That model is breaking down.

In AI-driven discovery environments, your content is no longer competing with other brands in the traditional sense. Instead of vying for attention and eyeballs, now you’re competing to show up in the language, examples, and assumptions AI systems use in their answers.

The first step is to survive the summarization process. Here are some tips on how to write for the “idea ecosystem.”

The New Model

When someone asks a system like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s AI Overviews a question, the system constructs an answer assembled from many sources at once. Your content enters that system as raw material, and exits recomposed alongside other inputs.

What matters, then, is whether any part of your brand’s messaging shapes the response the system generates. The pinnacle of success is making such an impression on one of the major LLMs that you do get cited by name. A second-best outcome is seeing your terminology or logic show up consistently in AI-generated answers, even if your brand doesn’t.

While on its face, “no attribution” sounds like a raw deal, being cited by AI, even tangentially, can make a difference in multiple stages of the sales funnel. If AI repeatedly explains a category using your logic, buyers may later:

• recognize your language on your site
• hear your pitch as familiar rather than promotional
• perceive alignment instead of persuasion

When it comes time to make a decision, this familiarity can make your product or service feel like the obvious fit.

What Actually Survives AI Compression (and What Doesn’t)

Ideas that survive compression tend to function as anchors; they give the system something stable to organize around. Examples might include a clear model for thinking about a problem, or an original benchmark that gives the system a reference point. Content that introduces structure or, better yet, new and valuable data is a boon. (This is one of the reasons we’re seeing a rise in branded benchmark reports and flagship research these days.)

Generic content rarely provides that. Familiar advice and widely repeated tips dissolve into the background because they don’t change how the system understands the topic.

A sharply argued position, on the other hand, gives the system something to work with. Instead of blending seamlessly into everything else, it helps organize other inputs. This is why original language matters—but not as ornamentation. Distinct terminology can make an idea easier for AI to find and surface.

How Marketers Need to Rethink Content Strategy

Content can no longer be treated as an asset that drives traffic; it needs to function as a source of durable ideas that persist across platforms and summarization layers. That means prioritizing clarity over cleverness. A clear definition or straightforward, compelling original data point will travel farther than a witty headline.

It also means investing in strong framing. If you can name a concept, structure it, and make it easy to restate accurately, you increase the odds it will persist.

It means using memorable language: Not buzzwords or jargon, but precise, specific phrasing that’s hard to replace with a generic equivalent.

And it means recognizing that safe, consensus-driven content is the most vulnerable to erasure. If your article says what everyone else is saying, it contributes nothing distinct to the compression process. It becomes filler.

This is uncomfortable for brands that have built content strategies around avoiding risk. But in an environment where AI systems blend dozens of voices into one, the riskiest move is to have no distinct voice at all.

The New Competitive Set: Ideas

AI doesn’t care about brand equity the way human readers do. A Reddit comment with a sharp insight can outcompete a polished whitepaper if the insight is more distinct and easier to compress; an academic study with clear findings can overshadow your thought leadership if the findings are more specific.

This levels the playing field in some ways, but it also raises the bar.

If your content strategy was built for the old model, now’s the time to audit. Here are a series of questions to ask when evaluating existing and planned content for AI search:

• If this article were compressed into a single sentence, would our core idea survive? Would our framing survive? Would our name?
• Is this content safe or generic? How can we make it stand out?
• What can we say about this topic, product, or sector that nobody else is saying? What language can we use that’s distinct, or what point of view can we “own”?
• If a buyer encountered this idea elsewhere later, would they recognize it as ours?

Idea persistence is the new metric. It’s time to start measuring for it.

Learn how Contently helps brands build content strategies designed for clarity, resilience, and long-term impact. Get in touch.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

Does this mean SEO no longer matters?

No. SEO still plays a role, especially for discovery and authority signals. But it’s no longer sufficient on its own. Ranking well doesn’t guarantee influence if your ideas disappear during summarization.

How can we tell if our ideas are influencing AI answers?

