Content Marketing Guide

CONTENTS
1
What Is Content Marketing? And, Why Does It Matter?
2
Content Guidelines:
Why Your Brand Needs a Style Guide
3
How Content Marketing Has Evolved
SPONSORED
How to Scale Your Content Creation Needs
4
Content With Purpose:
How to Set Goals for Every Content Piece You Create
5
100 Types of Content: The Definitive Guide
CONTENTS
6
Case Studies:
How Content Marketing Benefits Companies
7
Top 14 Tools That Will Help YouCreate Better Content
8
20 Places to Share Your Content
9
How to Integrate Content Marketing & SEO
10
How to Create an Editorial Calendar for
Content Marketing in 5 Easy Steps
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1
WHAT IS
CONTENT
MARKETING?
AND, WHY DOES IT
MATTER?
AUTHOR
JULIA MCCOY
44,000 years.
That’s how long humans have been sharing stories,

according to a new study published in the journal
Nature.
WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? AND, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

From ancient Indonesian cave art to cutting-edge
infographics – fast forward a few millennia, and
people are telling more stories than ever.
We’ve just shifted the medium.
The internet of 2020 is evolving at a breakneck pace.

Content gathers dust like fossils, and today’s trending
hashtag is tomorrow’s ironic meme. Attention is at an
all-time premium.
In a recent projection, data giant Seagate estimated

that by 2025, over 75% of the global population will
interact with data every 18 seconds.
Why are users so distractible?
The modern internet is noisy: promotions, clickbait,

flashing banners, subscription pop-ups, and plain old
spam all clamor for notice.
In the deluge of information, it’s easy to see why
savvy consumers are using services like AdBlock to

streamline their browsing experience.
Unfortunately for your brand’s carefully calibrated

marketing campaign, 2020 marks the start of
an annual trend that will send 35 billion global
advertising dollars right down the drain.
The culprit? Adblockers.
So how does a modern brand reach discerning

customers whose attention is their most valuable
resource?
How do you earn the interest of an audience who

could just as easily ignore your advertising?
By giving them what they want: content that matters.

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What Exactly is Content Marketing?

According to the Content Marketing Institute, “content
marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating
and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to
attract and retain a clearly-defined audience – and, ultimately, to
drive profitable customer action.”
Translated into everyday English: Content marketing is relevant

and useful storytelling that captures the interest of your specific
audience and helps them solve their problems.
However you define content marketing, the main takeaway is: it

works.
Here’s why: awesome content – that is, great content marketing

– is legitimately engaging. Your audience doesn’t need to be
convinced to read your content.
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They seek it out.

They can’t help but consume it.
They may not even realize the content they love is actually
marketing. Or if they do, they appreciate the goodwill shown by
a brand that helps them make decisions pro bono.
Let’s say you’re a brand with deep pockets. You could shell out
over 5 million dollars for a 30-second Super Bowl spot and reach
100 million prospects at one time.
Or, as Joe Pulizzi suggests, that same budget could instead

be put toward building a consistently engaged community
of organic, voluntary brand loyalists through long-reaching
initiatives.
70 issues of a print magazine? Check.
Large-scale customer events? Check.
Tens of thousands of blog posts, thousands of white papers, and

more? Double-check.
Wait, what happened to content marketing?
Believe it or not, these wallet-friendly, easy to actualize, Google-

ready methods mentioned above can pump up your SEO and
captivate your prospects.
Let’s take a deeper look at what successful content marketing

looks like.
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Way Beyond Blogging:

What Content Marketing Looks
Like in the 2020s
Blogging may be a key aspect of content marketing, but it’s
not the name of the game anymore. Instead, it’s all about being
dynamic by reaching audiences on all types of platforms.
If your business is only using one avenue, you may be missing out
on a huge potential audience.
Consider adding another form (or two!) of content outreach such

as:
Ebooks Email Campaigns

Podcasts Influencer Updates
Webinars Online courses
TedTalks Videos
Social Media Posts
A 2020 analysis from Entrepreneur predicts that this decade’s
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content marketing will expand to encompass these essentials,

too:
Live-streaming (i.e., Twitch).
Content that is voice search-optimized.
Augmented Reality (AR) experiences.
One-to-one conversations with customers through tools

like Facebook Messenger.
Personalized content that adapts to your audience based

on collected data, such as location, online behavior, or
demographic.
As you can see, the scope of content marketing is virtually

limitless.
What remains the same across all successful channels is the

dedication to including audiences in the brand’s story, and
through that, laying the foundation for a community based on
trust.
90% of all modern businesses use content marketing in some

form, from industry leaders like John Deere and Red Bull to the
smallest indie brands.
Curious about how it all works?
Now that we’ve laid out what exactly it is, and what forms it
covers, let’s take a deeper look at what content marketing can do
for you.
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The Power of Awesome Content

(& Why Your Audience Will Love It)
IT’S ANYTHING BUT SUPERFICIAL
Whether your brand is big or small, readers have come to expect
your content to be in-depth and well-sourced, and unabashedly
authentic.
In the era of deepfakes and heavy Instagram filters, your

audience is looking for something a little more genuine.
Something worth their valuable time.
Longer content – content that dives in deep, provides more

information, and cites more research – has a higher perception
of value than shorter content.
IT’S UBER-PERSONALIZED
Everyone uses the internet a little differently. Many users have
come to expect algorithms to accurately track their interests and
guide them to what they’re searching for.
With the same ethic, content marketing caters to individuals.
Take YouTube, for example. Rather than offering calls to

action, or using traditional television’s appeal to the popularity
of well-known actors to drive sales, YouTube’s algorithm
instead considers a tapestry of data and recommends ultra-
individualized content.
And it’s working.

From more than 2 billion logged-in users every month, the
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Google-owned video giant gathered that it is 3 times more

important to viewers to engage with content connected to their
passions than content that features Hollywood’s who’s who.
IT’S RESPONSIBLY TRANSPARENT

The modern consumer doesn’t just engage with a brand – they’re
part of a brand’s story. This includes the best of times… and the
worst of times.
53% of users expect companies to show corporate responsibility

on social media, as well as be transparent about changes in
products or services.
It may take a little extra effort, but it’s clear that transparency is
well worth it. In today’s market, high transparency is the key to
high public trust.
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3 Reasons Why Creating Powerful Content
Marketing is Worth the Effort
CONTENT MARKETING HELPS YOU CONNECT WITH YOUR
EVOLVING CONSUMER BASE
Technology is rapidly changing the way your prospects interact
with information and make decisions. In a 2020 study by Statista,
it’s projected that by 2023 more than 7 billion people worldwide
will own a smartphone.
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Let that sink in for a moment. That’s nearly the entire current
population of the world.

Now more than ever before, your content has the potential to
reach a truly global audience. The challenge?
For this, let’s zero in on a population a bit easier to wrap your

head around: adults in the US.
On average, American adults are engaged with multiple content

channels for more than 11 hours every single day.
Yes, you read that right.
More than ever before, the chance to sustain a consistent

dialogue with your consumer base is at your brand’s fingertips.
CONTENT MARKETING DRIVES CONVERSIONS (WITHOUT BEING PUSHY!)

Nerd out with me for a moment.
Did you know that, on average, content marketing is responsible

for 6 times as many conversions for content marketers than for
marketers that stick to other strategies? (That’s 2.9% for content
marketing, versus 0.5% for traditional marketing.)
Turn your gaze to the B2B slice of the pie, and content marketing
accounts for 0.8% to 1.1% of all B2B conversions.
How is this possible?
Take a look at your consumer base. Whether B2B or B2C, your

prospects are craving worthwhile content that stands out from
the noise.
1

Want to catch their attention?
You’ll need to find what I call your content differentiation factor

(CDF).
This is your brand’s refreshing new take on content your audience

has seen before. Find your CDF, and you’re well on your way to a
huge boost in conversions.
CONTENT MARKETING SAVES MONEY (& DRIVES SALES, TOO!)

Every business, no matter the size, is looking for ways to cut
costs.
1
Content marketing is a money-saving powerhouse: it costs

62% less and drums up a whopping 3 times as many leads as
traditional marketing.
The past decade has seen astounding growth in the realm of

content marketing.
According to Google Trends, worldwide interest in content

marketing has skyrocketed to nearly 100%, or peak popularity,
over the past 16 years.
Content marketing will not only slash your marketing budget but
also drive more sales over time from higher-quality leads. How?
Through opt-in advertising (aka subscription-based advertising)

you’ll save on lead generation and develop a network of pre-
purchase followers who, over time, will think of your brand first
when the time comes to make a decision.
Ready for Your Business to Thrive?

With the development of new technology and a steadily growing
potential audience, content marketing will only continue
becoming more important.
Ready to demonstrate your brand’s value, build a community,

and ultimately, convert your audience into devoted action-takers?
It’s time to make marketing human again. It’s time to develop a

content marketing strategy for your business.
2
CONTENT
GUIDELINES:
WHY YOUR BRAND
NEEDS A
STYLE GUIDE
AUTHOR
ANNA CROWE
You’re ready to publish a white paper, but a debate about how
to cite your sources has brought the approval process to a halt.
You spend an absurd amount of time adding Oxford commas

to the drafts you get from your freelancers.
An internal subject matter expert submits a blog that’s uptight

and hard to follow, nothing like the blogs that come from the
marketing team.
Your intern takes interesting creative liberties with the
WHY YOUR BRAND NEEDS A STYLE GUIDE

infographic copy you assigned her.
Sound familiar? They’re all symptoms of a lack of a content
CONTENT GUIDELINES:
style guide.
Creating one is a crucial step that’s easy to overlook in the

rush to get content in front of eyeballs.
But it’s totally worth your time. Presenting your brand

consistently can increase revenue by 33%.
And brand consistency isn’t just about logos and colors; it’s
also about the image and character you convey in your content.
If you don’t have a style guide already, don’t beat yourself up.
Lots of companies start producing content before setting up a

guide. I’ll walk you through the steps to create one in this blog.
But first, let’s break down what a style guide is, and why you
need one.
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What Is a Content Style Guide?
CONTENT GUIDELINES: WHY YOUR BRAND NEEDS A STYLE GUIDE

And, Why Is it Important?
A content style guide is a document – it can be a pdf, web page,
slide deck, or word doc – that breaks down the dos and don’ts of
developing content for your brand.
Think of it like this. Your content strategy details what types of

content you’ll create, and when.
Your content style guide deals with the nuts and bolts of creating
that content. It gives your content creators specific directions on
how to create on-brand content.
A style guide also sets the rules for more practical matters of
writing:
Is it a white paper or a whitepaper?
Which words do you capitalize in headers?
Is your tone relatable and fun, or authoritative

and educational?
A style guide keeps everyone on the same page.
It’s sometimes overshadowed by its flashier, sexier sibling, the

visual style guide.
Some companies combine their content guide into their overall

branding guide. But others make it its own separate entity.
Depending on how involved your content guide is, you can
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choose what works best for you.

WHY YOU NEED A STYLE GUIDE
Everyone creates content these days: salespeople, executives,
subject matter experts, etc. You need one rulebook to keep you
all marching to the beat of the same drummer.
Without a style guide, the content made by different creators

is all over the place. There’s no way to enforce the rules if they
aren’t documented.
And when you start scaling your content production, things can
really get out of control.
Planning, creating, and distributing content takes up a lot of time.

A style guide acts as your gutter guards by keeping your content
in the right lane.
So let’s address how to create one now.

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How to Write a Content Style Guide
1. START BY SWIPING
There is no reason to create your style guide from scratch. You
can start with old faithful matriarchs of style, such as AP Style or
The Chicago Manual of Style.
Or you can go with one of the newer guides that are available
online, like Mailchimp’s or Mozilla’s.
The key to this step is the swiping. Swipe away.

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2. DEFINE YOUR CONTENT MISSION

Why do you create content? Look at your goals for your content
marketing program and work backward from there.
Having a documented mission keeps you honest as you develop

each piece of content.
Take some time to consider the purpose of your content. Is it to

enlighten? To entertain? To explain complex issues?
Document what you want your content to do and be for your

audience. Mailchimp‘s approach is a good example to follow:
3. SET YOUR VOICE & TONE

This is the really stylish part of the style guide. This section of
your guide should describe how your content comes across to
your audience.
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Your voice and tone should line up with your brand’s image. The

happy-go-lucky charm of Target doesn’t work for the serious,
caring image of a children’s hospital.
Google’s developer style guide gives a Goldilocks-style table

illustrating how to get their voice and tone juuuuust right:
4. LAY THE GROUND RULES FOR THE BASICS

Now’s your chance to put your foot down.
Will you use the Oxford comma? When do you use numerals or
write numbers out? To emoji or not to emoji?
Die on that hill. And the guide will back you up for the rest of
time (or until you change it).
Even if you choose to follow the rules from a popular style guide,
it’s a good idea to outline common usage practices and provide
examples.
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See how Canada Post eliminates confusion around commonly
used terms:
5. ADDRESS SPECIFIC TYPES OF CONTENT

Different types of content may require you to switch up your
tone or voice. This is also a chance to outline best practices for
the types of content that you create.
For example, your subject matter experts may not realize that
blogs need to be scannable for people to actually read them.
That’s how you end up with a four-page word wall that you’re
expected to upload on the site as-is.
You may know the importance of headers and short paragraphs,

but they don’t. Document those details in the style guide.
Take a look at how Mailchimp gives guidance on the kinds of
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blogs it creates:

And then they offer guidelines for the writing style to use in their
blogs:
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6. DOCUMENT YOUR RULES FOR GRAPHICS
While your visual style guide goes in-depth on how to use

logos, images, and visual design elements, your content style
guide should include some guidance on images too.
Your design team may not touch every blog or content piece
you produce.
Should images be left, right, or center-aligned? Are there

certain types of images to avoid? Put those rules in the guide to
protect brand consistency.
See how Search Engine Journal does it in our editorial

guidelines:
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5 Examples of Content Style Guides

Now that you know all of the steps you need to take to develop
your guide, I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions about how to
structure it.
Fortunately, there are plenty of existing examples to pull from.

