Content marketing is a very important part of your digital marketing efforts and can’t be overlooked. However, coming up with compelling content that boosts your online presence can be quite difficult for those that don’t outsource content marketing services. If you’re someone who has no past experience with content creation and SEO services, then content marketing may be a struggle for you. Don’t fret, however, as there are some tips and guidelines that you can follow to ensure that the content that you create is compelling to the reader and plays a big role in growing your digital presence. So how can you ensure that you’re creating the best content possible? Here are the top five tips that you should follow when engaging in content marketing. 

Conduct Keyword Research

One of the most important parts of content marketing is ensuring that you’re writing content that will actually boost your SEO efforts and rank you for effective keywords. To do this, you need to research what consumers are searching for. When you conduct keyword research, you need to consider both the volume of traffic and the competition from other businesses for that particular keyword. A keyword may be very relevant to your brand and generate lots of traffic, but if you have to bid against dozens of bigger companies, then you may want to find a different keyword to rank for. Finding that perfect balance and ranking for the correct keywords is key to a successful content marketing campaign, which can only be done through extensive keyword research.

Appeal to Search Engine Crawlers

Once you’ve conducted your keyword research, it’s time to start constructing content that can appeal to search engine crawlers. You’ve already completed a major step of this, as including the keywords from your research will allow your content to boost your SEO and help rank for those specific keyword searches. However, there still are other things that you can do in order to appeal to search engine crawlers. Neatly organizing your content pieces into headings and subheadings can be extremely helpful, and using relevant images can also help. However, one of the biggest things you should do to appeal to search engine crawlers is include links in your content. Linking to other respectable websites can build your own website authority in the eyes of search engine crawlers, something that will also boost your SEO rankings. Appealing to search engine crawlers is a big part of content marketing, so it’s important that you optimize your content for SEO to get the most out of it. 

Consider the Human Reader

Although pleasing search engine crawlers is an important part of content marketing, it isn’t the only thing that you need to concern yourself with. When creating content, you also need to consider the human reader. Yes, a content piece that is stuffed with carefully researched keywords may be able to satisfy a search engine crawler, but if the piece is not constructed in a way that flows nicely, then human readers will get little to no value out of it. You want your content pieces to simultaneously help you rank for specific keywords while also being a compelling piece of content that a reader can gain value and information out of. Don’t forsake common writing principles and techniques just to fit specific keywords into your content, as you should ensure your pieces are well-written for the everyday reader. 

Create a Content Map

During content creation, it’s extremely important to map out all of the content that you’re going to create well in advance. Content isn’t something that should be created on a whim but rather should be thoughtfully planned out. For example, at the start of every month, you should know what content pieces you’re going to produce, when they are due by, and what their length and keywords should be. Having a dedicated content map and strategy can allow you to stay ahead of the game and means you’ll have constant content available to readers. With a content map, you’ll have a much clearer focus with your content, rather than having it be sporadic and all over the place.  Creating a content map and sticking with it is a fantastic way to boost your SEO and grow your digital presence. 

Analyze Content Metrics

When engaging in content marketing, it’s always important to analyze the content pieces that you put out. When you analyze your past content and look at its metrics, you will get a much better understanding of what is working and what isn’t. For example, you should be looking at how many users are clicking on each content piece and how many of those users are actually clicking the backlinks located in your content articles. Additionally, you should analyze what percentage of users read the entire content article, as well as how content articles affect your brand’s standings in search engine results. Understanding how effective your content pieces are is a great way to better tailor your content pieces to your target audience and ensure that your content marketing efforts are actually paying off.