Content marketing can be best described as creating user-relevant content produced to generate brand awareness and leads, resulting in sales. For a small business with an online blog, content marketing can be one of the most cost-effective ways to consistently build brand awareness – worldwide – by reaching a target audience. This is why a content marketing checklist for bloggers is so important, and it allows you to produce the best content using a consistent formula to get there.
While many may believe blogging to be a dead art, at SoVerve, we believe that blogging will always be a necessary form of content marketing for any small business. As we have covered before, there are many ways to create content; however, blogging is still one of the best ways to produce impactful content that resonates with your ideal audience and customer/client base. In a time when content marketing is such a major part of your digital marketing strategy, there is no better excuse to consider hiring a content marketer.
Even if you do not have a content marketer to help you write content for your business blog, you should know what content marketing is. As a small business owner with an online blog, you should consider yourself a “blogger” as well. This title comes with many responsibilities, like the ones stated above. Everything from content curation and research to copywriting and editing will fall on your lap.
Utilizing a Content Marketing Checklist
As with any major project-centric task, no matter how big or small, a checklist makes the perfect companion to cross all of yours T’s and dot all of your I’s. In creating a checklist for your content marketing efforts, and more specifically for your online blog, you will have ensured that you minimize the time it takes to create content. It is all about taking the guesswork out of it. Now, let’s look at how a checklist can help you easily achieve your content marketing goals!
Preliminary Content
The following six questions will help to guide you in the correct direction of how to target your ideal client and target audience with your blog post.
- What product/service does your blog post showcase?
- Who are you trying to reach?
- Why would someone want to purchase your product/service after reading your blog?
- Where can you find your ideal client?
- When is the best time to reach your ideal audience?
- Create a keyword spreadsheet so you can immediately reference your list and input your best selection.
Writing Checklist
There are many aspects to consider when writing. Each section is just as important as the next. This is where your keyword search comes into play. Strategically place keywords but ensure you do not overload them so as not to get shunned by Google. Write as if you are telling a story.
- Generate your topic of choice.
- Define your angle and what you aim to achieve.
- Write out your headlines.
- Write an introduction paragraph.
- Write your main body text.
- Include images or videos.
Proofreading Checklist
Always give your work a second look over.
- Eliminate spelling and grammatical errors.
- Are all sentences clear and easily readable on all devices?
- Check all graphics and images for clarity and how they look on multiple devices.
- Ensure content and images meet your brand style standards.
- Fact-check and cite any necessary sources.
SEO Checklist
You want to be able to gain the greatest reach. Focusing on SEO key points will ensure your ability to be seen.
- Include keywords where necessary
- Include internal links when applicable
- Write title tag
- Write meta description
- Check content for broken links
- Check image optimization
- Image description-use keyword rich file names
- Alt Tags-text alternative to images, use keyword descriptions
- Instead of displaying a large image, make it smaller with the option to view larger in a pop-up and be displayed on a separate webpage
- Reduce the file sizes to prevent slow page load time
- Research programs to help reduce your image size
- Try and keep your images at a file size below 70kb.
- Test your images
- Check page load speed
Content Distribution Checklist
What’s the point of producing this amazing content if you can’t share it?
- Schedule posts on social media platforms
- This will include Instagram Stories, Various Tweets, Facebook Live updates
- Schedule email newsletter notification
- Generate additional newsletter content as needed
In Conclusion
We’ve generalized this checklist quite a bit and hope you understand you can audit this information as needed. The goal is not to take this content marketing checklist and utilize it step by step but rather take the points that most pertain to your business. Maximizing every item in this master checklist can help, but nothing will ever replace the feedback you are receiving from your audience. For example, if most of your audience members and leads are found on Instagram, your content distribution checklist on that platform will be much longer.
Many small business owners fail to do the prep work before they begin writing blog content for their small businesses. We hope this checklist provides you with the general information you need to create blog posts that will complement your content marketing efforts.