You won’t see a single metric. Signals tend to be indirect: recurring language in AI-generated responses, familiar framing appearing across tools, or prospects repeating your terminology in conversations. Influence shows up over time, not in dashboards.

Is AI attribution realistic for most brands?

It depends on the category and the role your content plays in the buying journey. Direct citation does happen, especially in product-led or comparison-driven searches, but it’s inconsistent and difficult to control. For most brands—particularly those operating in crowded or concept-driven categories—the more reliable goal is idea adoption. Attribution should be treated as an upside, not the baseline measure of success.

The post Your Content Isn’t Just Competing With Other Brands Anymore appeared first on Contently.

Behind those millions of searches, clicks, saves, and sign-ups are real signals that show exactly what audiences care about and how they engage. For example, retail sites saw a 693% surge in traffic tied to AI-powered shopping assistants and chatbots this year. That kind of growth suggests shoppers are becoming more comfortable letting AI do the comparison shopping for them. Buy now, pay later also became an even more popular option, implying that shoppers were looking for ways to make bigger purchases feel manageable.

January is your opportunity to harness those insights or let them languish. This guide looks back at what worked during the holidays and how to use those insights to plan more effectively for 2026 and beyond.

What People Searched for in December (and Why It Matters Now)

December queries are shaped by the year people just lived through. Sometimes, they signal indulgence; other times, restraint.

Google’s Holiday 100 trends, for instance, made a few patterns clear. In 2025, search interest clustered around practical gift categories: things like movie projectors, weighted vests, kids’ scooters, and backpacks. At scale, that mix suggests steady demand for items that solve everyday needs and feel worth the spend.

In addition to category interest shifts, broader consumer behavior illuminated how people actually made decisions across the season:

• AI-driven sales in the U.S. topped $3 billion on Black Friday alone
• Conversion rates from AI referrals outpaced traditional social channels by a wide margin
• Value-seeking and sharply price-conscious shoppers favored smaller-ticket gifts
• A majority of consumers said rising prices would influence their holiday spending, especially among younger generations facing tighter budgets

Taken together, these signals point to shoppers who were deliberate, price-aware, and increasingly influenced by tools that helped them feel confident about their choices.

In terms of actionable insights here that can carry over to 2026, focus on what reduced friction for people when decisions got complicated. Look at Google Trends and see how searches like “budget gifts” stack up against “luxury gifts” in your market. Then pull last Q4’s Search Console data to see what actually brought people in, not just what you assumed would. Saves on social and interactions with short-form or AI-generated clips tend to spike when people are narrowing choices.

The throughline: Context beats cleverness. When money feels tight, “under $25 gifts” will outperform premium roundups almost every time. For 2026 content planning purposes, marketers should prioritize formats that answer real questions and make next steps obvious.

Where Specificity Wins

Holiday SEO moved fast. January is when you can finally see what held up in search and what didn’t. Rankings have settled, traffic has normalized, and it’s clearer which pages earned their visibility versus which ones were buried.

Looking back, many Q4 search wins came from specificity. Gift-giving phrases, problem-driven queries, and local intent tended to outperform broad holiday terms. Pages that spoke directly to last-minute or highly specific needs earned traction, while generic “Christmas” pages faced steeper competition and more mixed intent.

Long-tail targeting is likely to become even more useful as more discovery happens through conversational queries, whether people type them, speak them, or ask an assistant. In many categories, those behaviors create whitespace brands can capture with clearer, more specific pages.

There’s a particular opportunity with voice search that most businesses are still missing, as we can see below:

Before deciding what to update or reuse next year, check how competitive your keywords were and whether your site was realistically positioned to rank. SEO checkers are useful for validating where effort paid off and where it probably never had a chance.

A post-holiday SEO review usually surfaces takeaways like:

• Holiday URLs that performed well are worth keeping live and updating each season
• Structured data helped certain pages stand out in crowded results
• Updated pages outperformed brand-new ones
• Page speed and simple layouts mattered during high-intent searches
• Basic accessibility improvements supported engagement

Use what December showed you to make cleaner, more realistic SEO decisions going forward.

