A Smarter Approach to Content Creation

Jan 18

Marketers know the value of creating good content, but that doesn’t make the process any less overwhelming. Even if you know content creation is an essential element of successful marketing, it can still be challenging to consistently develop high-quality content that drives interest, leads, and sales.
We’re here to tell you content creation doesn’t have to be a heavy-lift chore. Let’s look at a few ways you can reach your content goals by working smarter, not harder.

Focus on Why Content Is Important

Don’t create content simply because you think you should. Instead, deeply understand why content is important, and make sure each piece you create has the elements that make it valuable.

Freshness. Sites with new, fresh content are more likely to appear in search results because search engines see regularly updated websites as more valuable than websites that haven’t been updated for weeks, months, or years. (We saw a client launch a website a couple of years ago with lots of new pages that performed really well, but they never updated it, and it took a hit in visibility over time. It was so clear what attributed to the decline.)
Relevance. Content solely for content’s sake won’t produce results. For content to be valuable, it must be connected to your brand, offerings, and customers. Your website should feature content that is highly relevant to your customer’s problems and the solutions you offer. This approach helps search engines categorize your site and provides valuable information for your audience.
Engagement. The goal of more content is not more content. The goal is to drive more interest, leads, and sales. Create content to elicit action in your audience. Use each piece of content to educate, entertain, and move customers through the stages of the buyer’s journey.

Create Content People Are Actually Searching For

Don’t rely on a hunch to develop your content topics. Instead, use real-time insights and data to drive your strategy and develop your topics.

Perform keyword research to see what terms people are looking for.
Conduct a Google search for a broad industry-related keyword, and look at the “Related searches” and “People also ask” questions that show in search results.
Use tools like Answer the Public, Google Trends, and SemRush to see what topics are trending and interesting to your audience.
Ask your sales and customer service teams what questions they often hear from your target audience.

Write for Humans…

While one of the primary goals of website content is to attract search engines, you must lead with your true target audience in mind: people. Follow SEO best practices, but craft your content to resonate with human audiences first.

Don’t stuff content with keywords.
Tell captivating stories.
Share unique information and perspectives.
Be actionable and tell readers what to do next.

… And Get Some Helps From Artificial Intelligence

Create better content faster by tapping into artificial intelligence tools. Use generative AI tools (that produce text copy based on questions and prompts) to make your content creation process easier. If your prompts include your whys and audience needs above, you’ll get better output.

Get inspiration for topics and headlines.
Create outlines.
Produce lists of competitors, stats, and resources.
Create meta copy or schema markup to aid with SEO.
Improve your tone, and check for errors.

According to one study, human-written content will still outrank AI-generated content 94.12% of the time, so use AI as an aid, not a full replacement for a person.

Don’t Stress About Length

Word count is a common benchmark many brands and marketers use in their content strategy. But the truth is there is no magic number for the best word count. While most content strategy best practices say to use 1,500-2,500 words in a blog post you’d like to rank, don’t forget to also create short-form content. The average user spends 95 minutes per day consuming short-form content. Don’t fall into the #TLDR you see on social. (#TLDR = Too long, didn’t read.)

People like short and long content so the best word-count strategy is to produce as much content as needed to fully cover the topic you are discussing.

Support Copy with High-Quality (& Quickly-Made) Graphics

You want the content to resonate quickly with audiences, which is why it’s essential to add visuals. Thankfully, it’s easy to create professional, on-brand visuals with online graphic design tools like Canva or other design support tools. We like Canva because it comes with hundreds of photos, icons, graphic templates, and we get to save client brand guides. (Plus, you can repurpose graphics and use them on social media to give your content even further reach!)

Want to take it up a notch? See how you can make videos to support your on-site content.

Update & Repurpose Existing Content

Too many brands and marketers focus on creating new content without first looking at all of the content they already have. To drive results with content marketing, you don’t need only new content. You can get great value out of existing content.

Update existing content. Instead of starting from scratch, look at the content assets you’ve created in the past. Breathe new life into blog posts by updating and reposting them as new articles.

Add new relevant information
Remove outdated information
Update outdated stats and data points
Update sources and links
Update the publish date

Repurpose existing content. Also, look at the content you have to see how you can turn it into something entirely new.

Convert a presentation into a blog post.
Combine multiple blog posts into an ebook.
Turn an individual blog post into multiple social posts.
Record a tip or how-to video with blog callouts.

Make a Plan — And Stick To It

One of the biggest problems brands and marketers have with content is consistency. They publish on a set calendar for a few weeks or months, but then they lose momentum, slow down, and eventually stop. This is a big problem because consistency is key to driving results with content.

Content takes time — but it’s worth it. The value you create with content will last for years, so make a plan and stick to it.

Create a content calendar. Don’t find yourself at the beginning of each month saying, “What should we write about?” Create a content calendar with scheduled topics weeks or months in advance.
Assign content creation tasks to a professional. If content creation isn’t your primary job, it’s a task that will be easy to push off. Instead of relying on general staff to generate content, hire a professional writer who can consistently deliver new posts.
Batch content creation. Because content production can be easy to put off, try getting it all done at once. Batching content creation (creating all of your content within a few days each month rather than spacing it out all month) can help you fight procrastination and get content checked off your to-do list.
Review results. Tracking views, reach and engagement will reward you for your work and help you evaluate which content is working to keep you moving in the right direction.

Take a Smarter Approach to Content Creation

It’s no secret that content marketing has a high return and long-term value. It’s an essential tool for attracting, engaging, and converting customers. Don’t let the perceived challenges of content creation hold you back from these benefits. Use these tips to reach your content goals by working smarter, not harder.

And if you need help, SpotOn is here. Let’s talk about how our expert content marketing team can take over some of your content tasks to help you get the benefits of content in less time. Contact us today to learn more.

Raubi Perilli