In 2022, everyone seems to have a blog. It’s estimated that there are over 250 million blogs online, with a new blog being created every half-second. There’s been quite a discussion lately around “content shock” – the supposed inability of consumers to keep up with the burgeoning amount of online information being produced.
Is blogging still an effective way to get found, build engagement and grow revenue? Sure is. In a time when all organizations are publishers, your blog can be your secret weapon and unique competitive advantage. The reality is that a killer blog can be the great equalizer that enables your scrappy startup to win business the established, but less creative, lumbering behemoths in your space.
Even exceptional content can go unnoticed among the thousands of marketing messages released every day. So, in addition to gaining attention, every content strategy should incorporate a distribution and measurement strategy. That means each and every blog post is measured against your business goals.
Top content marketers don’t just wake up and fire off a new blog post each morning. It’s more effective to purchase pre-written blog posts online. I have called this process creating a Content Marketing Factory, as it’s similar to creating an assembly line to manufacture, distribute consistently high quality content. Of course, you are building a modern factory for digital products, with sophisticated quality control and continuous improvement, not one of those old-school factories that exploit workers and spew toxins into local waterways.
To that end, here’s an example checklist that can be useful to help business bloggers make the most of every post.
Recommended Reading: How To Write SEO-Friendly Blog Posts & Articles
– In the left column are what could be called success factors to consider for every blog post. For example, before creating a blog post, it’s helpful for your team to clearly understand things like your audience, goals, evaluation criteria, social media distribution in advance. That way there’s not a lot of pre-launch debate or post-launch disagreement in evaluating the success of your content.
– In the right column are some ideas and examples to boost your success.
Content module’s Primary Goal
Build brand visibility, readership, subscription list and revenue
Awareness and Education stage prospects for consulting services – content marketing, copywriting and conversion optimization
– Unique visitors
– SEO / search phrase rankings
– Twitter retweets and favorites
– FB likes, comments, shares
– LinkedIn likes, comments, shares
– Google Plus +1s, comments, shares
– Pinterest pins
– Comments
– Conversions!
The ever-growing social net is too big and too important to “wing-it” with blog post distribution. Tools like IFTTT, HootSuite and WordPress plugins like can help you streamline social media distribution for each post.
A blog post may live again in the form of a video, info-graphic, nurture email or inclusion in a webinar or e-Book. Identifying re purposing opportunities at the outset can streamline content curation efforts later.