligning me with the blogging big dawgs of the world.

I drilled down for many years to be perceived on some level with the top bloggers in the world. Each blog post tends to be in-depth. Add up a steady collection of detailed posts and you have a helpful resource for bloggers at all stages of their career.

I do not share a lofty perception of myself these days but this is surely irrelevant. How others perceive you dictates your blogging path.

Being truly helpful only offers you limitless upsides.

Long Form or Short Form?

On the heels of the prior quality, going long form with 1200 – 1500 word posts typically fits the “helpful content” tab.

Never base helpfulness solely on specific word counts alone. Anyone can fill a long post with fluff. Anyone can blow hot air for 2000 words. Few share long-form, practical, clear and concise content. Pack as much practical guidance into detailed blog posts. Be helpful by respecting your time and by honoring the time readers put into consuming your content.

Solves Reader Problems

Helpful content solves specific reader problems.

Bloggers appear to be confused about what constitutes helpful content. That’s the problem. This post offers one possible solution to the pressing problem within my blogging tips niche.

Listen closely to readers. Spot their problems. Pinpoint their struggles. Observe their pain points. Help them with content-solutions to their most irritating problems.

Look closely at email. Scan Messenger. Scour blog comments. Trawl social media groups related to your blogging niche. Spot as many problems as possible. Publish helpful content to solve reader problems.

Meets Reader Needs

Listen to your readers.

Identify their needs.

Helpful content meets reader needs.

Needs tend to go beyond specific problems. I consider niche needs to be wider, or more endemic, compared to individual problems.

I publish content to meet bloggers needs. Most need guidance from experienced bloggers based on the nature of their errors. I created Blogging From Paradise to meet that need by offering bloggers a rich resource of blogging tips via blog posts.

Put your needs to the side. Listen to readers. Solve their needs to publish genuinely helpful content.