Building a Content Calendar That Works in January

If December reveals which content holds up under pressure, January is the time to translate those signals into structure. Use the month to reset your publishing rhythm around the pieces that consistently supported real decisions.

A few best practices:

• Publish anchor content early so it can build momentum over time (guides, evergreen explainers, core resources).
• Create decision-support content that aligns with key moments when people are choosing quickly.
• Craft audience-specific pieces tailored to distinct segments instead of broad, one-size-fits-all topics.
• Make space for short-cycle content that moves from idea to publish quickly during spikes.
• Focus on low-friction formats that reduce cognitive load and help people progress without extra steps.

Leaving roughly 20% of the schedule open creates space to respond to demand as it appears, while keeping the rest of the plan stable.

Turning Holiday Insights Into Your Next Plan

The holiday season has passed, and what remains is the record: what people clicked, saved, returned to, and ignored when their attention was stretched thin.

Start with what you already know. Pull the last two years of Q4 data and identify five things that consistently worked. Build around those wins. Add one new experiment to keep learning and to give yourself room to improve.

Momentum comes from simple steps taken in order. Choose one tactic from this guide and implement it today. Tomorrow, choose another. Progress stacks quickly when the next step is always clear.

Audiences respond to clarity. Content that helps them decide, solve something practical, or move forward with less friction earns trust over time. Keep doing that consistently, and your strategy keeps paying dividends, season after season.

Ready to see which stories actually move people through the funnel? Contently’s platform surfaces performance signals across search, social, and conversions — all in one place. See how it works.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

What’s the biggest lesson marketers should take from the 2025 holiday season?

That audiences reward clarity. Content that helps people compare options, feel confident, and move forward tends to outperform splashy, generic pieces — especially when budgets feel tight.

What metrics matter most when analyzing post-holiday performance?

Look beyond traffic. Prioritize assisted conversions, time on key decision pages, return visits, saves, and email sign-ups. These signals reveal which pieces reduced friction and moved people closer to a decision.

What should I prioritize in January when planning my calendar?

Build around what worked. Anchor evergreen guides early, schedule decision-support content around key moments, leave ~20% of your calendar open for flexibility, and use short-cycle formats when urgency spikes.

The post What’s Working in Content for 2026? What the Holiday Season Taught Us appeared first on Contently.

Schema markup sounds like something that belongs in a developer’s basement lab, right next to the blinking server rack and a stack of vintage Linux manuals. Most marketers treat it that way too: vaguely intimidating and probably dangerous to poke without supervision.

But you don’t need to write code or summon an engineer to make sense of it. And if your content is getting outranked or out-cited by inferior articles in AI Search, this is likely the one of the missing links.

Schema isn’t magic. It’s simply the structured vocabulary that tells search engines and AI tools exactly what your page is about and whether it’s trustworthy enough to cite.

Here’s a marketer-friendly overview of this increasingly important component of your content.

The Problem: Your Content Is Invisible to AI

Schema markup is structured data you add to your website’s HTML that tells machines exactly what your content is about. Think of it as labels on a filing cabinet: Without identification, someone rifling through your files has to guess what’s inside; with clear labels, they know instantly.

Search engines and AI models face the same ambiguity problem. Your page might include a product name, price, author bio, and publication date — but without schema, machines have to infer what each piece represents. Schema removes the guesswork by marking up entities: “This is a product. This is its price. This is the author. This is when it was published.”

The payoff is twofold: in traditional search, schema powers rich results like star ratings, FAQ dropdowns, or recipe cards. In AI Search, schema helps language models identify entities, reduce ambiguity, verify facts, and cite sources. Whether someone searches on Google or asks ChatGPT, schema makes your content easier to parse and surface.

But implementation mistakes are costly. Sites that mark up content invisible to users or use schema that doesn’t match visible page content risk manual penalties from Google, which can remove rich-snippet eligibility entirely. In other words, schema only works when it accurately reflects what’s on the page.