So, in the spirit of swiping, take some inspiration from these
guides as you develop yours.
MOZILLA’S GUIDE FOR FIREFOX
Key takeaway: By being as prescriptive as possible, Mozilla leaves no room for confusion.
The quick parenthetical explanations make sure everyone (remember, everyone’s creating
content) is clear on the subjective stuff.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL
Key takeaway: These easy questions force everyone writing content for UNC Chapel Hill to
check their content against the brand’s content mission.
MAILCHIMP
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Key takeaway: Mailchimp avoids offensive faux-pas by outlining how to talk about gender,
disabilities, sexuality, and ethnicity. Even well-meaning content creators can step on a
banana peel in these areas. Their guide keeps everyone aware and on the right track.
SPOTIFY
Key takeaway: This excerpt from Spotify’s Partner Messaging Guide shows how a style
guide can anticipate users’ needs. The alternative example here gives Spotify’s partners a
little flexibility and keeps them from going off the ranch when talking about their catalog.
ATLASSIAN
Key takeaway: Atlassian’s easy-to-navigate table

of contents makes the style guide super easy for
users. Even if you don’t have the tools to build a
sophisticated site for your style guide, a clickable
table of contents can go a long way.
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Over to You
So that’s it! I’ve covered what a content style guide is, why you
need one, and how to do it. Now it’s time for you to start building
your guide.
And remember, the guide is only as good as your ability to

enforce it. Here are some tips to help you in that process:
Make it easily accessible to your content creators.

Whether it’s on the web or a shared folder, this isn’t
something to keep tucked away.
Refer to it when giving feedback. Adopting your style

standards can take time. Keep nudging your creators to look
at it so the guidelines can really sink in.
Make it easy to read. A style guide can be a monster of a

document. Take a cue from the Atlassian example above and
break it into chunks that users can easily understand.
When done well, a content style guide can be a key step towards
producing content that makes a lasting impression with your
audience. So go forth and conquer!
Draw your lines in the sand, put your foot down, document it all,
and don’t forget to swipe from existing guides.
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HOW
CONTENT
MARKETING
HAS
EVOLVED
AUTHOR
BRAD SMITH
Newer is better. Right?
It takes just one look at the Apple product lineup

to confirm that companies are constantly trying to
HOW CONTENT MARKETING HAS EVOLVED

out-innovate each other. It’s only a matter of time
until you’re using the iPhone 32 for teleportation.
But there’s something to be said for the tried-and-

true. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, they say. No need to
reinvent the wheel, they say.
The solution is right in front of you. Has been the

whole time. Literally.
That Coke can. That pack of Jello. That John Deere

tractor. There’s a reason they’re all still around. It
ain’t because of some newfangled, millennial hipster
growth hack.
Here’s why.
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Why ‘Content Marketing’ Is 100+ Years Old

It’s hip and it’s trendy and everyone is talking about it. But
content marketing isn't exactly new.
Known today for their big green tractors, John Deere was an
early adopter of content marketing, producing its own lifestyle
magazine for farmers in 1895 called "The Furrow".
No, it wasn’t a catalog to sell their product. It did, though,

increase brand
loyalty.
Increased sales
were just one
happy byproduct
(of many) from
the valuable
content John
Deere provided
for its customers.
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Jell-O, too, was
an early adopter
of "content
marketing."
In 1904, Jell-O put

out a recipe book
for users to create
concoctions using
their awkward,
gelatinous
substance.
It wasn’t a blatant advertisement of the tasty treat but more like

product placement. You better believe those recipes included the
product!
They also helped the company address what they believed to

be their major sticking point to higher sales: People didn’t know
what to do with Jell-O.
The examples throughout the history of content marketing go on
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and on.

Content marketing has certainly evolved over the years but
comes with the benefit of decades of guinea pigs. It still comes
with the same main components to keep in mind: your audience,
what you hope to achieve, and how you’ll promote it.
Coca-Cola was another early adopter of content marketing over

a century ago in 1895 as medicine.
Yes, you read that right. The sugary beverage we all know and
love was initially touted as a disease killer, cure for morphine
addiction, and even an early impotence alternative.
Today, Coca-Cola is simply doubling down on the same formula

they’ve been perfecting for the past 100+ odd years.
In 2012, they launched their Coca-Cola Journey, a digital platform

that allows users to connect on topics that encourage dialogue:
social causes, news about the company, and consumer trends.
Then, there was the #ShareACoke campaign, where soda buyers
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could “share” the drink with a friend since each bottle’s Coca-

Cola label was replaced with popular names. This one received
millions of shares on social media.
Now, they have the Content 2020 campaign up and running

to collaborate with artists and creatives to solidify Coca-Cola's
place as a content marketing leader.
Why ‘Only Rookies Write From Scratch’

Formulas take out the guesswork and give you a template for
what goes where. Always. Every single time.
Like the good ol’ AIDA. This one goes wayyyy back. E. St. Elmo
Lewis thought it up in 1898.
Attention: Grab the reader.

Interest: Pull in their mind.
Desire: Pull on their heartstrings and their sense of want.
Action: Get them to make the next move.
AIDA works – today still – because it doesn’t jump ahead. It

doesn’t suffer from the curse of knowledge.
Instead, it seduces you. It brings you along on a journey and

shows you all the ways the point is relevant to you. It draws you
in, and by the end of the ad or email, you’re reaching for your
wallet.
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This kid is an animal expert? He knows that a grown elephant can
eat up to 500 pounds of food every day? He learned all this for
$1?!
My kid is dumb in comparison. So much for that Honor Roll

bumper sticker. I’m going to fill out this handy-dandy response
card and order these Safari Cards today!
For nearly 10 years through 1986, this ad ran, appealing to

parents who wanted their kids to learn more, and for a cheap
price. Attention, interest, desire, action.
HubSpot still uses the formula today in their Facebook ads.
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“Of course you would” want to double your lead flow in 30 days.
It’s a no-brainer.
In 1907, Claude Hopkins “insisted copywriters research their

clients' products and produce ‘reason-why’ copy.” He originally
wrote Scientific Advertising in 1923. A text that still guides how
we run tests today:
“Hopkins outlines an advertising approach based on testing and

measuring. In this way losses from unsuccessful ads are kept
to a safe level while gains from profitable ads are multiplied. Or,
as Hopkins wrote, the advertiser is ‘playing on the safe side of a
hundred to one shot’.”
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PAS (Problem-Agitate-Solve) is another all-purpose formula
that’s been around for decades. You present the problem that’s

out there, you stir the pot a bit to make the problem seem even
worse, and then you present a solution. Like this.
Why does this work so well? An unsolvable problem invokes fear.

And fear motivates.
Present them with what’s at stake, and then show them how you
can help them keep it secure.
Ramit Sethi will show you:

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Once again, this PAS model ain’t new. Even the U.S. Army got on

board with the formula back in 1967.
Just look at that sad kid. He waited too long, and now he won’t
get his first choice of jobs in the branch he really wants.
Don’t be like him, the ad implies. Make your choice now.

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Why Facebook’s Ads are an Ogilvy Rip-Off

We can’t even laugh out loud anymore. Or talk to you later. It’s all
LOLs and TTYLs these days.
We need our content to be quick and meaningful, so we can get

it, and move on.
Your full message is important. Maybe we’ll get to it later. But in

the meantime, it’s that headline that pulls readers in. And in that
case, nothing beats fear.
Van Camp was doing this way back in 1911, letting customers
know that buying their competitors' milk was a bad choice and
that their brand was obviously better.
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Want to attract even more? Have someone else give your

message with a testimonial.
Weight loss programs have always notoriously relied on

testimonials to help validate their claims.
But sometimes, even the best headlines can get overlooked.
Thankfully, content with images is more likely to be shared than

other types of content. It’s more engaging. People don’t want to
read tons of text.
Once again, this information is not new. Advertising wiz David

Ogilvy was telling people this in the early eighties.
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“Most readers look at the photograph first. If you put it in the middle of the
page, the reader will start by looking in the middle. Then her eye must go
up to read the headline; this doesn’t work, because people have a habit of
scanning downwards. However, suppose a few readers do read the headline
after seeing the photograph below it. After that, you require them to jump
down past the photograph which they have already seen. Not bloody likely.”
What was he suggesting? Put the image first. Now you’ve got
their attention. Add the headline underneath for context.
Ogilvy took his own

advice with this
piece from 1951.
I need to know
about this man
with the eye patch.
What’s his story?
How is he so cool?
Ahh. He’s “The Man

in the Hathaway
Shirt.” But what
the heck does that
mean? Guess I’ll
have to read on to
find out.
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Conclusion
There will always be a new hack to hack. A latest and
greatest marketing method to try. You never know –
some of them are even bound to work!
But for every new and passing fad, there are countless
other marketing principles that have been honed over
the last century, most of which are more relevant today
than ever before.
Content marketing is a perfect example.
Our consumer behavior has evolved a lot in the past

few years. But our brains and habits and innate desires
haven’t all that much.
The tactics and tools and tips will change. Repeatedly.

Monthly. But the century-old fundamentals still apply.
That iPhone on your desk hasn’t “changed marketing.”

It’s just accelerated it.
SPONSORED BY
HOW TO
SCALE YOUR
CONTENT
CREATION
NEEDS
M ATT SECRIST
CO-FOUNDER AND COO, B KA C O N T E N T
HOW TO SCALE YOUR CONTENT CREATION NEEDS
Talking about content strategy

is one thing, but executing the
creation of it is where many
businesses can get hung up.
If you fall into this category,
you’re not alone.
There’s a lot to consider when

trying to efficiently create
high-quality content that gets
results all while staying within
your budget.
For starters, how much

content should you create?
How consistently should you
create it? How long should the
content be? Who should write
it?
This is where an efficient

content creation strategy
comes in.
How Much Content Do I Need?
First, it’s important to take into account just how much content
you’ll need to meet your overall content marketing goals.
Statistics show that the more content you consistently create for
your business, the stronger your results are likely to be.
As of 2020, more than half of bloggers published anywhere from

one blog a week to several per month. The more that bloggers
wrote, either in the length of the blog or the frequency of
posting, the more likely they were to see strong results in search
engine rankings.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the main factors that can
influence how much content your business should create.
FREQUENCY OF POSTING
Companies that publish blog posts 16 times or more per month
tend to see 3.5 times more traffic and 4.5 times more leads than
businesses that blog four or fewer times per month.
B2B companies may see up to 67% more leads when they blog
more, and consistent blogging can increase links to a company’s
website as much as 97%.
Just because you start a blog does not mean you will see these

kinds of results right away, however.
The “magic” number for seeing increased traffic and engagement

appears to be around 70 blog posts.
LENGTH OF THE BLOG

The frequency of posting is not the only factor affecting the
amount of content and engagement businesses see on their
blogs.
The length of each blog also plays an important factor. The

average blog length in 2020 is 1,236 words, and the average
word count for blogs ranking #1 on Google is 1,900 words.
This does not necessarily mean that every piece of content you
create must be 1,200 or more words.
Different types of content have different purposes that call for

custom word counts. But when it comes to blogging, it’s clear
that more is better.
QUALITY OF THE BLOG
Of course, how long the blog is and how frequently you post
matters very little if it is poorly written. For this reason, it is vital
to ensure the content you are creating is well-written and has
value to the reader.
Typically, higher quality work either takes more time or costs

a little bit more to create. To give some context, the average
amount of time spent writing a single blog in 2020 is nearly 4
hours.

Content Creation Recommendations

Ultimately, the amount of content you create depends on your
company’s custom content strategy.
Every industry is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all

approach to blogging that will work perfectly for every business.
That being said, we can conclude some general

recommendations based on the statistics over the last several
years.
Companies that want to see the very best results should be

publishing longer content more frequently.
Still, when starting your blog from scratch, remember that it

can take anywhere from a few months to a few years to see the
strong results you are aiming for.
How Do I Scale My Content Strategy?
If it takes almost 4 hours to write a blog post and you need to
create 16 a month for improved results, you likely do not have the
time to spend over 60 hours a month writing your online content.
A more efficient approach is to have a dedicated writer or team

of writers creating the content for you.

