Stages of Content Development You Should Never Forget
You’ve heard that content is the undisputed king of marketing, and that’s the sheer truth. So if that’s the truth, then the development of the said content makes the content a king. But, sadly, most businesses just create content randomly without going through the process of developing it from start to finish.
Planning is everything, and content development entails planning the content from the ground up, from basic research to promotional content afterward. Skipping any of the development stages of the contents designated for your website is one risk you are unwilling to take, as it can hamper the success of the content.
Here are the stages of content development you must never skip.
Topic Analysis
The content’s title is foremost and always the first to consider, especially your H1 tag. It’s the first thing potential readers will see, and how it’s structured can trigger them to click through and devour the information inside or just pass you on for the next piece of content they find.
Analyzing the topic entails gathering a handful of related keywords and testing them using tools like the Google Adword Keyword Planner, Google Analytics, Ubersuggest, or SEMRush.
These tools will show you how some topics with the keywords you used are faring online. If they get more engagement, you can use them, but you have to improve the quality and add more value.
The aim is to provide better information and content than others, finding the gap between what they share and what you know. Providing better content helps you rank higher on search engines because you will provide more accurate information to your readers.
Information Sourcing
Now that you have decided on a particular topic with the right keywords for traffic, it’s time to source information. In doing this, you have to gather as much information as possible. Browse through numerous sites and sources, finding information, validating the information you already know, and find ways to showcase this information in an easily digestible form.
Check reviews if you are writing about products, check for videos, podcasts, images, and virtually anywhere you can lay your hands to source information. Heck, even use a product or service and provide your feedback.
The goal is to develop contents that will be the best out there with important information. So explore every available research trick up your sleeves in search of content about what you will write.
Start Writing
With a repository of information available on the internet, you can create the content while utilizing best writing practices. It’s time to produce the best content out there with the information available. Get facts and statistics to be incorporated into the text. Doing this ensures your readers see you as a credible source and a good authority in the field.
The longer the content, the higher its chances of ranking high and attracting more backlinks. So make your content at least 2,000 words to improve its chances of ranking high in many cases, but that isn’t a number set in stone, and things change as content changes.
And finally, provide immense value through your content. That’s what every reader is looking at getting, so serve your readers this value on a platter. Don’t just add fluff or make the piece full of garbage just to add words. You want the information to provide value and not frustrate the reader.
Proofread and Edit
Now you are done with the writing, it’s time to proofread and edit. Proofreading is to ensure you present impeccable quality content to your audience. Sometimes this is relatively easy, and you can find all the mistakes; however, sometimes, a fresh pair of eyes is better to fish out the errors. Having someone on your team that can do this, such as a copy editor, is excellent. If not, leave it for a few days and come back to it.
Returning to it after a few days will help you look at the content differently, and you might discover that you need to do a lot of editing. But, again, this is because you are now armed with your fresh pair of eyes and see things differently to rewrite the content better.
Optimize and Publish
You’ve gotten to a very critical stage that has to do with optimizing the content to be visible in search engines. It’s all about SEO here, and you can’t be too careful.
In optimizing your content, you need to scan the content and see if the right keywords were used sparingly or superfluously. Then, reduce the excessive use of keywords to avoid being flagged by Google, increase the word count to rank higher, and make the keywords appear naturally.
Did you use the correct header tags? Header tags are sometimes overlooked, but having the proper usage of H2-H6 tags can also help with your optimization. Make sure they make sense in your copy and have a good flow. Think of it all as a bullet point chart, H2 provides subtopics of the main title or H1 tag, H3 tags are subtopics of H2 tags, and so on.
Link your content, both internally where it is relevant and externally, to your sources. Linking content to sources or other applicable content shows your readers other topics they may be interested in and where to find more information and provides authority since you are showing your sources.
SEO is broad, and it’s alright if you hand it over to an SEO expert to handle the intricate technical aspect. When this phase is settled, you can then publish your content.
Promote
After publishing, it’s time to promote your content across all available social media channels to drive engagement to your content. But, more importantly, you get some backlinks to your site and improve its performance on Google rankings.
Promotion is as important as writing, and you can’t afford to skip this step. What’s the point of writing content that people don’t get to see? That’s why promotion is necessary and social media is your major weapon.
Summary
Content development comes in stages or series of steps, and any step you skip can jeopardize the entire content mission. From topic analysis to sourcing information and promotion, every step is important and leads to the overall success of the content wherever it is presented. So make sure you understand the value of each step, follow it carefully, and work on improving your readers’ experience on your site and the internet as a whole.