The Three Schema Types Marketers Need First

Most marketers don’t need every schema type under the sun. These three schema types cover 80% of content marketing use cases and deliver the fastest visibility wins:

Article schema

This schema type marks up blog posts, news articles, and longform content. It tells search engines the headline, author, publication date, and featured image. LLMs rely on Article schema to disambiguate entities and verify publication dates when fact-checking claims — and without it, your “Apple” could be a fruit, a tech company, or a record label.

Use Article schema on every piece of editorial content you publish; it’s the baseline for getting your articles indexed properly and cited in AI answers.

Organization schema

This establishes your company as a verified entity; without it, AI tools may cite your content without attributing it to your company. Organization schema includes your business name, logo, contact info, and social profiles. Add this schema type to your homepage and About page to help search engines and AI models connect your brand to your content across the web.

Person schema

This marks up author bios, executive profiles, and contributor pages. It connects individuals to their credentials and organizational affiliations, and it’s critical for building expert authority. When AI tools cite content, they often cite people by name, and Person schema makes those connections explicit. This becomes particularly important as AI systems prioritize content from verified experts over anonymous sources.

According to Backlinko research, 72.6% of first-page Google results already use schema markup, meaning the majority of companies who do well with traditional SEO have implemented it, whether intentionally or through CMS defaults. With schema rapidly becoming even more important for landing in AI Search results, the window for competitive advantage is closing.

How to Implement Schema This Week

You don’t need to write JSON-LD by hand or understand HTML to implement schema. Multiple no-code pathways exist, including:

• CMS plugins. WordPress users can install Yoast SEO or Rank Math, both of which add schema automatically to posts and pages and let you fine-tune the type per template. On platforms like Shopify, Squarespace, and Webflow, many modern themes and built-in features (or apps) output structured data for products and articles. If your CMS offers any schema or “structured data” functionality, enable and configure that first. It’ll be the fastest path to broad coverage.
• Schema generators. If your CMS doesn’t do enough out of the box, use a visual generator (like Google’s older Structured Data Markup Helper or a third-party tool) to tag elements on your page and export JSON-LD. Just highlight the headline and click “headline” (or highlight the author name and click “author”), and the tool creates the markup. Paste it into your page’sand you’re done.
• Pro tip: Validation is non-negotiable. After adding schema, validate it. Google’s official tools (e.g., the Rich Results Test and Google Search Console) check highlight missing fields and flag incorrect formats. Fix what’s broken, re-test, and then publish.

To get traction fast, start with quick wins: Add Article schema to your top 10 blog posts this week, Organization schema to your homepage, and Person schema to author bio pages. Track which pages show up in AI-generated answers over the next quarter. Measure the shift.

The Bottom Line

Schema markup is a quiet layer of infrastructure that grows alongside your content. And while everyone is arguing about whether it’s “too technical,” the brands shipping it are quietly becoming the sources machines trust first.

You don’t need to overhaul your entire site this week. Start with the pages that drive the most value and build outward from there. Momentum is what matters, and the longer you wait, the more entrenched everyone else’s signals become.

Ready to level up your content operations? Explore how Contently helps brands turn strategy into measurable results.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Do I need schema if my content already ranks well on Google?

Traditional rankings don’t guarantee visibility in AI-generated answers. Schema helps AI models understand and cite your content even when users never click through to your site. If you want to show up in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews, schema provides the structured context those systems rely on.

How long does it take to see results from schema implementation?

Google typically recrawls and reindexes pages within a few weeks of adding schema. Rich results can appear as soon as your updated markup is indexed. For AI Search visibility, expect a longer timeline (months, not weeks), but the benefits compound over time. Most brands see initial rich results within 2-4 weeks, while AI citation improvements take 2-3 months as models refresh their retrieval systems.

Can schema hurt my SEO if I implement it incorrectly?

Incorrect schema won’t tank your rankings, but it won’t help either. Google ignores malformed markup or schema that doesn’t match your page content. The bigger risk is missing out on rich results and AI citations. Use validation tools to catch errors before they go live.