When hiring for content creation, you will want to consider a few
factors:
The keyword, topic and brand style guidelines for

the content.
The size and scope of your project.
The types of content you’re creating.
The length of the content.
The complexity of your industry.
Your budget.
Each one of these things will affect the overall cost and resources
that will be required to complete your content creation project at
scale.
Content Creation Options
Here are the three most common options available for
content fulfillment:
1. HIRE AN IN-HOUSE TEAM

This option usually gives companies the highest level of control,
but it also tends to be the most expensive.
The greatest advantage of hiring an in-house writing team is

that the writers become familiar with your brand and company
culture in a way freelancers may not be able to, and that can be
more easily implemented into the writing.
It’s generally easier and faster to communicate directly with an

in-house team as well, thus allowing you to have more control
over the turnaround and quality of the content.
Once the writers are trained, you can rest a little easier knowing
your team has inside knowledge and experience.
Hiring writers in-house also comes with some major costs.
You are looking at a full salary, increased overhead, plus any

offered benefits for every writer you hire, which might not make
as much sense for short-term or one-time SEO and blogging

projects.
In addition, there is a limit to what can be produced by a single

writer.
If your content project requires a lot of content, you will need

to ensure you hire enough writers to produce the amount of
content you are looking to publish, which can increase the cost
exponentially.
Creating an in-house team often encompasses the following:
Most reliable content and quality control.
More easily tailored to your brand and voice.
Most expensive solution.
Very hard to scale.

Ultimately, building an in-house team may be beneficial for
companies that require greater control at the expense of being
able to scale quickly.
This option is likely to work better for businesses working with a

large budget.

2. CONTRACT FREELANCE WRITERS DIRECTLY
It can be difficult to determine the exact cost of hiring
freelancers as they tend to negotiate their own rates for each
project; however, companies that use independent contractors
are likely to save a lot of money over hiring an in-house team.
On the other hand, you may need to hire more freelancers if you
require a lot of content. In order to do this, you need to have the
experience of contracting, training and managing writing and
editing teams.
It’s important to spend time ensuring the writers you have under
contract understand your business enough to blog with some
level of expertise.
You’ll also need a system of quality monitoring and management

on your end to ensure content is completed on time and at the
quality level desired.
Extra management translates into increased time on your end, so

you’ll want to factor that into overall costs.

In addition, the skill level of a freelance writer varies. More
experienced freelancers are likely to charge more for their
services, meaning the total savings could be less than you initially
anticipated.
Overall, you can expect the following with directly hiring

freelancers:
Typically more affordable.
More diverse writing base.
Higher writer turnover.
Requires hands-on management.
The bottom line is that directly contracting freelance writers can

be a great option for businesses on a lower budget if you have
the time and expertise to manage, train and monitor the quality
of the work.
3. HIRE A WRITING AGENCY
Hiring a writing agency can provide a balance between working
with freelance writers and hiring an in-house team.
A good writing agency works with businesses to become familiar

with their brand voices and blogging strategy, and they may
also have managers who work directly with a dedicated team of
writers to complete content specifically for your business.
Two distinct advantages of using an agency are scalability and

convenience.
An agency is more likely to be able to get more writers working
on a bigger project quickly, meaning you do not have to worry as
much about finding, training and paying the right talent yourself.
This also means you can order only what you need when you
need it.
Agencies also tend to take on the responsibility of vetting,

training and managing ongoing teams of writers, allowing for
some time savings on your end.

However, it is also important to keep in mind that, even when
working with a managed agency, you will have less direct control
over the content creation process.
This is where a feedback loop with your agency contact becomes

key.
The short of hiring an agency is the following:
Agency handles the hiring, managing and quality of writers.
Ability to scale quickly.
Less direct control over writers.
Requires good communication with agency contact.
A writing agency may be the ideal option for businesses that do

not have the budget, skills or time to manage an in-house team
but still want managed, quality writers.
This option is also great if you plan on creating a lot of content in
a short amount of time.
An agency will likely be more expensive than contracting

freelance writers directly but is a great option if you don’t have
the time, bandwidth or structure to manage them on your own.
The Bottom Line of Content Scaling

The consistent creation of online content is an essential

component of any modern company’s marketing strategy.
To make a strong impact, you should be creating more high-

quality, long-form, consistent blogs a month, which may be too
much for you or any other single person to handle.
In order to appropriately scale your content creation to your

business strategy, it might be a good idea to hire a freelancer,
build an in-house content writing team or work with a writing
agency.
The ideal solution for your unique business needs depends

largely on your budget and goals.
There is no single strategy that will work perfectly for everyone,

which is why initial research and planning for your target market
and audience is so essential.
Although it can take some time to reap the fruits of quality

content creation, investing in a solid strategy now is likely to help
you see greater success sooner than you think.
4
CONTENT
WITH PURPOSE:
HOW TO SET GOALS
FOR EVERY CONTENT
PIECE YOU CREATE
AUTHOR
JAMES BROCKBANK
Are you guilty of producing and publishing content simply for
the sake of doing so?
Maybe you were once told that a surefire way to increase your
presence on the SERPs is to regularly publish 500-word blog
posts on the grounds that "Google loves fresh content."
On the other hand, maybe you've just always been in the

practice of producing as much content as possible, ticking a
HOW TO SET GOALS FOR EVERY CONTENT PIECE YOU CREATE

box against a requirement from above, placing more of a focus
on the number of pieces published rather than the quality.
If this sounds like the extent of your "content strategy," then
CONTENT WITH PURPOSE:

you need to take immediate action.
STOP IT NOW!
Why?
Because, at best, you're wasting your time.
There's a good chance that producing content without a clear

goal is doing very little for your brand.
There's also every possibility that much of this would classify

as thin content with no unique value.
The good news?
It's easy to change old habits.
You just need to understand how to put a purpose on every

piece of content you create.
4
The Purpose of Content
CONTENT WITH PURPOSE: HOW TO SET GOALS FOR EVERY CONTENT PIECE YOU CREATE
Ask yourself a question:
"As a brand, why do you produce content?"
Seriously. Go ahead, write down your answer(s).
What did you come up with?
Hopefully, you have a list of a number of different purposes.
Some common answers include:
To keep our blog looking active.

Google likes to see regular content.
Our director wants five blog posts published every week.
4
If these are the types of answers you'd give, then you're
producing content simply for the sake of it.
There's no real purpose behind the content you're producing and,

clearly, no goals in place.
This is a massive mistake. It can result in a significant waste of

resources.
Every single piece of content you produce must have a purpose.
Your content should be working toward one or more wider

marketing goals. You should be able to justify to anyone why
you took the decision to write that blog post or design that
infographic.
What then, can the purpose of a piece of content look like?
4 Simple Content Purposes

Typically (and there’s always exceptions), content will be
produced for one of the following reasons:
To earn links.
To rank on the SERPs.
To educate an audience.
To drive social engagement.
It’s all about understanding what any specific piece of content
4
can do for your brand.
How can it work hard toward wider marketing goals?
Is it good enough to actually achieve any of these?
Does it need to take a certain format to do so?
Here’s a deeper look at these four content purposes.
1. TO EARN LINKS
Maybe you're using content marketing as a link building tactic
– producing story-first content which is then covered, and linked
to, by top-tier publications.
This will likely be produced in a way which is accessible to

journalists:
Data-driven infographics.
Interactive tools.
Survey results.
4
Think “linkable assets” and you’re somewhere along the right
lines.
This certainly isn’t exclusive, however.
Common types of content produced with the intention of earning

links include:
Infographics.
Interactive tools.
Surveys.
Guest posts.
Expert comment contributions.
No one content format earns links, and that's OK.
You can't be expected to stick to one type of content, rather

understand during the strategy and planning stage of a
campaign that links are the goal.
We're typically not talking 10,000-word guides here, rather

something linkable and which adds fresh, data-driven value to a
topic.
With this in mind, we know that links are one of the main ranking
signals used by Google. Without big links, you'll struggle to gain
visibility.
As such, every brand, regardless of whether they're competing

on a local scale as a brick and mortar store or are an ecommerce
giant, needs to be producing content with the purpose of landing
links.
4
Content that earns links needs to be amazing.
Not just good.
Not great.
AMAZING.
Link building gets harder and harder, however with the right
ideas and an understanding as to the goals, both ideation and
production can align to deliver content solely intended for this
purpose.
2. TO RANK ON THE SERPS

If you want to earn traffic from organic search, you need to rank
in top positions.
It's as simple as that.
Long gone are the days when you can rank with garbage
content, however. Panda put an end to that.
If the purpose of the content you’re producing is to rank and

earn organic traffic, it’s likely you’ll be creating something very
different than if you’re looking to land links.
Again, that’s absolutely fine. It’s all about acknowledging the

purpose of the content and aligning the format and production
to the goals.
Let’s look at an example.

If you’ve carried out keyword research and established that
4
there’s the potential to earn high-quality traffic through a top
ranking for the term "free things to do in San Francisco" (let’s, for
a moment, say you’re marketing a travel brand).
When the purpose of the content is to rank, it needs to be the

best piece about the topic.
Work to this principle and you’ll already be miles ahead of

many competitors, but this is one of the areas where marketers
commonly fall down.
Remember our discussion above around writing 500-word blog

posts that add no value to a topic? Listen up...
If you want to rank in prominent organic positions for searches

of "free things to do in San Francisco" you’re going to struggle
unless you’re able to create the very best guide on the web.
Think about it.
4
Google, Bing and the other search engines want to return the
best and most relevant results for a query.
So why would they rank content that isn’t up to scratch?
It’s simple. They won’t.
Again, we come back to the fact that it’s easy to waste time and
resources producing content if you’ve not properly aligned to
goals and understand the purpose behind it.
In terms of creating the very best content, you need to

understand what makes a piece better than another and it’s why
it’s so important to spend time analyzing the SERPs for terms
before you move into production.
That way you can look to establish the commonalities between

first page rankings and understand ways in which you can
enhance those already ranking at the top.
It’s a common misconception that you can knock a result off the
top spots by simply increasing the length.
If only!
Creating the best result for a specific search query goes far
beyond this.
It’s important that you consider searcher intent (what does the
user actually want to read and engage with), user experience and
other factors.
4
Think of it this way:
If you’re able to find 100 free things to do in San Fran, who really
wants to read a straight-up, bulleted list? That's by no means the
best format for a #1 ranking.
What would better meet the searcher's query and intent is a

filterable guide which allows you to sort by the type of 'to do' –
for families, couples, solo travelers, etc. – complete with specific
location information, contact details, images, reviews, and a
write-up.
See the difference?
When the purpose of your content is to rank, you need to focus

on what will result in that happening rather than falling into a
trap of producing sub-par 500-word blog posts.
4
3. TO EDUCATE AN AUDIENCE
Content is typically produced as marketing material.
That means there will always be content intended to educate

an audience – that with the goal of moving potential clients and
customers through the sales funnel.
In many cases, there's a lot of crossover between content

produced with the purpose of ranking and that which educates,
however, there are also instances where these are done in a silo.
For example, an ebook or white paper that typically won't rank

on its own under competitive terms but has a definite place in
the overall marketing strategy.
4
When it comes to producing content that educates, take the time
to understand the questions your audience is asking as well as
conducting a detailed content gap analysis against competitors.
It's all about ensuring that:
When a potential customer searches for information

relating to the products or services you offer, you've
produced content that answers their questions – and it's
ranking.
Once this user lands on your site, there's further content

that pushes them through the sales funnel.
Bottom line: such content can take many different forms.
Content absolutely doesn't need to be produced solely for the

purpose of ranking or earning links, so long as you've got the
justification as to how it plays a role in the wider strategy.
4. TO DRIVE SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT

You can't ignore social media.
For many brands, it’s a powerful platform to drive brand

awareness and engagement.
From a content perspective, however, to see real success you

need to produce content solely for the purpose of driving social
engagement – again showcasing just how content needs to be
produced with a goal in mind, not just for the sake of it.
We're all aware that video does well across social platforms, as
4
do images, quizzes and other fun, interactive formats. If that's the
case, that's what brands need to focus on creating.
A 5,000-word guide written with the goal of ranking on the

SERPs is likely going to tank on social media.
It's just not what social audiences want to consume (unless

there's something really special within it that can generate
shares, likes, and buzz).
However, a quiz or competition may only perform on social.
When you're producing content with a purpose, however, that's

absolutely fine. So long as it meets its own goal, no problems.
4
By all means, understand the value of social (you'd be crazy not
to).
However, don't be tempted to try to utilize content for different
purposes if it seems difficult to do so.
Focus on seeing great results from the main goal and move on to
producing a different type of content to meet other goals.
Not Every Piece of Content Ticks All Boxes

There's often a tendency to try and align a single piece of
content with multiple goals, trying to produce something which
will earn links, rank at the top of the SERPs for high volume
terms, educate audiences, and drive strong engagement on
social media.
Sorry, it's unlikely to happen.
Just as it's a mistake to have no strategy in place and to produce

content simply for the sake of doing so, it also isn't advisable to
try to tick too many boxes with a single piece.
Think about it.
Content requires a significant investment both in time and, often,

financial resources when done right.
As a brand, it's important that it performs as part of the wider

marketing strategy – be that to drive awareness, direct sales, or
contribute towards another channel (e.g., SEO).
4
When you make the mistake of setting multiple purposes for a
content piece, you're ultimately going to have to make sacrifices
somewhere.
Maybe you need to go wordier to rank when you wanted to keep

it simple and visual for social sharing.
Maybe you really needed to earn links but decide to go long-

form to rank as well...
It gets messy, doesn't it?
Taking this approach results in content that underperforms and,

in reality, ends up being a waste of time and resources.
You're far better off focusing upon a single purpose for content
and executing to the best of your ability.
Sometimes there will be a crossover between different purposes.

