4 Steps Toward Content Performance
According to a study conducted by ahrefs, more than 90 % of all pages get no organic traffic at all from Google. The shocking news about this: All these pages were once created at the cost of time and money, even though their content was hardly ever consumed – a pure waste of resources. This makes it obvious that content is not automatically read, watched or listened just because it is there. So how can you push your content into the 10 percent that actually reaches their target audience?
Step 1: Goal
The starting point is always the goal that you want to achieve with your content. This may sound self-evident but is a major reason why content often does not bring any return on investment in the end. A possible goal could be to reach higher positions in Google search results pages for your most important landing pages. From this goal follows the whole strategy. It could consist of a keyword research, a keyword mapping, a keyword gap analysis, optimization of existing content, creation of new content, improvement of internal linking, improvement of the navigation structure, and many more points. This shows that all measures to be taken depend on the goal, and if no clear goal is set, it will be pure chance to increase performance.
Step 2: Project Size
This rough overview of measures also gives an idea of how large a content project can become if it is to result in the desired performance. And all these previously mentioned measures are crucial sequential steps, none of which can be skipped. The required time, as well as the personnel resources and costs, must be foreseen and planned at the beginning. Otherwise, the project will be left halfway through without having achieved any results. Therefore, a project plan with a time schedule, list of costs and required resources must be approved by all decision-makers and communicated to all involved employees.
Step 3: Workflow
How the project is put into practice depends on the chosen content format, the target group, the available human resources, the company's internal expertise and the languages in which the content is to be published. Often external partners have to be called in, for example to buy in SEO and marketing expertise, to create texts professionally or translate them. Especially in multilingual projects, the workflow can become quite complex. After all, the interlocking of content creation, keyword optimization, translation and implementation in the website backend should be as cost- and time-efficient as possible. Be aware that the project can quickly reach a size that makes it easier to hire a digital consultancy with experience in such projects instead of coordinating several external service providers.
Step 4: Performance Measures
Finally, all measures leading to the achievement of the goal must be implemented. As already indicated, these go far beyond the mere production of content. Rather, it is about placing each content piece on digital channels in such a way that it fulfills its function within the customer journey. Typically, this includes the placement within the navigation, the accessibility by users and search engines, the structure of the page, the user-friendliness and the technical setup, amongst many other aspects. This again shows how important it is to have the right skill set, either in-house or in the form of external partners. Only in this way can content generate performance – and move from being a cost item to a performance asset.
Learn more about our performance-based approach to content in our Whitepaper “From Content to Performance Assets”
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