Producing content is one thing, but standing out among the rest is another. If you want to perform well in the SERPs, you have to put in the work.
How? By publishing high quality articles and other content.
And how do you do that? By figuring out a holistic and sustainable content marketing strategy.
In this article we will give you the best tips to producing quality content that’s valuable and doable for all kinds of businesses.
Introducing the SEA Method: Strategize, Execute, Analyze
There are three phases to undergo when creating content and you only have to remember the word SEA. It stands for Strategize, Execute, Analyze. The SEA Method is a holistic approach that covers all possible tasks a Content Creation Team should do to produce and publish high quality content.
Phase I: Strategize
This is the research, discovery, and planning stage – the foundation of your content creation strategy. In order to plan, you must do everything in your power to understand who you’re talking to. Know who they are, their interests, what apps they use, and more.
But first, let’s define what a high quality article is.
A high quality article, also known as a blog post, is something that a group of people find value in. It contains useful or helpful information in a clear, understanding way.
There are three pillars that make up the Strategizing Stage.
1. Get to know your audience
To understand your audience, your team should do a deep dive into the market you’re targeting. Know the demographics, what social media platforms they are in, what types of content they consume, what questions they are asking, and more.
After that, you can start making buyer personas. Making buyer personas allow you to lay down important details such as their goals, pain points, selling points etc. The whole process helps you determine search intent so that you will know how to approach your call to action.
2. Identify topics that answers the questions your audience is asking
There are tools and websites that will help you determine what your audience wants to know. You can also reach out to groups and open forums and directly connect to actual people interested in your niche.
Here are a few suggestions we collated from several marketing teams:
- Practice keyword research
- Be a part of online groups (e.g., Facebook group and LinkedIn )
- Hang out in forum sites like Quora and Reddit
- Scan blog commemts
- Head over to a competitor’s YouTube channel
If you’ve exhausted your resources on your first try and still feel like something is lacking, you can try targeting a niche subtopic. Dive deeper into your niche and target something more specific. This way, you have less competition.
For example, your website is all about marketing. Targeting a niche subtopic would mean choosing digital marketing. If you want to go even deeper, you can talk about content marketing or email marketing.
3. Create content calendars and diversify with multimedia content
With everything you just learned in the first two pillars, you can now start creating your content calendars for your blog posts, newsletters, social media, etc.
In this stage, you should be looking for what’s trending and create a database of content ideas. Pick relevant topics that your audience is interested in. Make your content more unique than the others. Add your perspective.
Look up your competitors and see what kind of content they publish. You could try tools like Buzzsumo or Exploding Topics to help speed things up.
While in this stage, don’t forget to include multimedia content in the planning. Identify what type of graphics and assets you need to supplement your other content and write them down.
A few examples of multimedia content are the following:
- Photos
- Infographics
- Videos
- Product images
- Lifestyle images
- Screenshots
- Memes
- Illustrations
- Charts/ Tables
- Gifs
Phase II: Execute
This is the production stage. In this phase, your team should start producing the content you planned. Production is already a long process by itself, but you would also need to publish your materials after approval.
These are the three pillars that will help you execute your plans:
1. Production of content (writing of articles)
Plan your schedule to pan out how many days you need for one article. Write down the number of articles in a month you can do. While writing, make sure to implement SEO practices, correct writing styles that match the branding, and proper formatting for readability purposes.
2. Internal review, revision, and approval
After production, materials shall undergo review and revisions before they are approved. The second step is important because those reviewing it serves as fresh sets of eyes when going through the content. Since they weren’t directly part of the production team, they are most likely to spot errors and points of improvement easily.
The process may be long, but it’s necessary to produce high quality content. Pushing through with unrevised materials will risk your brand’s credibility and reputation.
3. Upload and schedule content
Once everything is in order, you can now upload your content, optimize it for SEO and schedule it according to your calendar.
Phase III: Analyze
The final phase is all about measuring your content’s performance. Are they performing well? Do people love it or hate it? Is it giving you the results you wanted?
Content creation doesn’t stop with posting everything. It’s important to make data analysis a habit. Analyze the numbers and understand how your audience is receiving your content. Once again, there are many tools that will help you with this.
These are the most commonly used tools:
- Google Analytics
- Facebook Insights
- Semrush
- Ahrefs
- Moz
Sometimes, the content that we consider impressive might be something your audience doesn’t find valuable. And the only way to know that is through the numbers. The views, engagements, time spent on page, bounce rate, conversions – all these metrics tell you what they like and don’t like, and what you can do next time.
After analyzing the data, you will be able to adjust your plans, revise content, and scrap ideas that don’t seem fit anymore. The end goal here is to make informed decisions as to how you will change your strategy to give your audience the most valuable, high quality blog posts they’ll ever consume.
Final Thoughts
Seeing this long process of the SEA Method, all we can say is to invest in time and effort. This is the way to go if you want to stand out and build your brand.
Creating high quality content is no joke – trust us, we’ve been there. It’s one of the most difficult aspects of SEO and digital marketing. But it’s the best way to attract your target audience. In the end, no matter how much time it took to make and wait for the results to show, it truly is rewarding.
Featured Image Reference:
Photo by Matthew Henry from Burst