But always look to identify a single reason why you're producing
every content piece.
No one expects a single piece of content to achieve everything

for a brand and for this reason, you need to focus on smashing
goals and KPIs relating to the main purpose. Anything else is a
bonus.
Take the time to educate your wider team and work to ensure
everyone is on the same page, understanding the goal of every
piece of content to drive forward success and ensure that
resources aren't being wasted on content which, in reality, does
nothing for a brand.
5
100 TYPES
OF CONTENT:
THE DEFINITIVE
GUIDE
AUTHOR
DANNY GOODWIN
Creating content in a variety of formats will help you reach a
wider audience. Here’s a list of 100 types of content you can
create, with examples.
Content is power.
It comes in countless forms, and each of those forms can be

pivoted into countless permutations.
Think your about page has to be text?
Think again.
100 TYPES OF CONTENT: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE

The world of media is at your fingertips: video, images, audio,
and even GIFs.
They’re each engaging on their own, but, use them in

combination and you’ll be making powerhouse content.
You can also get a ton of mileage out of a single piece of

content by repurposing it.
A how-to blog is not just a blog – it’s the script for an

explainer video, or a shareable infographic, or the base of an
e-book.
Each form reaches a different set of eyes and expands your

network.
Ready to learn more?
Check out these 100 types of content to dive into getting the
most mileage out of your content.
5
1. About
Your “about us” content is some of the strongest content you can

create for your brand.
It positions you or your company as a market leader, earns trust,

and builds a human connection – if it’s done well.
Here’s how we do it:
In three sentences, we outline our team’s mission, a snippet of

our history, and how we serve our audience authority content.
2. App
Great apps don’t often start from scratch.
Just look at Gabriel Wyner, who pivoted his best-selling book

“Fluent Forever” into a language-learning app.
5
3. Audiobook

Reach your audience on the go by adding an audio-component
to an existing e-book.
For example, Ryan Holiday’s Growth Hacker expands his book

audience to include listeners by adding an Audible audiobook.
Audible’s easy self-production publisher platform, ACX, makes

this accessible for everyone.
4. Augmented Reality
Want to make your brand part of everyday life?
Pokemon Go is an amazing example: they caught the casual

mobile gaming network, reaching a whole new set of fans.
5

5. Awards
Awards are great for eliciting a response from professionals – and
also generating content.
Look no further than the U.S. Search Awards.
Every year, they hand out awards to top SEO and marketing
professionals.
6. Behind the Scenes

Team building, project progress, and culture are all great places
to start for behind the scenes content.
Facebook shows off their behind-the-scenes London engineering

office with this exclusive look.
7. Blog Post
Think of your blog as the hub for all of your wide-reaching
content.
Our strategy at Search Engine Journal: frequent, high-quality

posts to maximize traffic growth.
5
8. Cartoon / Comic
Need a laugh?

Marketoonist shows us how it’s done: avoid tone-deaf marketing,
keep it simple, and put out new cartoons frequently.
9. Case Study
Think a case study has to be a dry, visually boring pdf to be
professional?
Hubspot begs to differ: they engage with statistics, images,

testimonials and more.
10. Calendar
Great if your brand deals in local events and conferences.
Check out Amelia to build your own events calendar.
11. Cause
Causes take a brand from interesting to admirable.
Axe uses purpose-driven content to confront an issue and re-

orient toward a human focus.
12. Certification Program

Up-level your authority by creating an online course or
certification program.
Moz Academy provides polished, straightforward information

about exactly what you can expect to learn.
5
13. Challenge

Challenges can be used to mobilize your audience.
Just look at NaNoWriMo, a nonprofit that hosts an annual novel-

writing challenge.
Their dedicated community stays engaged all year long.
14. Cheat Sheet

What does a successful cheat sheet look like?
Marketing Insider Group knows: they teach beginners how to

format a killer blog in a single image and 13 words.
15. Checklist
What better to exemplify a checklist than a checklist for writing
checklists?
Create an objective-focused, breakdown with simple points and

consistent formatting.
5

16. Clickbait
Bad clickbait is all surface-level, but you can use the same tactics
for high-quality content.
Search Engine Journal does this by using the listicle format,

emotional words, bringing unique value to the conversation.
17. Co-branded
When two brands partner to form a new product or service,
that’s co-branding.
A great example of this is PayPal and Honey, a match which

magnifies the goal of maximizing your money.
18. Collaborative / Co-created Content

Collaborative content dramatically expands your audience with
each contributor you add.
The bonus: guest posts, interviews, and contributor quotes add a

TON of value to your content.
5
19. Company Culture

You can reveal a lot about company culture in just the form you
present it.
Here’s how: Scribe Writing’s amazing culture bible is a publicly

editable Google Doc.
20. Comparison
This content is great for outlining:
Pros and cons
Your product vs another
Features available at different price points
Your ideal customer’s journey to conversion
Whatever your aim, be bold, but bottle up your bias.
Take Growth Marketing Pro for example: a quick-to-digest

graphic highlights their rating, audience, and cost.
5
21. Content Library / Resource Center

If you’re reading this, it’s likely you found our resource library.
It’s chock-full of ebooks, the history of Google algorithm

updates, podcasts, and webinars.
22. Contest
A contest is a great way to attract new followers and boost
engagement from your loyal audience.
Take Upwork: they asked for success stories in exchange for a

chance to win $1,000.
5
23. Course
The world of digital marketing never sleeps, and that means your

followers are constantly looking for ways to level up their skills.
Social Creators (an education company focused on storytelling)

immediately boost their credibility and show expertise with a
single high-quality image.
24. Curated Content

Great for link-building and widening your audience, curated
content comes in 3 main forms: your content, content from
around the web, or a mix of both.
Check out Brain Pickings for curated content with a unified

focus.
25. Data: Analysis

Original data is valuable. Original data + analysis? Priceless.
WordStream has done this incredibly well over the years.
For example, WordStream looked at how COVID-19 impacted

Google Ads results in 21 industries – and also provided actionable
tips on how to minimize the impact.
5
26. Data: Journalism

Put simply, data journalism is storytelling using data.
FiveThirtyEight are kings of data journalism, especially when it

comes to politics
Check out their The Atlas of Redistricting – which used data

to draw up alternative congressional maps to encourage more
competitive elections.
27. Data: Visualization

Visual content is addictively readable.
Charts and graphs are a simple way to show a large amount of

data without getting caught up in the nitty-gritty.
Visualized data can take the form of size comparison, like

Reuter’s chilling graphics on the single-use plastic crisis.
28. Day in the Life

This type of content was made for video.
Elif Hiz combines an authentic, behind-the-scenes style with a

dressed-down approach to real challenges she faces as a digital
marketing manager.
5

29. Demo / Product Tour
Transformative product demos not only show how awesome the
product is, but also how it will help people achieve the outcomes
they’re looking for.
Take GoPro’s HERO 8 Black + Max demo – it’s visceral, edge-of-

your-seat content and it shows the kind of extreme lifestyle many
GoPro users aspire toward.
5
30. Diagram
Maybe you have a complicated idea you’d like to introduce.

Maybe you’d like to break down a product and show exactly how
it works (guts first).
Diagrams – like the Social Media Transit Map – quickly and

beautifully show interconnectivity.
31. Dictionary
Want to educate your followers on need-to-know industry terms?
Hootsuite’s social media glossary is a great example of providing

valuable definitions that bolster their brand-specific authority.
32. Easter Egg

Like their colorful real-world counterparts, this hidden content
makes us smile.
That’s because it can show a brand’s silly side, like Google’s

Dino Run Game, which only appears on Chrome if your internet
connection’s gone out.
5
33. Ebook

Think of e-books as a deep-dive on your most popular content,
like our Complete Guide to Holiday Marketing.
Offering free ebooks is also an excellent way to grow your email

list.
34. Email
Emails can offer information on upcoming webinars, motivate
action, and way more.
Craft outstanding subject lines for a higher open rate use

emotional words, second person (you, your), and keep it simple.
5
35. Ephemeral content

In the blink of an eye (or a few seconds, anyway), it’s gone.
Think: Snapchat – it engages the FOMO-instinct and elicits

immediate action.
36. Events: In-person

There’s no substitute for live events.
That’s why the Content Marketing Institute leverages summits

and award ceremonies as part of their brand strategy.
37. Events: Virtual

Now more than ever, e-conferences and events are essential.
A virtual event could be as simple as livestreaming on YouTube

like or as complicated as hosting an eSummit with thousands of
attendees.
38. Explainer
Satisfy that knowledge-hungry urge and mobilize your audience.
PBS Eons kick major butt in the education market, with relevant
merch connected to their smart content.
39. Fact Check

Want to expose fake news?
Corrective uses raw investigative journalism to shine a light on

the truth.
5
40. Facts
Let facts triumph over fiction.

SEJ uses high-level research to dive way deeper.
41. Failures
Failure can be humbling – it can also be endearing.
Content Marketing Institute shows their vulnerable side by

acknowledging failures and showing how they’ve grown.
42. FAQ
FAQs build trust and transparency.
Line’s image-based FAQs are easy to read and align with their brand.
5
43. Forums
Reddit can be intimidating.

Redditors refuse to be marketed to – but they will participate as an
honest focus group.
Insurance company TransAmerica used their conversations on

Reddit to create new content.
44. Game
Make content marketing more fun with games.
Try tools like The Training Arcade, where you can create a game
tailored to your target audience.
45. Gated
Want your audience to feel special?
Exclusive content – like Patreon supporters-only content – rewards

your followers for their engagement.
46. GIFs
It’s no secret the new language of the internet is GIFs.
Nerd Fitness harnesses them to explain exercises and include

readers in inside jokes.
5
47. Gossip
Everyone loves a bit of hot gossip.

That’s why People uses rumors as a jumping-off point for
discussion and employs clickbait headlines to hook readers.
48. Guest post

Whether you are posting on a third-party site, or a guest blogger
is posting on your blog, guest posts are an incredible way to
expand your reach and talk to new audiences.
New to guest posting? Ace your first one by following

Quicksprout’s checklist.
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49. Guide
In-depth, definitive, ultimate – all three of these words describe a

deep-diving guide on any topic.
Our Linkbuilding Guide is extensively researched and easy to

digest.
50. Hiring & Recruiting

Help aspiring employees understand what you’re looking for.
LinkedIn quickly outlines criteria on its streamlined, eye-catching

platform.
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51. How-To
Two rules of thumb keep your how-to’s sharp: relevance and
authenticity.
Optin Monster hits it out of the park with How to Make Money on
Instagram.
52. Human Interest

This type of content is all about positivity.
Inspire your audience with growth-focused stories like Bold

Content’s high-quality videos.
53. Humor
Laughter is the best medicine, and it’s also some of the best
marketing.
Scott Adams builds camaraderie with his audience through

hilarious cartoons.
54. Images: Stock

Stock photos and images add a professional polish to any
content.
User-submitted photos on Pexels are high-quality and millennial-

oriented.
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55. Images: Original
Want to see your images all over the net?

Mark Smiciklas crafts high-quality graphics, expanding his
follower-base without a tremendous effort.
56. Infographic
Easy to skim, visually appealing infographics help readers digest
(and share) data.
Check out Venngage for amazing examples and templates.
57. Interview / Q&A / AMA

Want to increase your authority on a topic?
Interview an expert, or try an AMA session on Reddit – Bill Gates

took what he learned and repurposed it into tons of cutting-edge
content.
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58. Investigative

You don’t have to be a journalist to investigate a mystery or
debunk some long-held beliefs.
You don’t need to invest tons of hours into an expose.
The truth is out there – in the form of accurate facts, data, or

quotes.
All you have to do is go find it.
Here’s a simple example: 10 Facts You Think You Know About

SEO That Are Actually Myths.
59. Landing Page

It’s your home base, so it pays to make it shine.
Our eye-catching landing page features three hot stories in a

moving carousel.
60. Listicle
Here are 3 reasons listicles are awesome:
They’re skimmable.
They’re straightforward.
People love lists.
“7 Awesome SEO Tools Offering a Free Trial” is a stellar example.

