Blogging More vs. Blogging Smarter: How to Streamline Content Creation

Content creation is one of the most valuable tools for any brand. 

When you create valuable content for your website, you improve your chances of attracting customers who want to spend money on your products and services. 

Your blog defines you as a leader in your industry and helps you to build relationships with your target audience. 

An effective content strategy also strengthens your position in the search engines, helping you to rank for crucial terms and phrases. 

The only problem? Creating a constant stream of valuable content can be hard. 

It’s not enough to simply churn out endless blog posts — you need to ensure that you’re creating real value for your audience. Fortunately, a strategy to streamline content creation can help.

Here’s how you can blog a little smarter and streamline your content creation strategy.

Create a Content Calendar

First, you need a plan for how often you’re going to write and publish information. 

A content calendar can help you to get ahead of the curve by helping you see how many blogs you need to create and when they need to be finished. 

The calendar also assists companies in taking a more organized approach to connecting with their audience. 

If you’re working with freelancers to assist you in creating your content, you can use a cloud-based project management app on the web to coordinate your team, from writers and editors to graphic designers. 

Remember, aside from deciding when to create and publish content, you should also have a social media calendar that lets you know where and when to promote your new posts.

You should constantly be sharing information about your latest blogs and articles with the world on the channels that your customers are most likely to visit. 

Don’t forget to talk about your blog posts in your email newsletters too. 

Curate and Create 

Creating fresh, unique content will ensure that you build a positive reputation for your brand and boost your chances of long-term sales. 

However, this doesn’t mean that you have to create all of your content completely from scratch. 

When you’re busy trying to run a business, look for ideas that you can curate to add to your schedule. 

For instance, could you post your findings from a recent social media poll on your blog, complete with graphics to show your audience how well you know them? 

Could you take inspiration from the competition and create a better version of a blog they recently published? 

You could even pluck user-generated content from social media and share it in the form of a slideshow. 

Pulling content ideas from multiple sources will stop you from running out of things to write about too quickly. 

Just make sure you don’t simply copy-paste a competitor’s content. 

Try Accepting Guest Posts

Most business leaders already know that guest posting is a great way to improve their online presence and reach new customers. 

However, it’s important to remember that there are two sides to guest posting. 

If you’re the guest poster, then you can benefit from improved traffic and SEO. 

On the other hand, if you allow people to guest post on your website, you also get a traffic boost, and you fill your site with more content at the same time. 

To ensure that your customers benefit from the guest posts you promote, be stringent in your selection process. 

Write a set of guidelines that guest posters need to follow before you’ll consider publishing their work. 

For instance, you may need to ensure that the content is relevant to your audience and carefully researched. 

Keep an eye out to see how your customers respond to certain guest posters too. If one post gets you a lot of attention, maybe you could offer the writer a regular spot on your site.

Do Your Keyword Research

One of the biggest benefits of blogging is it helps to strengthen your position on the search engines. 

Even in the world of social media, people still rely on search engines to help them find the products and services they need. 

The better your position on the Google search results for specific terms and phrases, the more likely you are to earn new customers. 

Conducting the right keyword research will ensure that you’re not wasting time on blog posts that aren’t going to appeal to your target audience. 

Start by thinking about the kind of customers you want to attract and the pain points that they might be looking to solve with your blogs. 

Talk to your sales and marketing teams about common topics that your audience might search for and check the competition for related keywords. 

Keep in mind that you need your keywords to get plenty of attention from customers, but high competition phrases can be harder to rank for. 

Create Templates for Blog Formatting

Great content creation is a process with various steps. 

First, you need to figure out which keywords and topics you should focus on. 

Next, ensure that you’re posting content at the right time, sharing it on the correct channels, and looking for ways to engage your audience. 

It’s easy to get overwhelmed. 

As writers continue to join your team and you outsource your content creation to freelancers, it will help to have templates in place that you can use to reduce the demand for excessive editing. 

A template might show your writers how to divide their blogs into sections to make them more scannable and offer advice on using certain keywords. 

You can also create various supporting materials like style guides, writing policies, and procedures to help your professionals. 

Make the Most of Your Blogging Strategy

Blogging is a valuable tool for any business, but it’s important to make sure you’re using it correctly. 

If you want to rank high on the search engine result pages and attract plenty of customers, you’ll need to produce regular, fresh content. 

Using the tips above, you can streamline your content creation strategy to ensure that you always have a good flow of great content available.