The post WTF Is Schema? A Primer for Marketers appeared first on Contently.

That’s changing quickly. AI-driven video indexing, powered by large language models (LLMs), computer vision, and automatic speech recognition, now treats video content like readable text. Search engines and recommendation systems can now see everything from your captions to the text on your slides.

As a result, video is becoming SEO 2.0, a fully discoverable format that can rank and surface answers just like a blog post.

For content teams, this demands a new approach. If video is now as indexable as written content, you need a “video retrievability” strategy that ensures your clips show up when people search for the problems your product or service solves.

Why Video Is Now SEO-Relevant

The mechanics of search are evolving quickly. AI-powered systems like Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity, and ChatGPT can now parse the actual content inside your videos, not just the title or description. With advances in automatic speech recognition, computer vision, and language modeling, search engines can extract meaning from multiple layers at once:

• Spoken dialogue transcribed and analyzed word by word
• Auto-captions and SRT files providing structured, timestamped text
• On-screen text detected through computer vision, from slide titles to product labels

This is a major shift from the old world of video SEO, where discoverability hinged on thumbnails, tags, and a few surface-level signals. Now, every meaningful moment, from your initial overview of a framework to your example at minute 3:42 to the term typed on a screen, can be read and indexed.

That’s the foundation of retrievability: a search engine’s ability to find, understand, and surface specific insights from within your video content.

Beyond SEO: How Generative Search Engines Use Video

Retrievability is only the starting point. Generative search engines go a step further by blending insights from text, video, audio, and images into a single synthesized answer. In these environments, video isn’t treated as a standalone format. It’s just one source among many that an LLM uses to construct the most authoritative response.

That’s why video citations are showing up in AI-driven answers. A YouTube clip may appear inside a Google AI Overview as supporting material, or TikTok’s “Search Highlights” might pair a trending query with a short, highly relevant clip. ChatGPT and Perplexity increasingly pull structured insights from videos that are properly indexed and easy to parse.

For brands, visibility now depends on multi-format coverage. If your expertise exists only in blog posts, you have a gap. If your videos aren’t optimized for retrieval, they won’t appear in the generative answers shaping consumer decisions.

How to Optimize Video for AI Search

If video is now discoverable at the dialogue level, your optimization strategy needs to go deeper than metadata. Here’s how to make your videos work like high-performing content.

Think of your script as both narrative and index.

Write your video scripts the way you’d compose an optimized blog post. That means clear phrasing, natural long-tail questions, and front-loading key terms in a way that feels conversational.

That “conversational” element is important because LLM-powered search engines prioritize natural language. Instead of saying “Today we’ll discuss customer acquisition strategies,” try, “How do you acquire customers without spending a fortune on ads?” The second phrasing mirrors how people actually search, and gives AI systems a clearer signal about the problem you’re solving.

If you’re explaining a concept, state it plainly early in the video. Ambiguity might work for storytelling, but it doesn’t work for retrievability.

Get serious about metadata hygiene.

Your title, description, and tags should accurately reflect the problem your video solves, not just the topic it covers. Avoid keyword dumping. Instead, prioritize clarity and user intent.

For example, in lieu of a title like “Content Marketing Tips | SEO | Video Strategy | 2025,” go with something like “How to Make Your Marketing Videos Discoverable in AI Search.” The latter is more specific and clearly describes the content’s value.

This approach applies to platforms ranging from YouTube to TikTok to LinkedIn.

Make your transcript the most accurate version of your video.

Always upload full transcripts or SRT files, which are now critical ranking signals. Well-formatted transcripts help AI systems disambiguate topics and identify key takeaways, as well as match your content to nuanced or niche queries.

Transcripts also capture long-tail queries that don’t fit neatly into titles or descriptions. Someone searching “how to handle objections in sales calls with technical buyers” might find your video because that exact phrase appears at minute 12 in your transcript, even if your title is more general.

Keep your transcripts clean. Remove filler words if they obscure meaning, but don’t over-edit. Natural phrasing is what LLMs are trained on.