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61. Magazines
Whether print or online, publishing a magazine is a great way to
make sure there’s always fresh, expert content on your website.
Check out Forbes for high-quality examples.
62. Maps
We can’t pass this content type without mentioning one of the
most-searched maps on the web in 2020: the Johns Hopkins live
COVID-19 tracker.
It converts complicated, global data into a digestible map.
63. Memes
One does not simply make a new meme – it’s all about
community iteration.
BuzzFeed combines memes to connect with an internet-hip

audience and give them an inside-joke chuckle.
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64. Microsite
It’s exactly what it says on the tin: compact, simple, and to the

point.
Collaborative Fund uses a fun infographic to highlight the effect

car sharing will have on the future.
66. News: Analysis

Take your audience on an in-depth journey.
Politico produces reputable, bleeding-edge analyses, raising the

value of the entire publication.
67. News: Breaking

This just in: by-the-seat-of-your-pants content is a great tactic for
maintaining reader engagement.
Adweek nails it with breaking news in the marketing niche.

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68. News: Company

Have a new product or service?
Announce it with company news.
Check out SpaceX’s innovative coverage of their new product,

rightly reframed as history-making news.
69. News: Current Affairs

Create content that discusses how important happenings in the
world are impacting your business, market, or niche right now.
The obvious example for 2020: The impact of COVID-19 is an

opportunity to create content that will inform and help your
audience.
Search Engine Journal did this by offering several articles on the

impact of COVID-19.
70. News: Industry News / Recap

Google and social media platforms are constantly changing.
Our news section provides the latest on Google shifts, SEO,

social media updates, and more.
71. Newsletter
Keep your audience in the loop.
We optimize our newsletter by formatting for all devices and

making sure to add eye-catching images.
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72. Opinion
This content type has many names:

Argumentative Commentary
Rant Thinkpiece
Perspective
For an amazing example of a smart, authentic opinion piece,

read Mark Ritson’s Marketing in the Time of COVID-19.
73. Opposing Perspectives

Duke it out!
Steven Crowder’s “Change My Mind” prompts live discussion on

tough issues.
74. Paid Tools

All high-quality content goes through rigorous proofreading
before going live. Tools like Grammarly provide free basic service,
and in-depth attention for paid users.
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75. PDF

Releasing a pdf is a great way to establish authority on a subject.
Check out Deloitte for a high-quality example.
76. Personal Narrative

Let your vulnerable side shine.
Noelle Stevenson deeply humanizes her image by exposing her

difficult personal journey in “The Fire Never Goes Out”.
77. Photo Gallery

Whether in a carousel format or a single page, photos boost
engagement and drive clicks.
Expedia uses photos to sell not just a great trip, but a lifestyle.
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78. Plugin

Developing a plugin for your particular niche helps your brand
gain traction in the WordPress Sphere.
Check out MonsterInsights for a killer example.
79. Podcast
Podcasts come in three main forms:
Podcasts with a regular team, Marketing O’Clock.
Podcasts with guests, like our Search Engine Journal

Show
Third-party podcasts, in which you participate in

another podcast.
80. Poll / Survey

Ask your audience exactly what you want to know.
Survey Monkey’s Facebook survey gathers info to use as fodder

for future content.
81. Predictions
Evidence-based speculation shows confidence and expertise.
Check out our webinar for an evolving prediction about the

future of SEO in 2020.
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82. Presentation
Who says a slide deck has to be boring?

Boost engagement with a TED Talk, like Dan Cobley’s evergreen
presentation.
83. Press Release

Have a major announcement?
Consider sending the details to news outlets in your niche.
Check out awesome examples of using press releases for events

from McDonald’s.
84. Profile: Company / Business / Brand

Consider introducing your company with a brief video that
profiles your company, business, or brand in a way that
humanizes you to your followers.
Phillips uses this method to share their business journey.

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85. Profile: Personal
For your personal blog and your guest posts, a catchy bio is
essential.
Check out Ann Handley’s bios: in both her short and long version,
her personality (and authority) shine through.
86. Promotion
Associate your brand with all your favorite content creators.
Here’s a great example: SquareSpace announces promo codes

via podcasts and YouTube channels.
87. Quiz
From silly to educational, everyone loves a fun quiz.
Clickhole is a great example of how to get satirical.

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88. Research Report

Poll or quiz your followers and turn it into original research.
Looking for ideas? MarketResearch.com has tons.
89. Screenshots
Got tech-related content? Explaining a tool, method, or feature?
Check out The Smart Blogger – blogging leader Jon Morrow uses
screenshots to help readers quickly get tech in-use.
90. Services
Show what you can do when it comes to your services.
SalesForce optimizes for skimming by using checklists, images,

and stats.
91. Social Media

This enormous category of content’s core element is right in the
name: social.
Check out how we maintain our brand across platforms, while

directly connecting with our audience in real-time.
92. Sponsorships
The new trend in sponsorships: supporting up-and-comers.
Blue Apron reaches a new audience by sponsoring podcasts

outside of their niche.
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93. Statistics
Relevant statistics are a great tactic to improve your researched

content.
It adds more power to your content to quote and source the

right statistics.
In fact, using statistics in blogs is proven to improve customer

trust. (Yes, that’s a statistic example! From Hubspot.)
Two great sources we recommend: Pew Research Center and

Statista.
94. Testimonials
Let your customers do the talking for you!
Testimonial content is some of the best content to pull in ideal

leads that share the same pain points.
For example, Hubspot brings ideal customers to the forefront to

demonstrate the proveable value.
95. Tools
Tools can be a lifesaver (and expensive).
But free tools? Invaluable.
In addition to tools, calculators can be another popular type of

content for your website.
And did we mention they’re great link magnets? Check out How
to Earn Links by Creating Free Tools for examples.
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96. Video
Video is a powerful format type.
What’s more: you can easily repurpose other content formats

into a video.
For example, Julia McCoy turns each single YouTube video she
produces into a blog and an email campaign.
Here are a few types of awesome video styles:
Live – Unedited and off-the-cuff
Video: 360 – Perfect for travel vloggers
Video: Playlists – Curated for easy viewing
Video: Recorded – Polished, produced, or bare-bones
Joe Rogan streams his podcast live on YouTube, which extends

his audience and adds a visual element not available to audio-
only listeners.
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97. Webinar
Whether a webinar is live or on-demand, it connects growing

professionals with experts.
SEJ hosts regular webinars based on white-hot industry news.
98. Whitepaper
Help your leads make an informed decision before taking action.
Content Marketing Institute’s whitepaper library features reports

demonstrating the viability of brands.
99. Wiki
In an industry with lots of complicated terms?
Seobility simplifies with a niche-specific wiki.
100. Why
Explainer content can be powerful.
An unanswered question is an incredible hook.
“Why an Audience Analysis Is Necessary to SEO” is an amazing

example of why this type of content has to be part of your
repertoire.
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Build the Right Types & Boost Your

Brand: Content Is Everywhere
Every piece of content begins with an idea.
Once you have that great idea, you can use this list
of content types to pick the format that will best
showcase that idea.
And never limit yourself to one idea, one format.
One idea can be repurposed into multiple formats –

text, video, or audio.
The only limit is your imagination!
By creating all the formats when it comes to great

content, you’re sure to reach a gigantic, varied
audience, build your brand name, and cater to a wide
variety of formats your audience loves and consumes.
Go ahead – choose one and get started.

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CASE STUDIES:
HOW CONTENT
MARKETING
BENEFITS
COMPANIES
AUTHOR
S H E L L E Y WA L S H
Part of being a great content marketer is keeping an eye
on what other content marketers are doing – to predict the
future one starts with what has gone before.
I’m a genuinely curious person and fortunately, a big part

of what I do involves researching and consuming a lot of
content.
When I’m doing concept work, I usually start by reviewing
HOW CONTENT MARKETING BENEFITS COMPANIES

back through my files of saved content, campaigns, and
ideas.
If you don’t have a commonplace book then start now
CASE STUDIES:
because it will be the best resource you have for ideas and
creating content (I operate a digital version using Pocket,
Instapaper and Evernote).
Inspiration can be found everywhere.
A good idea will inspire you, whatever the medium.
Instead of sharing the usual suspects of content that

everyone else seems to share, I’m going to show you a few
random examples of creative ideas (and some old ones) that
will hopefully inspire you to create better content.
“If you only read the books that

everyone else is reading, you can only
think what everyone else is thinking.”
– Haruki Murakami
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1. Google
CASE STUDIES: HOW CONTENT MARKETING BENEFITS COMPANIES

I know I said I was going to share random examples, but I had
to start here because Google does produce some of the best
content on the web. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? I mean, all
that money.
Being a minimalist is difficult because the more elements you

remove from a page, the more the remaining ones have to justify
their existence.
I’m a huge fan of clean design – I like to see a strong concept

elegantly executed. And, Google is the master of elegant clean
design.
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HOW SEARCH WORKS
Sadly, the original piece of content on this page has changed.

The animated infographic that used to be here inspired me to
push my coders to create the best interactive work we could.
And I can tell you that is hard.
The existing page still is a perfect example of how to present a

body of information so that the eye focuses on the content.
Animated graphics in the unmistakable Big G style add interest

to the page, generating a rich visual experience to keep the eye
engaged.
Google is also master at online typography – delivering the

content with such impeccable spacing and balance of white that
makes it easy to read.
As someone who studied classic typography, unless you have

tried to do this, you won’t appreciate just how hard it is to do.
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PHISHING QUIZ

An interactive quiz that walks you through how to avoid being
scammed by phishing. Again, elegant design that highlights the
key information and is intuitive to use.
Too many interactive pages are confusing or rely on over-design

to compensate for a weak concept and low-quality research – I
see this all the time.
The concept and quality of content are still paramount and the
technical structure of the content is essential to get a user to the
page.
But stage two of content marketing is to engage the user

so they want to keep coming back. And this is where a
great presentation will help to build your brand and build a
relationship.
Google inspires a better presentation of content.
2. New York Times

Where do you start with the NYT? Undoubtedly they are world
leaders at producing traditional content.
But they have also managed to embrace digital to keep

innovating how content and information is presented.
A game of Sharks and Minnows is my go-to piece of content that

I always cite because it was so ground-breaking in 2013 for how
content is presented.
Other similar pieces include Snow Fall and Camp X-Ray to list
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just a few.

SBS was clearly inspired by NYT to produce The Boat but this
falls towards style over usability.
It looks stunning, but as a practical delivery of content, it’s not

great. However, it won lots of awards and got attention so it was
successful for brand awareness.
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Apart from long-form content NYT also excel at data journalism

and have produced a range of amazing data visualization and
tools:
One Race, Every Medalist Ever when Usain Bolt set the new
world record in 2012, the world was astounded. When NYT
created this visualization of Usain vs 116 years of Olympic
sprinters, I was truly astounded. This piece is 7 years old but still
looks amazing.
How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk is one of the most popular
digital interactive pieces for NYT. This interactive map shows
what the way you speak says about where you’re from.
Is It Better to Rent or Buy? is a calculator that went against

convention to show that in some instances. It is better to rent,
not buy.
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3. HSBC

We Are Not an Island
Back at the beginning of 2019, I saw a billboard in the city center

where I live.
I was stopped in my tracks by how brilliant this concept was –

and that doesn’t happen often.
By specifically targeting cities that are known for having a high

level of local pride (Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham), the ads fed
into the heart that beats in all of us.
Bam, it emotionally connected.

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The wording of the ads resonated with those who were from
each city – HSBC had clearly done their homework.
We were still reeling from the shock of Brexit (still are) and these
ads perfectly tapped into the zeitgeist of needing to belong after
being set adrift.
And the genius of this campaign was how many people shared
images of the posters to their friends.
HSBC knew its audience and localized its ads to regional cities.
By applying the same approach to online campaigns we can

serve content tailored to different regions to make an emotional
connection.
The more you can be locally specific with your content, the more
likely an audience will be to connect and inclined to share with
others.
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4. Studio 188

Studio 188 is a group that produces "spoof" style low budget
versions of major films such as, Game of Thrones, Men in Black,
Star Wars and The Matrix. The guys who do this clearly have a lot
of fun.
To say something is a unique idea is saying something as there

isn’t much that hasn’t been done before, but this really is a fresh
creative concept.
The Matrix low-cost version on YouTube has nearly 1.2 million

views so the idea is resonating with a lot of people.
I love spoof videos. I talk a lot about brands like Poo-Pourri and
Old Spice that disrupted stale markets and I love the use of
humor in marketing. But, it’s so difficult to get it right and for
every Studio 188, there’s a lot of failed attempts.
If you know your audience and have seriously good writers or a
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great creative idea then try it.

