Content creation is digital marketing. It will build your business. It creates exposure. And most importantly, it makes Google like you.
Content creation companies can build credibility and trust at a lower cost than ever before. Social media has broken down these walls.
It sounds simple right? Create a blog and Youtube channel and you are ready to sit back and rake in the cash.
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”Before you start pillaging the castle, and creating all sorts of content for your business or client, make sure you do the ground work for your content strategy:
1. Keyword Research
Knowing what keywords your customers are searching for is extremely important for onpage and off page seo. Each new page of content you are producing gives you the change to rank for a new set of longtail keyword phrases. You may think you know the ins and outs of every product and service that you offer, and rightly so. But your customers probably don’t use your industry buzzwords and acronyms when searching for you. Finding out what words they do use is crucial because your keywords will play a pivotal roll in the content that you produce. Use Google Keywords Tool to get a better sense of what people are searching for and how often. For more advanced keyword research use a PPC campaign to get an exact number of search impressions and click through data on the terms. Once you have the right keywords, then you can start coming up with post ideas.2. Creating a content calendar
Determine the why, the where, the who, & the how often
Why are you engaging in the social media space to begin with?
If you are in the space merely because your competitor is, you have already lost or will soon. If you haven’t been listening to what people are saying within these social spaces and learning from what other businesses are doing successfully, you need to. Listening and learning are the first steps, without them your content strategy is likely to be off base and far less successful.
Where is your content going to be distributed?
On your blog? On your fan page? Twitter Stream? Your Linkedin group? A mix of everything?
The who?
Who within your organization is responsible for creating, spreading, and maintaining content? What quality control measures are in place? Are you going to outsource this or hire someone specifically focused on creating content?
How often?
With what frequency are you going to post? Determine how often you are going to post content. Each channel has varying degrees of what users are willing to put up with. Twitter for instance has a higher threshold for daily messages due to the speed and shear number of tweets that goes through users streams everyday. Posting 8 to 12 tweets might be okay (provided that the information is still relevant and useful), but posting 8 to 12 times on a facebook fan page will quickly overwhelm fans (or likers… whatever they are called now)
Once you have these questions answered, then you can start mapping it out. I recommend white boarding out your ideas then formalizing the calendar on a shared Google doc.