Think of on-screen text as a secondary layer of indexable content that reinforces spoken points.

Everything you put on screen — callouts, lower thirds, slide text, product labels — is now crawlable. That’s a huge opportunity, but it also means you need to be intentional. If you’re introducing a framework, make sure the name of that framework appears visually. If you’re citing a stat, put it on screen in readable text.

Avoid “text spam,” i.e., cluttering your video with keywords just for the sake of crawlability. But do ensure that key terms, takeaways, and concepts appear both verbally and visually when relevant.

Practical Checklist: Your Video Retrievability Toolkit

Here’s a quick implementation guide to make your video content discoverable in AI-powered search:

• Write scripts with clear takeaways and natural phrasing that mirror how people search
• Add clean titles, accurate descriptions, and high-quality tags that reflect user intent
• Include full transcripts or SRT files with proper formatting and minimal filler
• Use intentional on-screen text for key concepts, stats, and frameworks
• Maintain consistent naming conventions across platforms to build topical authority
• Repurpose transcripts into blog posts to reinforce your expertise and capture text-based search traffic

Treat this as an evolving practice. As AI Search tools become more sophisticated, the ways they index and cite video will continue to shift. The core principle, though, remains making your content easy to find, understand, and reference.

Search engines are learning to see, hear, and cite everything. The black box is open. What you do with that power is up to you.

Learn how Contently can help you turn video into discoverable, high-performing content.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How long should my video be for optimal discoverability?

There’s no universal “best length,” but clarity and structure matter more than duration. Shorter videos work well for intent-matching on TikTok and YouTube Shorts, while longer explainers provide deeper material for generative answers to pull from.

Do I need special tools to make my videos indexable by AI Search?

No. Most of what matters — clean scripting, accurate transcripts, readable on-screen text, and clear metadata — can be handled during production and upload. AI search engines handle the indexing automatically if the signals are there.

How quickly will I see results from video retrievability efforts?

Indexing timelines vary by platform, but many brands see improvements within weeks. The bigger gains come from consistency: using unified naming conventions, publishing across multiple formats, and reinforcing your expertise with supporting written content.

The post Your Brand Needs a Searchable Video Strategy appeared first on Contently.

For brands accustomed to agonizing over campaign messaging for weeks, this speed is punishing. The challenge associated with keeping pace is twofold: Brands must learn to implement faster, lighter approval cycles, while ensuring their messaging still meets brand safety and compliance standards.

Luckily, social listening tools and strategies can help brands hone their radar and ride cultural momentum without becoming the corporate version of the Steve Buscemi “fellow kids” meme.

Here’s a guide on how to move from passive monitoring to active cultural intelligence.

Turning Sentiment into Strategy

Sentiment analysis has its place in reputation management, but on its own it misses social listening’s broader strategic potential. The most effective content teams go beyond reacting to brand mentions and use listening to surface cultural signals that can shape their next move.

Consider how this shift plays out in practice: A spike in negative comments may look like a reputational crisis at first glance, but viewed through a wider lens, the chatter could point to an emerging consumer need or even momentum around a competitor. What looks like a fire to put out may actually be an early market signal — and a chance to lead the conversation rather than chase it.

To leap from sentiment analysis to true strategic advantage, brands need to reframe listening as an input to planning, not just reporting. The teams that excel track core indicators like:

• Conversation velocity (how quickly discussions accelerate)
• Community reach (which groups drive the narrative)
• Emotional resonance (the intensity of engagement)

When these signals pinpoint a cultural insight, marketing teams should try to respond while the discussion is still gaining traction, ideally within a 48- to 72-hour window. Later than that and they risk looking reactive or irrelevant.

Spotting Micro-Virality Early

“Micro-virality” is a recent shift in how cultural trends emerge and spread. Unlike traditional viral content that explodes across demographics simultaneously, micro-viral moments ignite within specific communities before potentially crossing into mainstream consciousness. What’s more, the earliest ripples often start where brands aren’t looking: A meme circulating on a 20,000-member Discord server or a LinkedIn post gaining unusual traction among B2B marketers can signal tomorrow’s broader trend.