The idea of the low budget version is why it works – don’t spend
buckets of marketing budget just spend ages to figure out an
idea that might just be crazy enough to work.
5. Greggs
For years, Greggs lived in the brand wilderness until someone
came along and shook up their advertising.
They adopted a cheeky approach to court publicity and incited

outrage for replacing baby Jesus with a sausage roll in the
nativity and turned a confrontation with Piers Morgan into social
media gold.
They also did a spoof Apple advert on their new vegan sausage
roll (watch the video).
The pasty brand is on fire.
In Newcastle (UK), the department store Fenwick’s is respected

every year for its outstanding Christmas window display. It’s a bit
like a northern Harrods.
It’s so good that queues of people stand and wait in line just to
walk in front and view it – it’s a day out with the kids.
Opposite Fenwick’s is a branch of Greggs and last year people

were baffled to see that they had reversed their shopfront
signage. The realization that this wasn’t a mistake and was
intentional is the best marketing idea I have ever seen.
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As thousands of shoppers take selfies in front of Fenwick’s
windows, they’re inadvertently uploading thousands of images
to Instagram and Facebook with a reflected Greggs shop sign.
That year, Fenwick’s had chosen the most popular theme of ‘The
Snowman’ for their display theme, possibly the most popular
Christmas theme ever.
If you can piggyback from someone else’s success or exposure

then it can give your brand a boost.
For example, if you have a newsletter, try to get a mention or

guest edit another successful newsletter that is relevant to your
audience.
Featuring influencers in your content to benefit in the bask of

their social media glow has been a tactic for years – but not as
easy as it used to be.
Interviewing influential individuals who are responsible for a

significant brand or business success makes a great case study
that people want to read.
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6. Leeds City Developments Map

This last piece I want to share is an example of content that is
understated can often be the most powerful.
I stumbled across this piece of content by accident and was

staggered by the significant amount of information it contains.
At first glance, it looks a little underwhelming, but when you start

to click into it you realize that every proposed development in
the city of Leeds is listed.
Not only is it listed, but you can quickly see where the proposed
site is and what it might look like. The map can be segmented
by developments underway, planning submitted and proposed
ideas.
For someone who has an interest in property development, this is

an incredibly powerful and valuable map.
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Google Maps makes it easy to create content that is useful and
looks great and if you can get to grips with the API you can put

together some really creative stuff (I’ve produced a lot of pieces
of content with Google Maps).
Curating a collection of information that isn’t widely available

and presenting in an engaging way (such as a map) is usually
very popular with a niche audience. They also get a great
response to outreach.
The Takeaway
Out of the six brands, here's what we can take away to inspire
better content:
Presentation of content to engage your audience is just

as important as getting the traffic to the page.
Think like a journalist, to produce well-researched long-

form content or data visualization.
Serve content tailored to different regions to make an

emotional connection.
Concepts based on humor can be low budget and get

massive results.
Piggyback on someone else’s idea or success to give you

a lift.
Curate hard to find information to produce a valuable

content asset.
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TOP 14 TOOLS
THAT WILL HELP
YOU CREATE
BETTER
CONTENT
AUTHOR
V I K AS A G R AWA L
On top of the exhaustive amount of content
research you need to conduct, you also have to
spend hours – if not days – into developing and
polishing the content itself.
TOP 14 TOOLS THAT WILL HELP YOU CREATE BETTER CONTENT

Having the right skill set and tenacity is a good
start. But if you really want to produce content that
stands out from the competition, you also need to
be well-equipped.
Remember, content development is an art that

requires mastery of the tools of the trade.
But with a slew of tools out there, finding the ones

that fit your needs can be tricky.
In this post, we’ll discuss the best and proven tools

that will up your content game.
These tools will span different areas of content

development, such as research, editing, and
analytics.
Let’s hop right in.

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CONTENT RESEARCH

In content writing, the challenge actually starts way before you
type in the first word.
If you’ve been in this field for a while, you’re probably familiar

with the feeling of having no idea what to write.
This is especially true if you’re expected to produce several

pieces per week.
Fortunately, there are dozens of content research tools that can

help you get in tune with your niche.
1. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo simplifies the entire content research process by
pulling in popular posts based on keywords.
Results can be sorted according to their reach in social networks,

such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
This will allow you to scrape ideas that capture your target
audience’s interest.
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You can also play with the filters found on the left to further
refine your search.
For example, you can look specifically for “how-to” posts, narrow
your search down to a specific country, exclude a certain domain,
and more.
2. Ubersuggest
While intended as a tool for keyword research, Ubersuggest can
also help you find content ideas that will get your audience’s
attention.
It works by expanding the seed keyword using suggestions from

Google Suggest and Google Ads Keyword Planner.
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In some cases, Ubersuggest results include keyword ideas that
can be used as content titles right off the bat.
These are usually “long-tail” keywords that include three or more

terms.
To prioritize them in your search, click the small down arrow next
to the “Keyword” column:
3. LeadFWD
Leadfwd is a website where you can turn an unknown visitor into
a potential lead. Sounds so good to your ears, right? It does!
Who doesn't want a lead? This is what digital marketing agencies

crave all the time. Lead is the most important thing for any digital
marketing company.
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The name might suggest that it is not a tool that helps your
content creation, then you can't be more wrong.
It tells you how a visitor spent their time on your website and
shows the graph of the session. Based on that, you can alter your
content and make people spend more time on your website.
Additionally, you can convert them into leads as well.
With the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the tool can scan your
website in real-time to deliver dozens of insights.
For example, the company sector, contact info, key personnel,

social footprint and many more are very much needed to contact
the prospect.
Yes, it can be hard to learn about the new tool, but the user
interface of this tool is very easy to work with for any new user.
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4. Awario
Awario lets you monitor and listen to people's conversations on
social media. It is a great tool to have at your disposal for your
business development.
Using this social listening tool, you can spot and correct the
mistakes you’re making with your content – if any.
Yes, there might be odd and irrelevant conversations about

your website, but hey, that's what you get with the internet
sometimes. Just ignore it and you will be fine using this tool.
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5. Portent’s Content Idea Generator

Portent’s Content Idea Generator is another awesome tool that
can give you ideas within seconds.
Some may find it too gimmicky and less functional than the
previous ones, but since it’s completely free, it’s definitely worth
checking out.
Besides, it’s more than able to produce interesting and unique

content ideas that can pique your audience’s interest:
6. Quora
Sometimes, the best source of attention-grabbing content ideas
is the online community itself.
Q&A websites like Quora, for example, is a great way to be in

touch with what your target audience is asking.
You simply need to use the built-in search feature and a handful
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of useful suggestions should pop up:

Take note that you can also leverage Quora to promote your
content by offering it as an answer. This can help your content
reach the right people and turn more of them into prospective
leads.
7. Reddit
Apart from Quora, Reddit is also filled to the brim with content
ideas supplied by its massive user base.
It’s basically a discussion site that has specific subcommunities or

“subreddits” for everything, be it content marketing or plumbing.
You can also use Reddit as intended by asking for feedback and
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insights that can help you improve.

In some cases, this will also help you find partnership
opportunities with other content marketers.
COLLABORATION
Content marketers function better as a group. Keep in mind
that the biggest and most authoritative websites are made by
multiple people, not just by one person.
There’s usually someone who does content research, writers who

do the heavy lifting, editors who maintain quality, marketers who
handle distribution, and so forth.
To make such a setup work, you need a platform that streamlines

collaboration, file sharing, and project tracking.
Here are some of your top options:
8. Google Docs
Many content marketing teams today use Google Docs. This
cloud-based document editing platform allows multiple users to
seamlessly work in a single place.
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The first thing you’ll notice is the simple interface that also

seemed to be toned-down in terms of features.
However, Google Docs has all the relevant features you’ll ever
need from a word processor.
You can customize your fonts, create bulleted lists, insert tables,
add images, and so on.
Google Docs also allows you to quickly share a file with other
users through the conveniently placed “Share” button on the
upper-right corner of the screen.
From which, you can also specify the access privileges of those
who get the link to your document:
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If users are given the ability to at least leave comments, they
would be able to do so by highlighting certain parts of the

content:
9. Asana
Asana is another tool that helps your business a lot, especially in
organizing things in order.
Asana will let you systematically organize your tasks with no

room for confusion.
It is just a simple tool that lets you know the tasks assigned to
you and when you should submit them.
At first, you might be facing some issues, but later on, you will
get up to speed, you don't even want to switch to another one. It
is that EASY!
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10. Slack

Slack! If you are working for a remote team, you most probably
know what it is already.
Slack is designed to replace your traditional email

communication. Slack lets you communicate with your company
staff in private or groups.
It also serves the purpose of sharing files, images, audios, and

videos, etc.,
Though it doesn't add much value to your communication, it

separates your professional life mails from your personal life
mails.
It also adds value to the company's management as you can

monitor at what time your employees are logging in and logging
out.
At this point, you might be thinking, how does it help the content
creation?
Here is the trick. In any organization, communication among
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all departments is crucial, so it lets you know what the SEO

department is expecting from the content department.
Communication clears confusion, and hence makes way for

proper content creation.
11. Dropbox Paper

If you already use a different communication app and simply
need something that helps with file collaboration, then you
should check out Dropbox Paper.
It’s a minimalistic, cloud-based app that allows you to write, add

files, images, to-do lists, and pretty much everything else you’d
expect from a word processor.
You could also invite other users to edit, comment, and share
your document.
In other words, it’s the leaner and more straightforward version

of Google Docs.
If you have to choose between Dropbox Paper and Google Docs,

it all boils down to your team’s preferences.
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SEO

Effective content marketers not only know how to produce
engaging content, but they also know how to optimize content
for search.
The quality of writing is an important factor, but there are

also other details – the proper use of subheadings, keyword
optimization, and so on.
Here are some of the tools that can help you zero in on content
optimization in a jiffy:
12. Yoast SEO

As a content marketer, there’s just no way you’ve never heard
of WordPress – the most-used content management system for
website creation purposes.
If you currently use it in your projects, then the Yoast plugin is

definitely a must-have.
Once installed, Yoast

works by rating the
readability and SEO-
friendliness of your
content in real-time.
It also highlights the
specific issues you need
to be mindful of as you
work:
You can also use Yoast to set a focus keyword for each individual
7
post. This will provide you with a checklist of objectives that can

ensure the optimization of your content.
ANALYTICS
Let’s face it – even the most skilled content marketers in the
world have room for improvement.
They only need a clearer view of certain performance metrics

to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and how to turn these
insights into data-driven decisions.
Here are some of the best tools that can help you accomplish all
three goals:
13. Inspectlet
If you are wondering what the visitors have seen and read on
your website, and how you can convert them from possible
prospects into potential leads, then here is the solution for that.
7

So, what does it do?
It just records the videos of your user behavior who are visiting
your website so that you can know how long they were on your
website, and at what aspects they had concentrated more.
This is one of the main advantages of Inspectlet over the other

analytic tools in the market.
This way, you can also come to know where your website is
lagging if someone leaves your website after facing an issue on
your website.
Based on these analytics, you can create your content, and make
it more appealing to the readers.
14. Google Analytics

It’s impossible to leave out Google Analytics if we’re talking
about the top analytics tools.
Google Analytics is a free platform that can help you improve

your content.
With Google Analytics, you can easily measure important

engagement metrics such as page views, average session
duration, and bounce rate.
7

This will allow you to identify specific types of content that
appeal to your existing audience.
For example, if you notice that your content on email marketing

performs significantly better than other posts, you can double
down on that topic to maximize your results.
To learn how to integrate Google Analytics into your website, you

can follow their step-by-step guide here.
Conclusion
In the modern marketing landscape, content marketers are often
required to wear many hats to do their jobs effectively.
After all, content is the lifeblood of any digital marketing strategy

– the secret sauce that will help you establish your brand in the
online world.
You can argue that content marketing isn’t all about who has the
bigger guns. But in a competitive world, tools can definitely make
a huge difference.
Hopefully, you can find all the tools you need to get ahead of the
competition in the list above.
8
20
PLACES
TO SHARE
YOUR
CONTENT
AUTHOR
KEVIN ROWE
Writing and publishing blog posts or articles on your own
website is critical to generate qualified traffic.
Publishing informational content on a website blog,

resource section, or
Content is everywhere today. It’s insanely competitive.
Did you know that nearly 6.7 million blog posts are
20 PLACES TO SHARE YOUR CONTENT

published daily?
If you’re going to gain any real traction, you need to look

beyond publishing content on your website.
In addition to mainstream outlets like Medium, sharing

your content on industry or niche platforms can also help
it get seen by more people.
Think of sharing your content on other outlets like a

megaphone: the more places you promote it, the wider
the message will spread.
Ready to amplify your content and grow your website

traffic and conversions?
Here are 20 places you should be sharing your content,

from the mainstream to the niche.
8
1. Medium

Medium allows you to republish your existing blog posts (if you
use their import feature, they even add a rel=canonical link), but
you can also use this platform as a way to increase traffic to the
full blog posts on your site.
This is the tactic DrumUp uses: they post snippets of full blog
posts on Medium, and then direct users to the full article on their
website.
8

