Source: Unsplash by Nick Morrison
As a content writer, what do you think is the most crucial element in writing? If you say it’s the writing part, then I am afraid my friend, you are wrong. Because it’s the exact opposite of writing; it’s planning your content.
Yes, content planning is the most critical aspect of writing as your ultimate content outcome depends on it.
Sadly, many of us forget to pay heed to this. You need to have a solid content strategy in order to produce unique, engaging content loved by your target audience.
But how do you do that? We will address this exact issue in this blog.
What exactly is Content Creation?
Content creation is the process of conceptualising your content ideas from the beginning to the point of putting those ideas into a well-informed article. Every marketer today understands the value of structured content – content that is concise, easy to read and which solves your customers’ pain points.
If what you are writing is not well-organised and does not serve any purpose, you are certainly not in the game.
Now let’s delve more into the five basic steps of creating quality content for your brand.
- Ideation and SEO Research
Before writing, you have to research and find in-depth information about that particular topic or idea. You have to keep in mind who is your target audience and what you want to convey through your writing. Defining your target audience will help you a great deal in your content creation process.
The next step is to brainstorm and come up with a winning idea for your content. You can use Hubspot’s Blog topic generator, Buzzsumo or Ubersuggest for great content ideas.
You can then perform keyword research to insert relevant keywords in your text. Keywords are the soul of your content body. No Keywords, no traffic. Google Trends is a free and handy tool that you can use to explore high-volume search queries and popular topics.
- Briefing
After performing the research and gathering all the relevant information, it’s time for you to outline your content and summarise the information in points. This will help you to gain a broader perspective on how can you start writing about the chosen topic to ensure that every piece of material you compose is well-written and optimised for SEO.
A good brief will…
- Identify your target audience – and what you want to inform them
- Set the foundation for your content – states the keywords, content length, tone of voice, etc.
- Include a clear and detailed summary of your topic.
- Composing
This is the most important part of your content creation process because, duh, you are putting your ideas into words to create that magic for your audience to consume. In this stage, you have to put together all that you have done so far – research, keywords planning, and the content brief.
You have to create unique content to get an edge over your competitors in the industry. You can use various advanced content creation tools to ensure the quality and delivery of your work.
The tools that I use are Trello, Grammarly, Canva, Plagiarism checker and Google drive. All these tools not only help me to create my content, but also assist in keeping them highly organised.
If you have team members, this step will involve their contribution to the process of creating the final content offering. Team members may include:
-Content Managers
-Content writers
-Photographers
-Videographers
-Editors & Proofreaders
-Graphic designers
Each of the above mentioned team members plays a pivotal role when creating eye-catching content.
- Collecting Relevant Feedback
The content review step involves scrutinising and finalising content, ensuring that it is of the highest quality – because even a tiny error in your writing can sometimes cost you big time.
Proofreading and editing your work ensure that it aligns with your content writing goals and you deliver the best content to your readers.
So, you can:
- Share the content with the parties involved- the content manager, the client and your peers.
- Collect feedback from them.
- Make changes according to the feedback and discussions before drafting the final copy.
Pro tip: One way of self-reviewing your content is to read it out loud. This will help you catch any grammatical mistakes in your writing and allow you to catch the tone and context of your message.
- Approval and Publishing
Yippee, you have made it to the final step of your content creation process. All your hard work has paid off if you get your supervisor’s approval of your article, or a nod from your client to publish it on their behalf.
I knew my writing efforts paid off well when No Extra Source, a writers’ community, reviewed and published my content on their website.
Summary
Content creation is an ongoing process that requires a whole lot of planning and consistency. Once you have designed your content creation process, you’ll be able to generate creative work that not only delights your audience but also grows your business.