Detecting such early sparks is a challenge for even the most culturally clued-in brands. Standard analytics dashboards prioritize volume over velocity, missing these signals entirely.

Effective micro-virality detection demands monitoring beyond obvious channels. Brands should consider branching out beyond big, public platforms to digital subcultures like:

• Reddit threads
• Discord conversations
• Slack community reactions
• Twitch chat patterns

Such spaces can provide invaluable early warnings, but breaking in can be tricky if you show up heavy-handed. To earn trust, brands need to listen first and contribute in ways that feel native to the community rather than bolted on from the outside. They might also consider partnering with credible voices inside those spaces to amplify their presence organically and avoid looking like outsiders trying to hijack the conversation.

Trendjacking with Finesse

For every successful trendjacking moment, there are dozens of tone-deaf attempts that ultimately breed mockery and backlash instead of engagement and authentic connection. Brand missteps share common DNA: rushed execution, misunderstood tone, and forced brand insertion.

For instance, when the “#GirlDinner” trend exploded on TikTok, Popeyes tried to capitalize by launching a “Girl Dinner” menu made up of its side dishes. But instead of eliciting delight, the move was widely panned as lazy and off-base. What could have been an opportunity to align with Gen Z humor ended up highlighting the risks of jumping in without adding genuine value.

Brands that take the time to understand nuances are far more likely to show up in ways that feel relevant rather than opportunistic. That’s the difference social listening makes. HelloFresh, for example, actively tracks not just brand mentions but larger conversations around cooking habits, recipe trends, and packaging feedback. By analyzing these signals, the company adapts its product offerings and content strategy in real time.

Shaping the Content Machine from the Inside Out

Social listening’s greatest impact emerges when insights flow directly into content operations. Leading organizations are moving beyond surface metrics to let real-time audience intelligence inform four critical functions:

Editorial Calendar Evolution

Streaming platforms like Netflix have shown how closely tracking audience chatter can shape promotional priorities. Conversations around genres, moods, or cultural touchpoints often guide what gets emphasized in marketing campaigns — think highlighting “comfort viewing” during moments of collective stress.

Language and Tone Optimization

Ryanair has become a case study in how brands can use listening to inform voice and tone. Their cheeky, self-deprecating voice (“yes, our legroom is terrible, but our fares are cheap”) is a direct reflection of what they know people are already saying. Posts that mirror the humor of its audience consistently drive higher engagement, showing how listening can shape not just what a brand says, but how it says it.

Executive Positioning

Enterprise brands like Salesforce lean on trend monitoring to inform thought leadership. By paying attention to emerging business discussions (whether about AI, customer data, or sustainability), they position their executives to weigh in early and credibly.

Message Testing

Technology companies regularly validate their positioning by tracking how potential narratives land in the market. Slack’s evolution from “be less busy” to “digital HQ” reflects this kind of feedback loop, where conversation analysis helps sharpen the language before a campaign scales.

Practical Takeaways and Best Practices

Turning social listening from a passive tool into a performance driver requires discipline and integration. Here are three best practices to follow:

• Choose tools you’ll actually use. Start simple with native analytics (Twitter/X, TikTok, LinkedIn dashboards) to get comfortable tracking mentions and trends. As your needs grow, layer in dedicated tools like Brandwatch or Talkwalker for sentiment and community analysis. Larger enterprises may graduate to suites like Sprinklr or Sprout Social, but only when the scope and scale of insights demand it. The best tool is the one your team can use consistently, not the flashiest platform.
• Embed listening into existing workflows. Instead of creating extra steps, fold listening into routines you already run. Add a 10-minute trend scan to daily standups. Set up a Slack or Teams channel for real-time cultural alerts. Summarize key insights in weekly performance reviews so listening is always linked back to outcomes. Teams that systematize these habits are the ones that actually act on what they hear.
• Measure what matters. Don’t stop at tracking “mentions.” Tie listening to business outcomes. Measure speed-to-publish on trend-informed content (is your team able to turn ideas around within 24 hours?). Compare engagement lift between listening-driven posts and pre-planned content. Track how early your brand enters cultural conversations — and whether that timing translates into more relevance, share of voice, or even conversion.

