You do know, that when it comes to establishing a presence on the internet, content is king, emperor, sovereign, and monarch. But what is the nature of the content that rules? The short answer is content that offers value.

So how does one go about creating valuable content and implementing a content marketing plan? Let us take a look at the benchmarks that are used to measure valuable content.

 

Content Marketing: Is the content useful?

The single biggest factor that underlines the value of content is its usefulness. Your readers include your customers, information seekers, and potential leads. Create content keeping their requirements in mind. Provide answers and solutions to their questions and invite them to action. This means that the solutions should be practical and actionable. Another aspect of actionable content is the presence of a call to action so that the next step is obvious to your visitor, results in value gain and hopefully provides a benefit to both parties – you and the visitor.

Have you made the content easy to find?

Your audience should be able to locate your relevant content easily. Be up-to-date on current SEO practices including correct use of keywords, tags, and backlinks to increase the likelihood your content will rank highly on Google and other search engines. Author information and rich snippets are powerful pieces of data that can boost your position on the SERPs as well. You should also share your content on social media, industry forums, and consider contributing articles to relevant third party sites.

Content Marketing: Is it appropriate for the platform?

For it to be truly valuable, the content has to be appropriate for the platform and also the situation and audience. An informal tone meant to attract the lay reader may work on your personal blog but may not work for a guest post on an industry journal tackling the same topic but for a more informed audience. With respect to social media, it means harnessing the different platforms based on the profile of communities to be targeted and type of content supported – videos on YouTube, short posts on Twitter, relevant content on industry forums, etc.

How targeted is the content?

The content has to be targeted first and foremost for human readers, not Google bots. Write for your readers and make it easy for the search engine robots to understand the content and it’s relevance in your space. The content should also be categorized according to the audience personas, topics, and interests of your readers. The more targeted your content is toward a specific customer segment and the solutions they’re looking for the better.

Do you have the right tactics in place?

Sometimes, even with a well-defined content strategy, the desired results evade us. And usually the reason is that the tactics created as part of the strategy execution are slightly off. You may need to calibrate these tactics for the real value of your content to shine through. The frequency of posting, post titles, types of content – how to articles, infographics, videos, long form pieces, etc are some factors to consider.

Where is the traffic coming from?

Analytics will shed light on many factors that will help you create valuable content.  Be sure to measure traffic and conversion rates across sources of traffic. This will inform you about the value your content holds for different referrers, and therefore audiences. If social referrals yield a higher percentage of conversions than search engine traffic, then focus on developing content that fosters trust in such referrers and work to build traffic from high converting sources rather than trying to increase conversions in high traffic sources.

With a creative approach and some experimentation you can create highly valuable content, become a resource to your customers, and build a sustainable business.  What content lessons have you learned? What additional questions do you have? Let me know in the comments section below.