By Colleen Ringer

Content marketing is not a “set it and forget it” enterprise. Getting the most out of your marketing plan requires constant care and consideration. If you are wondering what you can do to optimize your program, here are a few suggestions to help you get more out of your efforts.

1. Assess the Content You Already Have

There’s a very important item to add to your to-do list: a content audit. Even if you’ve done one within the last few years, it’s time for another; frankly, a content audit is something you should tackle every year, as it allows you to systematically catalog what’s been published on your site — landing pages, blog posts, news, videos, etc. — then collect and analyze the metrics. Organizing and assessing the data will help you identify things like:

• What performed best in terms of traffic and engagement. Do certain topics, authors or content types jump out as particularly popular and effective?
• Gaps that need plugging. Do you see holes that need filling when it comes to certain topics? Have you been neglecting any audiences?
• Items that need updating. If some pages have high impressions but low conversions, then it’s time to rework them to make those pieces more enticing and actionable.

2. Refresh, Reuse, Recycle

During your content audit, you’ll likely be surprised by what you find — from dated pieces that you’ll want to sunset to others that would serve you well to refresh and repurpose for new readers. In fact, updating content is one of the most efficient ways to improve your content marketing — you get more mileage out of existing material, without having to start from scratch.

After the initial run of an article, can you update the content by adding new sections and/or information to provide more value to your readers? By making meaningful updates you can ensure you are following Google’s Helpful Content Update guidelines. Here are some guidelines to follow as you set out to update or remove existing content:

• Make sure that, when refreshing content, the updates you make are meaningful to the reader. Simply changing dates or making minor changes can have a negative impact on your organic search visibility and traffic.
• Look for ways to optimize your content for usability.
• Consider adding jump links or a table of contents to guide users down the page.
• If you’ve uncovered hosted third-party content in your audit, prioritize this content to be removed and replaced with value-add content you’ve produced and reflects your organization. Google prioritizes content written by, or reviewed by, an expert, so look for ways to incorporate experts in your content refreshes.
• When considering removing content, make sure that it will add value to the user experience.
• Don’t simply remove content that isn’t currently delivering a high volume of traffic. If there is still value to the end user, it’s worth keeping and incorporating in social posts or email campaigns.

3. Gut-check With Generative AI

Generative artificial intelligence language model programs such as ChatGPT and Bard can help you to update existing content by providing valuable insights and suggestions for improvement. Although your authentic content will be superior in terms of nuance, originality and depth, AI can provide some useful enhancements, as well as serve as a check and balance on the execution of your original idea. So, think of generative AI as an editorial assistant and let it support you and your work:

• Reverse engineer your pieces by taking existing headlines and decks and running them through an AI program.
• Use AI to help you come up with content ideas and save time in the process.

4. Segment Your Audiences

Each target audience has its own unique priorities, desires and needs, and your content marketing strategy should take that into account. Use segmented communications to speak to each audience in a way that resonates with them. Here are some tips on how to get started:

• Develop a distribution strategy that outlines the channels you’re using and the audience you’re speaking to on each one.
• Create messaging specifically for each segment and use it in audience-specific situations, including ads and emails. This ensures your communications are both consistent and nuanced across a range of audiences.

5. Prioritize Accessibility

No matter where the content you’re producing lives online, it should be accessible to all users, following the WCAG’s internationally recognized set of guidelines for digital accessibility. These guidelines — the de facto standard for digital accessibility — use four categories of principles to organize the standards:

• Perceivable. Include alt-text for images and other non-text content, for starters, and provide captions and other alternatives for multimedia.
• Operable. Make all functionality available from a keyboard, and help users navigate and find content.
• Understandable: Ensure text is readable and understandable. Does content appear and operate in predictable ways?
• Robust: Can assistive technology reliably interpret your content?

6. Don’t Discount UX

It doesn’t matter how wonderful your organization’s content is if the user experience is terrible, as frustrated users are likely to simply click away and look elsewhere. Substandard UX can also negatively affect everything from your SEO rankings to your paid ad results. Google’s page experience rankings measure such factors as interactivity, visual stability metrics, mobile friendliness and page loading. In 2023, page loading ranked fourth in the list of the 200 most important ranking factors. For organizations who are trying to improve their rankings, a poor performance in these areas could lead to lower positioning in search results, so consider the following:

• A traffic analysis can give you a look at site data that underscores user experience, including bounce rate, average page load time and pages per session.
• If it’s been years since your website was designed, it’s time to refresh your website. Simple as that.