Cleaning is a necessary evil - it may be tiresome but the results make it worth your time and effort.
If your brand has been embracing the benefits of content marketing for a while and habits have started to stick, it may be worth giving your strategy a deep clean to refresh your blog and make sure it is brimming with sparkling content.
Declutter
When it comes to content marketing, you should have a zero clutter policy. This means resisting the temptation to fill up your blog with content that isn’t as interesting or relevant as it could be just so you can tick it off the list.
Every post you write needs to be a valuable addition to your website or blog if you want readers to see you as a leader in your field.
Dust off your skills
You may have thought you left your brainstorming and storytelling skills behind when you bid a fond adieu to your school days, but now is the time to dust them off and proudly display them in every piece of content.
Sitting down for a good old fashioned brainstorm is the best way to come up with original, engaging ideas; and telling your brand’s story on a human level in a way that is relevant and interesting to your readers will reap the best results.
Sweep SEO under the carpet
There’s always one speck of dust or one crumb we miss when cleaning up, and rather than going to the effort of getting the vacuum cleaner out again or picking it up and putting it in the trash, it’s often easier to brush it under a rug out of sight.
This is what you want to be doing with SEO – don’t get rid of it completely as it remains a crucial technique for content marketing. Rather, ensure it is as invisible as you can manage (so embed keywords naturally in your content, only insert one hyperlink etc).
Content first, SEO second, that’s the golden rule. Remember the point of content marketing is to engage your audience, not force sales with evident advertising - something any reputable content marketing agency will tell you.
Jenny Maclean
