As we are now well into the new year, I thought it would be appropriate to offer some advice that will keep your content creation strategy profitable. If you are approaching the end of the first quarter of 2018 feeling dissatisfied with the level of exposure and engagement your content is receiving, keep reading. I want to zero in on five key areas where you should set your sites and make changes, if necessary. Let’s get right into it…
1. Stay Current with Keywords
Let’s get the obvious out of the way early. I don’t say that to sound dismissive of keywords (because they are still very important), but rather because we hear so much about them I’m afraid you’ll skip the rest of the article if I spend too much time on them.
With that in mind, I will encourage you to simply not get lazy when it comes to keyword research. Some keywords will always be the same, but your content will suffer if you don’t seek out effective current, contextual keywords that complement the subject matter of specific pieces of content. This is especially true if you are a regular and diligent blogger or if you order a good bit of blog content from a freelance copywriter or reputable copywriting company.
2. Develop a Publishing Schedule
I cannot emphasize enough how important consistency is both for user engagement as well as SEO. I also understand that it is easier said than done. This is just one of a plethora of reasons why I think every business should be outsourcing as much content creation as possible. Doing so will alleviate the stress of keeping up with it in-house and, when you have the right team assembled, also keep your content publishing on a regular schedule.
When users get new content when they expect it, it communicates that you pay attention to detail and that you care about keeping your brand in front of your audience. There are multibillion-dollar, multinational corporations that still don’t get this right. If your business can, it might become one of them before too long. Something as simple as keeping your content creation on schedule can get your brand noticed ahead of even your biggest competitors.
So, how do you accomplish this? What it comes down to is how you delegate the responsibilities. If you keep your efforts in-house, you run the risk of heading off-course. The moment other responsibilities require whomever within your organization is handling your content creation to set it aside, it becomes very difficult to steer back on-course.
You can solve this problem by working with trusted content creators like Beez, as well as others that specialize in different types of content. I always recommend heavily scrutinizing any company that offers one-stop-shop options for content creation because they rarely complete all the work in-house, either. They outsource just like you. The difference between that and hiring content creators on your own is that you always know who is developing your content and you have direct access to the creators to strategize, critique, and make changes without going through a middleman.
3. Automate What You Can (But Don’t Put Your Content on Autopilot)
You can streamline the process by investing in some high-quality scheduling software or online resources that allow you to load and schedule everything from social media posts to blog entries, to auto-responder emails, and everything else in between.
Do bear in mind that some of these services look very comprehensive on the surface but lack the functionality of those that handle one area of content management at a time. In other words, you’ll probably want to consider working with platform-specific applications as opposed to simply choosing something that looks like a quick and easy solution.
If you work with outside contractors, be sure you hire people and companies who are already familiar with the software or online services you use or develop a comprehensive online training system that is designed to keep all members of your team on the same page, even if that team is literally scattered across the globe.
4. Seek Out Local and Niche Social Networks
Many of your competitors – especially those massive multinational ones we discussed earlier – neglect local markets beyond SEO optimization. They get a lot of traffic using good SEO, but they don’t develop the same relationship with their customers that you can by tapping into local social networks. A quick Google search will reveal a treasure trove of markets that are underserved by your competitors.
The downside to this is that there aren’t many scheduling programs that work with smaller networks, so it will mean a little extra effort on the part of your team to keep them populated with great content, but the rewards far outweigh the effort in the long term… provided you treat the little guys with the same respect you would Facebook or Twitter.
5. Give Your Content the Professional Advantage
In conclusion, I just want to emphasize how much good it would do your organization if you decided to allocate a conservative amount of your advertising money to professional content creation services.
When you contract with an outside agency, the level of urgency to provide consistently good content on time becomes elevated to the nth degree. In other words, consistency becomes transparent to your in-house staff.
Once you are certain that your content creators are on the same page with your brand message and delivery preferences, much of the responsibility of content creation is taken off your shoulders. At that point, you reap the benefits without having to sacrifice local productivity playing catchup.
