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Ready to turn content creation into a walk in the park? Interested in adding some sizzle to your content for that extra engagement factor? Well, you're in the right place! In this post, we'll chat about the importance of speed, share tips on team organization, and introduce some nifty tools to take your content creation skills up a notch. Let's dive right in!
Content is one of the most important elements of your online marketing strategy. The reality, however, is that it can end up being quite a struggle to create high-quality content on a regular basis.
Your business needs new and updated content in order to stay relevant in the digital age. But with everyone vying for attention on social media and other channels, creating content that will get noticed can get tricky.
Luckily, we've got eight tips to help you streamline your content creation process so that you can get more out of less—and actually enjoy creating content again.
1. Clarify Your Content Strategy
Your content strategy is an integral component of your larger business goals. It's based on where you want to take the blog and what you hope it will achieve overall—with specific targets set for how many readers, subscribers, or sales this could result in.
Creating a content strategy for your blog is crucial because it helps you figure out what kind of information to distribute, where, when, and how frequently. This way, you won't have any trouble determining the number or type of posts needed to meet visitor demands, as well as creating programming that aligns with company goals and objectives.
2. Create a Content Plan
A content plan outlines how you will execute your strategy. It helps you determine the specifics of what, when, and how much content to produce. Your plan should contain concrete actions that all contribute to making your strategy successful, with clearly defined timeframes and tactics.
Aim to build a calendar that covers three months or more. This way, you'll have plenty of article ideas at the ready and won't be forced to brainstorm new topics each time one is complete.
3. Utilize Task Management Software
Although task management software is particularly beneficial to large teams, we still recommend its use even if you work alone. It will help keep your schedule organized and give a good overview of tasks—all in one place.
Task management software is especially convenient for writers since it allows you to break down large projects into smaller, manageable steps. For example, if you need to produce a 5,000-word article by the end of the week, software like Trello, Notion, and Asana can help organize your thoughts and actions so you don't lose sight of any vital steps along the way.
4. Research Your Keywords in Bulk
Keyword research is a big part of content creation. It's also time-consuming, so it can be easy to put off until you have more time. But if you want your content to be found and read by real people, you need to conduct your keyword research early on in the writing process.
There are, however, ways to simplify this process so that it doesn't eat up too much time from other important tasks. One way is to batch your keywords for all content on a particular plan in one sitting. This makes it much easier to jump right into production and avoid wasting time on keyword research when there are other tasks that need your attention.
Ahrefs and SEMRush are two popular keyword research tools.
5. Outsource Your Writing Workload
If you're the only one writing for your blog, it will take a long time before your site sees significant growth. Your own capacity and availability will slow progress to a crawl.
On the other hand, outsourcing your content writing will free up your time so that you can focus on additional aspects of running a booming business. Naturally, you'll need to take the time to brief and edit a writer's work, but you will get content out much faster than if you had written it yourself.
You can always find affordable freelance writers through LinkedIn, network referrals, or job boards like Fiverr and Upwork. But for top-quality work from a dedicated ghostwriter, consider going with ReadyWriters. We'll assign you a seasoned pro who will work closely with you on many projects, helping develop your brand voice.
Check out our guide for expert advice on how to work most effectively with a ghostwriter.
6. Equip Freelancers with Guidelines
When hiring new team members or freelancers, share your vision, objectives, and goals for the blog, as well as what you expect from them. This will help ensure everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.
An excellent way to keep track of what your content contributors are doing is by inviting them all to use the same task management system. This will enable you to control who can see and edit each piece of content as it comes in.
Share any brand guidelines, tone of voice, and editorial policies to help reduce the amount of time you need to spend editing. You can also share other operating procedures like instructions for uploading to a CMS and SEO optimization.
7. Develop a Reusable Template for Content Briefing
A content brief lays out the details of a writing assignment, including the information that must be included and any instructions for how that content must be presented. A brief typically includes the word count, dialect (e.g., British or American English), content goals, topic description, and outline.
Because they reduce excessive back and forth between yourself and your freelancer or writer, content briefs are a great way to save time while setting a clear framework for expectations. Additionally, using a reusable template for your content brief will speed up the content production process since you won't have to reinvent the wheel every time.
Your Friends at ReadyWriters
Of course, there are many tools and strategies that you can use to grow your blog. This post is by no means an exhaustive list but rather a starting point to you get going in the right direction. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out! Your friends at ReadyWriters are here to help.
And there you have it! With all these tips, you should now be able to accelerate content production and grow your blog faster. Happy blogging!