Seach, Social & Content Marketing Blog

This is a special guest post from writer Antoine Bonicalzi, founder of The Content Production Line.

There’s no doubt that content marketing is the way to go online. You produce high-quality, educative, relevant and interesting content, you find a way to distribute it and good things happen.

Your content is what allows you to grow an audience and to position yourself as an expert in the eyes of this audience. Your content is what you share on social media and it helps your site rank in the search engines.

You may even sell some of that content as part of online courses or membership sites.

At the moment, you may be looking to create:

• A free report (pdf) to give away as an ethical bribe to join your mailing list
• Text content for your email autoresponder sequence or your blog posts
• Audio and video content for high perceived value free offer or paid digital products
• Fresh content for your membership site
• More…

You may even need all of the above. In an ideal world, you would create multimedia content on a regular basis.

The functionality and design of a company’s website is a crucial element in its success. You may have done all the work to optimize your content and be more easily found on search engines with keyword research, consistent blogging, etc., and that’s great. But, you must also consider the first impression your visitors receive when they land on your site in order to really see results in the long run. In this infographic, learn how visitors approach your website, what they focus on, how they interact with your content, and the importance of usability in on-site optimization.

Everyone who has a website uses a URL structure that is inherent to their site. You might not have even thought about your URL structure before, but did you know you could actually be penalizing your site if you do not have this structure done correctly? It can cause click-through problems, pages to be left out of the search engine index, and even people getting lost on your site! To avoid some very disruptive errors, follow these few short tips to make sure your structure is correct.

Content is an all encompassing word; but at heart it is shorthand for pieces that demonstrate knowledge and authority in your field. A content audit, therefore, analyzes how you deliver your expertise to the outside world and how far it reaches. Performing this necessary step in your content’s journey helps you make decisions about not only the right mix of content that you can provide, but also what the best mix is. Think of it like putting dinner on the table according to the tastes of your family rather than reading the recipe off the box. It’s a tailor-made analysis based upon real-world observations that can make your efforts more effective in the long run.

There aren’t a lot of audits that make you feel better about yourself, but being able to start fresh or reset what you’re doing definitely re-energizes your company. Knowing how to effectively conduct a relatively painless content audit requires learning from people who have done it before. Let’s explore the steps you should take to analyze your successes and failures and move forward with your content marketing.

If you are a loyal follower of our blog or even just a first time peruser, you’ll see us throw out the phrase “content is king” quite a bit. Or maybe you’ve read that content isn’t king, but rather content is President. Whatever ruling dignitary we deem it to be, it’s simple enough to say: quality content development and strategy is vital to a business’ success in the digital realm of marketing.