Why do you need a process to generate content?
Content is everywhere and most businesses rely on it to convey messages about their brands and maintain engaging conversations with their audiences. Days are short and there is so much to do when you own a business. Having a system in place and planning your content in advance can help you focus on quality and consistency rather than having to churn out a piece of content at the last minute.
REASONS WHY YOU NEED A PROCESS TO GENERATE CONTENT
By using a predictable flow of original, high-quality ideas, you can allocate more time to research and uncover ideas that you may not have come up with. Avoid content fatigue or writer’s block by outlining the type of content you want to rank for as well as the structure of the articles you or your team will write about. This method will help you free up some time and new hires can set in as quickly as possible when there is already a process in place.
STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS THAT PRODUCES QUALITY RESULTS
A process allows you to think of ideas that may not be easily apparent. Before your get started, find or design the right tools that will help ramp up your content production such as content workflow, article writing templates or content editing checklist. Check CoSchedule’s free resources to support you establish a content production system that you can refine and hand over to your production team.
DEVELOP A CONSISTENT CONTENT CREATION PROCESS
Once you have determined a workflow for you and your team, stick to a plan and make sure to track every step along the way - this way you will be able to refine the process and adjust workload when you need. Here are five steps you might find useful to structure your content production process:
Categorize your content under different “content pillars” to reflect your core value proposition: what your business is about, what it stands for and what it brings to the market. Content pillars also help you stay focused and relevant for your buyer personas.
Research is the foundation of your content marketing strategy. From market analysis to identifying audience demographics and content topics - research will bring depth and weight to the content you produce. Add validity to your content by adding statistics, facts and even opinions from thought leaders to back up your point. Your readers will even more so appreciate your content as it is highly educational and relevant.
Use an outline to write your articles to make sure you follow the same level of quality and consistency across all blog posts you write. When creating an outline, start by identifying the important keywords, think of the angle you will be taking in the article and reflect on the relevancy of this topic for your target audience. Try to maintain the same tone of voice even though you have different writers - it is essential the voice reflect your brand’s purpose and identity.
SEO edit your articles to be “on-page optimised”, meaning add relevant keywords but favour topic coverage over keywords density, make sure your message is clear and crisp. Finally, content edit by eliminating clutter, unnecessarily wordy phrases or anything that disturb the flow of the content.
Style edit with a strong intro, a catchy headline and finish. Also called the “Inverted pyramid for SEO editing”, this technique provides the reader with an attention-grabbing introduction from the beginning, it follows by the most important piece of information so the reader gets the most value as soon as possible and it ends with a clear call to action and supporting details, information.
Content creation when done in an organised manner can really help you focus on quality and consistency. With high-quality content, your audience will engage with it better, your SEO efforts will also benefit from optimized content and you will find it easier to manage your team if production tasks and workflows are set.
Read about Where do ideas come from with the 4 steps to the ideation process here.