If you don’t want to syndicate the entire text of your blog posts,
this might be a tactic to try.
If you’re getting good traction on Medium, you could mix it up by

adding occasional exclusive Medium articles once you’ve built up
your readership.
2. Reddit
Reddit can be a worthwhile platform to consider for sharing
content, but it needs to be done the right way.
Redditors are very conscious of brands attempting to “spam”

subreddits with their own content, so this is usually best left
to a few employees with active Reddit accounts who may
occasionally share company blog posts once or twice a month.
These articles should be carefully chosen and provide real value

to the users. It’s also possible for Redditors to view other users’
activity, so make sure that employees are using their Reddit
accounts for more than just posting company blog posts.
Otherwise, they’ll be pretty easily found out and your company

may get called out, which is never good on such an active
platform.
8
3. LinkedIn Articles

Like Medium, LinkedIn allows you to syndicate blog posts on your
personal LinkedIn profile as LinkedIn articles.
Although these articles currently don’t automatically add

rel=canonical links, research has shown that Google isn’t flagging
these as duplicate content (even though they show up on
duplicate content search sites like Copyscape).
Because of their existing network on LinkedIn, many users

have built up a strong subscriber base for their articles on the
platform.
Users can choose to subscribe to users’ posts, meaning they will

get a notification every time that user publishes something new.
This built-in alert system is a definite advantage over other

platforms, especially since your blog readers don’t get alerts
like that unless they subscribe to email notifications, which is
a lot bigger commitment than checking a box to receive an in-
platform notification on LinkedIn.
4. Email
Promoting your content through email is an “oldie but goodie”
tactic that still pulls major weight.
In addition to being much more loyal to your brand, email

subscribers are 3x more likely to share your content via social
media than visitors from other sources, according to Campaign
Monitor.
8

Email clicks are also usually higher than the CTR on social media
posts as well – Campaign Monitor also found that you are 6x
more likely to get a click from an email than from a sent tweet.
The way you share your content on social media highly depends
on what works best for your schedule and your users. It’s
worthwhile to experiment to see what gets the most clicks.
Some companies or writers prefer to send out a new email every

time a new post is published (which is usually automated in
some way using an RSS feed and a service like Zapier or IFTTT),
while others wait until the end of the week or month to send a
newsletter of updates and the latest published posts.
The platforms above are the most useful for driving traffic.
However, there are plenty of other platforms to consider based
on the topic and format of your content.
8
5. DesignFloat

An online discussion board for designers to share articles,
element ideas, and more.
6. Managewp.org
This is a slightly different format, but users can up- or down-vote
content about WordPress.
7. Dzone
This discussion board has over 1 million developers who share
content and links on coding, cloud computing, and more.
8. Twitter Brand Accounts

If your article makes sense for your brand, consider adding your
article to your sharing list for your brand accounts.
You can even schedule the article to be posted several times over
a few months.
9. Twitter Personal Accounts

Twitter moves fast, so it makes sense to share your article, along
with a great quote, in a few places on Twitter.
It is in your best interest to spread the shares out a bit so you

don’t overwhelm your audience.
8
10. Twitter Chats

For a more targeted audience, look for industry-related Twitter
chats and use their hashtags when sharing really high-quality
content.
Use it sparingly: don’t spam the chat hashtag with every piece of
content you write.
But it’s fairly common to see popular marketing hashtags like

#seochat and #twittersmarter active even when the regular
Twitter chats aren’t going on.
11. Personal Page on Facebook

This one seems obvious, but it is a place many people forget.
If you are concerned about spamming your family or friends who

aren’t in the industry, consider creating a Facebook list for work
folks. This way you don’t have to worry about confusing your
Great Aunt Gertrude with a step by step guide to PPC.
8
12. Brand Facebook Page

Another sort of obvious one, but it shouldn’t be overlooked.
Grab a good quote from your content, make sure your image
displays correctly and send it out – assuming it is relevant to your
audience.
13. Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are still alive and well! Because many users are
already using Facebook in their personal time, they are usually
more active in groups.
Join a few industry-related groups and share your best content

once a month, while also contributing to the group when
possible.
Be sure to stay active as a member of the chat or group by

answering questions, reading others’ content, and contributing
genuinely to the group.
14. SlideShare
Creating really good content takes time.
One way to get the most mileage out of your content is by taking
highlights and turning it into a presentation for SlideShare.
Just changing the format you present your content in can help
reach a wider audience.
8
15. Quora

Quora has been around forever and is known as the internet’s
premier question and answer website.
Users post a question, and users answer that question. Pretty

straight forward.
But when you consider that a business or a representative can

research what kind of questions customers are asking, and
have a detailed blog post ready to answer it, it becomes a great
opportunity.
Knowing what your audience is having a problem with can help

give you great ideas for content that will drive traffic to your site.
For example, if everyone is asking for information about how to

hang a picture on a wall, and you sell the best picture hanging
nails ever, why not flex some of your expertise on the matter?
You get to personally answer a potential customer’s question

while providing a handy link to your blog’s detailed explanation
of it.
8

16. Growth Hackers
Most businesses want to scale up to take on more work and
overcome new obstacles.
Growth Hackers is an online community of user-generated

content that provides insights on any topic that can be done
to increase your company’s size, revenue, customer base, lead
generation, etc.
Every article is detailed and insightful to many different niche

industries. Make your voice heard while shining a light on the
many ways you are trying to grow your business. It is well worth
it.
17. Flipboard
Flipboard is a neat app that condenses the internet into nice
digestible bite-size blocks. They share content from every major
publication you can think of, and they target it to the people who
are looking for it.
Creating an account and posting your content to it is a great way

to drive traffic directly to your blog. It is also a great way to keep
track of industry insights, and even your own social media feeds.
What really sets this apart is its simplistic interface, which is

backed by some serious clout, algorithmically speaking.
8
18. Scoop.It

Boasting organic traffic over two million monthly users, Scoop. It
has become a powerhouse platform for marketers.
Offering content curation software, they help marketers find

authoritative content in their industry, which can then be easily
shared on social media.
You can post your content in the hopes that others will also see it
and share it with their followers.
Everyone wants to share their content with the world, and this
tool makes it easy. It is also a great way to come up with new
topic ideas based on what is trending.
19. Listly
Another great content curation tool
out on the market is Listly. With
a web application and an official
iOS app, it makes creating lists of
content simple.
Once you have your lists created, you

can publish them to your audience.
As an added benefit, it even allows

your audience to cast a vote on the
items on your list, providing you with
more insight on what your audience
values at that moment.
8
20. Business2Community

This site is a leader for professionally driven content distribution
– a community of thought leaders, marketers, writers, etc. all
coming together to share their insights and news under one roof.
This is an excellent place for a new writer to get their feet wet
with public content. It is also a great place for in-depth and
expert opinions on very specific business topics.
Summary
No one likes a self-opportunist who only seeks to share not
engage.
When you are a valued member of an online community, whether

that’s Medium or a Twitter chat, you’ll be much more likely to
build strong relationships and become part of a supportive
community that shares each other’s links.
Contributing to the Internet as a whole follows these same

guidelines. Sites like Medium and LinkedIn have given us the
opportunity to share our content and get it seen in front of more
people, but don’t take advantage of that by sharing low quality,
uninteresting content.
Megaphones can get tiresome after a while, so make sure to put

down your self-promotional hat and participate in discussions
regularly.
9
HOW TO
INTEGRATE
CONTENT MARKETING
& SEO
AUTHOR
V I O L A E VA
When we spend all our time and efforts creating a
fantastic in-depth piece of content that is visually
appealing and loved by our customers, prospects,
and clients – why not receive some of Google’s
HOW TO INTEGRATE CONTENT MARKETING & SEO

love too and grow your qualified organic traffic?
In many ways, the things that the Google

algorithm favors are very similar to what your
target audience loves.
They all want relevance, structure, and authority:

The best answer to a search query.
In today’s search results an excellent piece of

content has the best chances of ranking well.
In this chapter, we will cover how you can

integrate content marketing and SEO to receive
the most organic traffic and conversion from your
content marketing.
9
Stating the Obvious

If you follow Kevin Rowe’s ideas from chapter 8, you are already
distributing your content piece to receive more online exposure
and backlinks.
Backlinks are still one of the main ranking factors for Google.
Equally important is covering a topic thoroughly to increase

relevance – as shown in several well-known correlational studies
(Brian Dean and others).
“Backlinks remain an extremely important Google ranking factor.

We found the number of domains linking to a page correlated with
rankings more than any other factor.”
“We discovered that content rated as “topically relevant” (via

MarketMuse), significantly outperformed content that didn’t cover a
topic in-depth. Therefore, publishing focused content that covers a
single topic may help with rankings.”
“Keywords matter. Both the number of keywords in the content

and keyword density. Keywords in URL proved somewhat relevant.
Keywords in metas, h1 and title tags showed much stronger
correlations.”
“While longer content does correlate with higher ranks, it’s sensible
to think the length is not the factor – rather it provides a room for
more keywords to be inserted at a non-spammy density.”
9

Of course, not every piece of content needs to be optimized for
SEO.
There are other reasons to write content (for example for social
shares or to increase trust and conversion) but if you want to
make the most of your content marketing and improve ROI –
SEO should be on your radar.
Factoring in SEO
To create a holistic strategy when it comes to content marketing
and SEO, I invite you to consider three factors:
1. What you want to communicate: Your

vision, value proposition, topics, and
issues – the things that you stand for as
a business and that you are passionate
about.
2. What people are searching for: Using

keyword research as an opportunity to
study your target audience, the market
demand and the interest online.
3. What Google favors: Reviewing Page

1 to understand what Google deems
to be the most relevant answer – and
replicating something competitive.
9
GOOGLE LIKES STRUCTURE

Let’s talk about your content ideas from an SEO perspective.
Clarity and structure win the Google game.
Each one of your content ideas, pages or blog posts should cover
one topic, one intellectual entity.
Think of your pages more like a Wikipedia entry (a knowledge

base that covers a topic in-depth) than a collection of long-tail
keywords.
A page should cover the topic so well that it satisfies the user’s
search intent.
9
Each page will be optimized for one keyword cluster consisting
of main and supporting keywords.

We use keyword variations and synonyms to make it easy for
Google to understand what we are writing about – as well as the
context of the topic.
The process of keyword research helps us to determine topics

that are relevant to our target audience. SEO tools such as Ahrefs
or SEMrush allow us to review the following:
Synonyms, variations and related keywords to cover

within a page
Monthly search traffic to understand marketing interest
Click potential by estimating click-through-rate to

account for ads, featured snippets, etc.
Keyword difficulty to prioritize based on chances of

success
Making data-driven decisions helps to increase your chances of

success online. When evaluating content ideas, you will always
want to factor these metrics in.
AVOIDING KEYWORD CANNIBALIZATION

For each unique and clearly distinct topic idea, you will want to
create a specific page and cover the topic in-depth.
Similarly, you will want to make sure that every topic is only
covered once.
9
The questions are:

Did we cover this topic before?
Can we upgrade or rework an existing page?
From an SEO perspective, you will always want to update an

existing page over creating a second, third, fourth piece on the
same topic. Evergreen content wins for SEO.
You are already competing with billions of pages on the web for
the top rankings, why compete with yourself?
When several of your own pages fight for page 1, SEOs call it
keyword cannibalization and this really hurts your SEO effort.
In most cases, you will want to review your existing content and
find the blog posts and pages that have covered the topic before.
Leverage the age of the post, existing ranking and links by

turning a medium-performing post into something great.
If you are looking to create a “christmas gift guide for women”,

you are better off reworking, adjusting and redesigning the
existing page every year – than creating a new post that will
never make it to the top.
If you realize that you have several posts covering the same
topic, consider migrating them all into one page and using that
as the foundation for your new content piece.
Only start creating a new content piece, if you have a true

content gap and have not covered the post in the past.
9
Understanding Page 1

Before jumping into content writing, let’s have a look on Page 1
of Google to determine the right type of content to rank well.
Often content creators and marketers guess the user’s intent

behind a query and the content type they should be writing.
But the best way to figure out what users and Google want is to
actually review Page 1. You will find that there are at least nine
different types of search results that provide different types of
content to the user.
Research – definitions, long guides, knowledge graphs or

featured snippets
Answer – usual zero-click searches like weather, currency

conversion, time zones
Transactional – product and category pages,

ecommerce results
Local – maps, local results
Visual – images, thumbnails media elements
Videos – videos ;)
News – newspapers, tweets, top stories
Branded – homepage with sitelinks, social media

channels of a brand
Mixed – when Google is not clear on the search intent,

they provide a bit of all. Google “Panda” or “Jaguar” to
check it out.
9
The short answer is: You will want to create the type of content
that is currently displayed on Page 1 for your topic and keywords.

