Every marketer knows the importance of incorporating quality content into their website. We noticed that there was no clear cut set of guidelines to ensure that each post we created met a certain standard of quality. Another thing we noticed was that it was easy to overlook certain important factors while publishing good content that could have made it better.
If we were facing this problem, surely others were too. So we decided to go ahead and create a tool to make our (and everybody else’s) lives easier. We created a checklist highlighting the essentials of putting out good content from the idea stage, all the way to attracting readership.
Check it out and let us know if it helps you as much as it has helped us!
Brainstorming
Traditional brainstorming involved a group of people sitting around tossing ideas around like a hot potato. In the age of blogs and forums, coming up with great ideas has become much easier and the “group” is the whole world wide web. Here are a few things you can do to get the best out of crowdsourcing:
[frontend-checklist name=”Brainstorming”]Data & Facts
Including statistics can increase the value of your content by making it seem less opinionated and more factual. Your readers will trust your content more when it cites numerical data from credible sources so don’t forget to mention the source of any numbers you’ve used. Here are some ways you can get some statistics to support your data:
[frontend-checklist name=”DataFacts”]Clarity & Formation
One of the most essential factors in optimizing your content is making it readable. This includes both the aesthetics for users and indexability for search engines. Your content should be to the point, and easy to absorb for readers to quickly scan through your content and gain something valuable from it. You can make your content more scannable if you:
[frontend-checklist name=”ClarityFormation”]Action
The aim of any blog is to achieve something which is represented through your Call to Action. This CTA can be in the form of increasing visibility by sharing through social media or engaging users on the blog itself. Either way, it’s important to make your CTA visible and easy to access. Some key actions you can include in your blog are to:
[frontend-checklist name=”Action”]Design
The design of your blog plays a huge role; it needs to be appealing enough to leave a good impression on readers and in turn, reducing your bounce rate. A well-designed blog includes having a mobile friendly page, good spacing and margins to improve readability, and finally, an appealing theme to attract readership. You can revamp your design by:
[frontend-checklist name=”Design”]Conclusion
The first and last paragraphs of your piece will be the most important. They give the reader an idea about what you’re trying to say and tells them what they need to take from it respectively. Your conclusion must be actionable and help the reader take a decision after having read your article. Consider the following:
[frontend-checklist name=”Conclusion”]Promotion
Now that you’ve built an awesome piece of content, how are you going to get it out there? Using some basic (but essential) promotional strategies, you can make sure that your work gets the visibility and appreciation it deserves. A couple of ways you can promote your content include:
[frontend-checklist name=”Promotion”]
