Improve your content performance with our 16 step guide

The quality of your content can make or break your online presence. Improving your content is not just about refining your message; it’s about enhancing visibility, engaging your audience, and establishing your brand as a credible authority.

So, let’s get started.

Step 1 – Define your content marketing plan

Everything starts with a plan! Focus your efforts by identifying what you want to achieve with the content and what your goals are.

Then establish your target audience and outline the content that will resonate best with them, depending on their stage on the buyer’s journey and the goals you’ve set.

Essential top tip

Consider doing a content audit to establish which piece of content you should focus on first. Don’t just create top-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel content and leave out the all-important consideration stage.

Step 2 – Do your research

Great content starts with great research. Uncover the best topics for your audience, whether it’s key issues they are facing, pain points, problems they’re trying to solve or even trends or news! As part of your research, determine the questions and keywords your audience is searching for. Align those to your area of expertise.

Essential top tip

Focus on creating value for your readers. Blatant sales messages and flag waving pieces are a big turnoff.

Step 3 – Determine your primary keyword

Determine the primary keyword to include in your content to boost its visibility in search. The ideal keyword or phrase should be relevant, have a good search volume, low competition, low SEO difficulty and be a term that resonates with your audience.

Essential top tip

Once established, drop your keyword into Google Search to check what comes up – you may find the results are off-topic and you need to think again.

Step 4 – Define a list of supporting terms

Define a list of additional terms that resonate with your audience. Not just your primary keyword – you need synonyms too!

Essential top tip

SEO tools such as SE Ranking can help with this.

Step 5 – Identify competing content in Search

Know your rivals! Identify competing pieces of content in search to focus your content strategy. Understand what makes their content rank well and find opportunities to differentiate and improve upon it.

Essential top tip

Do your research as you may run the risk of competing against companies that also use the same keyword for something totally different. If you find this, then you may need to focus on alternatives such as keyword phrases or longtail keywords.

Step 6 – Assemble your content parameters

Bring your ideas together with a clear framework. Define how many words you wish to write, and how many headers, paragraphs and images you need to have.

Essential top tip

Ensure that your content also tells a story and encourages the reader to continue. Disjointed copy will confuse or disengage your reader.

Step 7 – Reference links

Boost the credibility of your written content with well-researched, relevant reference links. Trustworthy and highly authoritative content matters!

Essential top tip

Include links to reputable sources to back up your claims and provide additional value to your readers.

Step 8 – Include questions

Help your audience solve their problems! Determine the questions that your audience may ask, and add them to your article. People often ask questions directly in search, answering them will help you piece appear in the SERP.

Essential top tip

Use Google Search function to look at the ‘People also ask’ section, you can also use tools such as ‘alsoasked.com’

Step 9 – Add your call-to-action

Don’t forget to add a CTA! Guide your audience on what to do next with a clear and compelling call-to-action. Whether it’s subscribing, downloading, form filling or buying – direct them effectively.

Essential top tip

Read our popular blog on CTA placement for tips on how to get this right.

Step 10 – Source eye catching images

Content with images gets 94% more views than content without. This statistic, from a report by MDG Advertising (link to source), highlights the significant value that imagery can add to your content, making it more engaging and visually appealing.

Essential top tip

ALWAYS use alt tags on your imagery and make sure your file name describes the image.

Step 11 – Use a skilled copywriter

They know how to craft compelling narratives, engage readers, and optimise content for search engines. Their expertise ensures that your message is clear, persuasive and tailored to your target audience! Avoid AI-generated copy as it can often include mistakes and is boring to read. Readers value true opinion and thought leadership rather than robot speak!

Essential top tip

Always write in the language of the customer. Internal words and acronyms will mean nothing to them and should be avoided at all costs!

Step 12 – Review your content

Quality check! Review your content thoroughly before publishing. Check for accuracy, spelling and grammar, readability and value.

Essential top tip

We recommend using a combination of digital / AI tools, such as Grammarly, followed by a real human who ideally hasn’t seen the content before.

Step 13 – Publish and promote

Go live! Publish your content and promote it for maximum impact across all relevant channels.

Essential top tip

If you’re promoting content on LinkedIn always get a hook in your first sentence!

Step 14 – Wait then measure

Measure success! Wait and then analyse your content’s impact. Did the content measure up against your original goals? How does it rank against your competitors? What level of engagement did it get?

Essential top tip

Don’t just measure impressions and SEO ranking against your competitors, look at engagement levels and conversion rates too!

Step 15 – Sweat your asset

You invested a lot of time and energy creating your piece of content so don’t just promote it once. Promote it again with a different image or different social post. If it gets lots of engagement consider making it into a carousel or an infographic. You’ve done the hard part by writing it, now sweat that asset!  

Essential top tip

Keep the momentum! Take your insights and apply them to future content. Try building content clusters or pillars to make your content more comprehensive. Cross-link to other relevant content within your website.

Step 16 – Create a strategic content plan

Now you’ve read this guide you’ll realise that creating relevant, engaging and impactful content is harder than it seems. It’s important to keep momentum, while ensuring that every piece of content fits as part of a strategic content plan that aligns with your business goals. This takes time to research, plan and execute, but the investment will pay dividends in the long run.

If you’re not sure where to start get in touch. We’re experts at content marketing strategy and love sharing our wisdom to help others.

Do you want to know how your current content stacks up? Why not submit a piece of content for a free content audit? We’ll review it against our proven content methodology and will give you tips and tricks to make it really Kick-Ass!