Next to that, you will have the chance to understand the
following by studying Page 1:
Sub-topics and concepts used by top-performing content

Headlines covered in the articles
Keywords utilized
Average content length of Page 1 results
You can use tools to save time in your Page 1 review but
ultimately, a good content creator will always leave the tools
and have a real look and factor the learnings into their content
briefing.
And sometimes creating the best answer is not about creating an

ultimate guide.
9

Yes, We Still Do Keywords
Finally, make sure that your content is ft for SEO.
Of course, every piece of content will start ranking for many

synonyms and variations because Google is getting better and
better at understanding concepts and context.
BUT Google’s algorithm is also still an algorithm. So make it easy

for Google to understand what your piece is all about.
Yes, you will still want to use your main keyword in:
URL
Headline H1
Meta Page Title
First Paragraph
Not just because it makes sense for Google but also because
it makes sense for the users to be congruent as they go from
entering a search query to finding your result, to clicking and to
reading the article.
Yes, you will want to optimize your images, especially if you are
trying to win a visual search result page.
9
Some Technical Love

To be truly fit for SEO, you will lastly want to make sure to
implement schema markup and structured data.
This is the technical marketers and SEOs favorite to increase

clarity for Google.
You can mark up details about the author of a page, the product
displayed, lists, videos and other elements, your business, and
organization as a whole.
Making the Most of

Content Marketing & SEO
To summarize, your content marketing has the best chances of
succeeding in organic search if you factor in the following:
Select specific, clearly distinct and unique topic ideas.

Use keyword research to prioritize content ideas.
Update existing pages if you want to cover a topic again.
Review Page 1 to understand the content type to create.
Optimize your page with keywords.
Implement schema markup.
And you will have a piece of content that will have the best
chances of bringing in sustainable, qualified and long-lasting
organic traffic.
10
HOW TO CREATE AN
EDITORIAL CALENDAR
FOR CONTENT
MARKETING IN
5 EASY STEPS
AUTHOR
MADDY OSMAN
For many content teams, building an editorial calendar
seems like nothing more than an idealistic dream.
You know that you should do it – but what usually

ends up happening is a content planning process
HOW TO CREATE AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR FOR

that’s haphazard, at best.
CONTENT MARKETING IN 5 EASY STEPS

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to actually using an
editorial calendar lies in, well, it’s usefulness.
To be sure, it’s one thing to grab an editorial calendar

template and add some placeholders for tentatively
planned content.
It’s quite another thing to flesh out these placeholders

with useful information to guide the creation of
content that’s relevant and useful to your marketing
efforts.
Before you completely give up on organizing your

content marketing efforts with an editorial calendar,
consider this robust process.
10
1. Start with an Editorial Calendar Template
HOW TO CREATE AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR FOR CONTENT MARKETING IN 5 EASY STEPS

The major reason for spending time on an editorial calendar is
to create an actionable system for coordinating various content
marketing efforts.
Planning ahead and organizing for various initiatives makes it

less likely that you’ll forget about them – potentially missing an
opportunity to build relationships with followers.
Getting ahead on your content creation efforts also makes the

process a lot less stressful. This is especially important if you’re
coordinating the efforts of multiple parties, such as:
A content writer.
A graphic designer.
An SEO strategist.
An editor.
If everyone is aware of their roles (and relevant due dates), the
10
process is more likely to stay on track.

As mentioned above, creating organization and structure also
means less stress for all parties, because everyone can work
around stated deadlines – instead of last-minute demands.
If you are coordinating efforts with multiple parties, some of this

process may be best handled within a project management tool
that your team already uses.
That said, you’ll still want to have a separate tool for managing
your big-picture editorial calendar so that it’s easy to see what’s
coming up, at a glance.
You need to start with an editorial calendar template.
HubSpot’s social media content calendar template makes for a

nice base of operations when it comes to coordinating all of your
company’s content marketing efforts.
10
Bonus points?

It’s free to use and exists as a Google Sheets file – perfect for
collaborating with your team, in real-time!
Using Google Drive and comments, you could link to relevant

content assets directly from this interface for easy access and
recall.
Search Engine Journal has created their own version of this –

with guidance for holidays to plan content around.
Or, you could follow the lead of top content creators like Sprout
Social and Kinsta, which use Trello as their editorial calendar
template tool of choice.
Trello makes it easy to work with numerous collaborators and

visually display content assets in various publishing states (ideas,
in progress, editing, published, etc.):
If you manage content creation within WordPress, there are also
10
several WordPress plugins you could use to support your content

planning efforts.
CoSchedule is a top paid solution:
And Editorial Calendar is a simple but functional free solution:
Both offer similar functionality to the editorial content templates

already mentioned.
10

2. Determine Your Blog Categories
(If You Haven’t Already)
An important part of planning content is making sure that you
cover a wide enough range of subjects to get readers excited
about coming back for more.
Should you try to be everything to everyone on your blog?
No. That’s a recipe for disaster.
It’s absolutely ideal to operate within a clearly defined niche. The

more specific, the better.
You just want to be purposeful in your coverage.

10
While planning out overarching blog categories, it’s important to

be thinking about things like your sales funnel and search intent.
When someone first interacts with your brand, they may not be
ready to convert.
By creating content that meets your prospects where they are

in the buyer’s journey, you create an opportunity to build a
relationship that eventually leads to a sale.
Two major types of search intent that align with important

parts of the sales process include informational intent and
transactional intent.
Informational intent reflects the discovery and

consideration stages of the sales funnel. People aren’t
ready to buy just yet but they are considering their options
and are searching for more information. You’ll want to
optimize for keyword phrases that include “how to”.
Transactional intent, on the other hand, means someone

is using keyword phrases that include words like “reviews”,
“discount”, or “pricing”. They’re ready to buy now.
Your editorial calendar must reflect people’s various levels of

readiness to buy and the information they’re seeking to make
that decision.
It must also account for your audience's attention span and their
need for a diversity of content to move them down the sales
funnel.
10
Consider this aspect of content planning in this way: if you

posted the same type of thing on your social channels every day,
people would eventually start to ignore it.
If there’s no diversity in what you’re posting about day-to-day (or

week, month, etc.), there’s no curiosity gap for readers to satisfy
when it comes to clicking through and reading your content
(then converting).
Before you attempt to define individual blog topics, you must

first determine higher-level blog categories.
Even if you already have some set categories in place, if you’re

already overhauling your editorial calendar process, it’s the
perfect time to audit your existing blog categories.
3. Do Your Keyword Research

Though an editorial calendar can help inform your efforts on
multiple digital marketing mediums, the main focus is usually on
blog content.
And if the goal of your blog content is to drive SEO traffic,

determining individual topics should be a function of keyword
research.
It helps to come in with ideas of what visitors want to learn

about, then refining those ideas on your favorite keyword
research tool.
10
It’s harder to write a blog post without this information first – you

may find that your chosen topic is hard to rank for or that there
isn’t enough search volume to justify its publication if you wait
until after you’ve drafted most of an article.
When coming up with potential keywords that will lead to blog

topics, you’ll want to consider a few things:
Keyword relevance: Be brutally honest with yourself:

is your target keyword actually relevant to your target
audience? If it’s too vague, consider adding word
modifiers to get more specific (and give your keyword a
longer tail).
Keyword difficulty: Unless you're a well-known entity

that has built up a great deal of authority, relevance, and
trust, you’ll probably want to stick with options on the
lower end of keyword difficulty. An SEO tool like Ahrefs
makes it easy to see how many backlinks you’ll need to
realistically rank for a given term.
Keyword intent: Make sure that your mix of keywords

speaks to readers at various stages in the buyer’s journey
– not unevenly focusing on just “how to” queries.
Keyword volume: Note that it’s better to drive 10

qualified leads to your website than 1,000 random visitors.
Anything under 10 monthly searchers is ignorable but
anything over that is worth considering trying to rank for,
especially for a super-niche keyword phrase.
10
4. Put It All Together in Actionable

Briefs for Each Content Asset
You’ve found your ideal editorial calendar template/tool

combination, have fleshed out the categories you want to be
regularly creating content for, and have started the process of
keyword research.
Congratulations – you’re now well into the process of populating

your editorial calendar.
There’s really just one more step you can take to make sure that
your editorial calendar actually gets used: creating a detailed
brief for each planned topic.
10

This step is especially important if the person creating the
editorial calendar is not the person who will be creating the
content.
If you have a vision for how a certain piece will turn out, it’s your
responsibility to effectively communicate this vision – or risk a
final deliverable that looks nothing like what you expected.
Here are a few items to consider adding to each content brief to

be plugged into your editorial calendar:
The corresponding blog category: If you’re using a visual

editorial calendar, consider assigning different colors to
different categories so that you can quickly see how well
you’re fleshing out content for various focus areas.
A rough title: Your content writer can flesh it out to

something ready to ship but adding in the skeleton of a title
can certainly help define the direction for content creation.
Primary and secondary keywords: If you want your

writer to use specific keywords, tell them upfront. It’s easier
to write content that sounds natural when you know what
needs to be included (instead of trying to add it back
in after the fact). If you have suggestions for semantic
keywords, you should also add in this information to each
brief.
10
Potential source material: How can your writer learn

more about this topic or make use of reputable sources for
grabbing quotes and statistics? If you have an idea of where
research should start, share it with your content writer.
A written brief: For some, this is a few sentences. For

others, it might be a complete outline, including suggested
subheadings. In either case, the point is to give direction as
to what you expect to see in the final article.
Article(s) to outperform: If there’s a company (or

multiple companies) dominating the search results for your
target keyword phrase, include links so that your content
writer knows the nature of the content they need to beat in
order to rank. This can also help your content writer start
thinking about the article’s structure.
A feature image: Consider this step as bonus points:

getting really ahead of the game. If a graphic designer will
be creating relevant article imagery, leave some direction
for them here (or remind your writer to provide direction as
part of their final deliverable).
A publishing/promotional checklist: Ideally, there will be

some sort of process for publishing and promoting content.
Adding a checklist directly to your editorial calendar helps
ensure that proper process is followed so that each piece
reaches its true potential. While you’re still planning, you
might also start coordinating the creation of copy, imagery,
and other relevant content to promote your blog content.
10
5. Plug in Your Marketing Efforts
on Other Mediums

While SEO content may be your sole purpose for creating an
editorial calendar in the first place, it certainly isn’t the only way
you can make use of this tool.
Let’s get real: no marketing efforts, like optimizing content,

should operate independently in a silo.
Content marketing success comes from the coordination of

cross-promotional actions across various channels.
A few ideas for other content assets to build into your editorial
calendar, whether or not they’re 100 percent related to your SEO
content creation efforts:
Social media posts. Webinars.

Social ads promotions. Lead magnets, like ebooks
Email marketing sends. and whitepapers.
Final Thoughts: How to Create Your

Editorial Calendar for Content Marketing
With the right approach, an editorial calendar can simplify your
content marketing process while reducing stress associated with
last-minute coordination.
The better your planning, the more predictable and useful your
output will be.

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CONTENTS

Growth-Based SEO, Content Marketing, and Link Building Services

 65%  47% 102%

After 3 Months After 6 Months After 12 Months

That’s how long humans have been sharing stories,

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? AND, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

We’ve just shifted the medium.

The internet of 2020 is evolving at a breakneck pace.

In a recent projection, data giant Seagate estimated

Why are users so distractible?

The modern internet is noisy: promotions, clickbait,

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? AND, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Unfortunately for your brand’s carefully calibrated

The culprit? Adblockers.

So how does a modern brand reach discerning

How do you earn the interest of an audience who

By giving them what they want: content that matters.

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? AND, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Translated into everyday English: Content marketing is relevant

However you define content marketing, the main takeaway is: it

Here’s why: awesome content – that is, great content marketing

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? AND, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Or, as Joe Pulizzi suggests, that same budget could instead

70 issues of a print magazine? Check.

Large-scale customer events? Check.

Tens of thousands of blog posts, thousands of white papers, and

Wait, what happened to content marketing?

Believe it or not, these wallet-friendly, easy to actualize, Google-

Let’s take a deeper look at what successful content marketing

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? AND, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Consider adding another form (or two!) of content outreach such

Ebooks Email Campaigns

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? AND, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Content that is voice search-optimized.

Augmented Reality (AR) experiences.

One-to-one conversations with customers through tools

Personalized content that adapts to your audience based

As you can see, the scope of content marketing is virtually

What remains the same across all successful channels is the

90% of all modern businesses use content marketing in some

Curious about how it all works?

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? AND, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

In the era of deepfakes and heavy Instagram filters, your

Something worth their valuable time.

Longer content – content that dives in deep, provides more

With the same ethic, content marketing caters to individuals.

Take YouTube, for example. Rather than offering calls to

And it’s working.

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? AND, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

IT’S RESPONSIBLY TRANSPARENT

53% of users expect companies to show corporate responsibility

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? AND, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? AND, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

For this, let’s zero in on a population a bit easier to wrap your

On average, American adults are engaged with multiple content

Yes, you read that right.

More than ever before, the chance to sustain a consistent

CONTENT MARKETING DRIVES CONVERSIONS (WITHOUT BEING PUSHY!)