The brands thriving in today’s compressed attention economy anticipate conversations, shape them, and build durable competitive advantage through cultural intelligence.

That shift requires reframing budgets and mindsets. A social listening line item is an investment in performance. In a landscape where cultural moments flare and fade faster than you can say “Barbenheimer,” the ability to detect, interpret, and respond in hours — not weeks — is a differentiator.

Don’t be the brand that shows up after the party’s already over. Social listening helps you arrive on time, and join the conversation in a way that feels welcome.

Social listening is only as powerful as the stories it informs. Learn how Contently can help your team build a content engine around real-time insights.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What’s the biggest mistake brands make when they start?

Treating listening as a reporting function rather than an action driver. It’s easy to produce dashboards that look impressive but never inform a decision. The real value comes when insights directly change how you plan, create, or publish content.

Can social listening replace customer research?

Not entirely. Social listening shows you how people talk in public, often in real time. It complements surveys, focus groups, and user testing by surfacing unfiltered opinions and emerging behaviors — but it shouldn’t replace those methods.

How do I balance speed with brand safety?

Build lightweight guardrails: a pre-approved “do/don’t” list for language, topics, and tone; a short approval chain for rapid responses; and clear escalation paths for sensitive issues. This way, you can move quickly without exposing the brand to unnecessary risk.

The post Social Listening as Your Brand’s Secret Performance Tool appeared first on Contently.

If it feels like every vendor suddenly has a “State of Something” report, you’re not imagining it. Benchmark studies and branded data have become the new calling cards of content marketing.

While blog posts and brand manifestos still have their place in the ecosystem, they rarely break through on their own anymore. Content fatigue has reached critical mass, and audiences simply scroll past “5 tips for better marketing” articles. At the same time, AI search has changed the SEO game and raised the bar for credibility; in order to rank and get cited by large language models, marketers need original insights no one else can offer.

One solution emerging across industries has been to double down on proprietary data. From HubSpot’s State of Marketing to LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report, companies are mining their unique data assets to create content that commands attention, drives citations, and builds lasting authority.

Here’s why the trend is on the rise — and why it works.

Why Now? The AI Search Effect

When ChatGPT answers a question about average email open rates or Perplexity summarizes industry trends, these AI systems pull from sources with transparent, compelling data and authoritative positioning. Branded benchmarking reports check these boxes by providing structured, factual content with clear methodologies and context.

Even in a “zero click” scenario, your brand still benefits from being cited as the source of record. There can be a compounding effect to such attributions: When your report becomes the default data point for “average B2B sales cycle length” or “content marketing budget allocation,” you gain visibility across thousands of AI-generated responses, journalist articles, analyst reports, and competitor presentations. Each mention amplifies your brand’s authority, and the qualified traffic that does flow back to your domain is more likely to convert than traffic from traditional SEO.

How Benchmarking Reports Drive Value

Smart marketing leaders recognize benchmarking reports deliver measurable value across three critical dimensions:

Public Relations Impact

Proprietary data transforms your brand into a media magnet. Journalists constantly hunt for fresh statistics to anchor their stories. When you publish exclusive insights about industry trends, you hand them ready-made hooks — and the result is earned media coverage that would cost six figures through traditional PR campaigns.

Pipeline Generation

Whether gated or ungated, benchmarking reports tend to attract high-intent prospects. Gated reports identify serious buyers willing to exchange contact information for valuable insights, and ungated versions can maximize reach by getting your data in front of analysts and influencers.

Trust and Authority

Publishing rigorous, methodology-driven research signals deep expertise. You shift from vendor to trusted advisor. Transparent methodology matters here — you’ll want to ensure you’re clearly explaining data sources, sample sizes, and analysis methods to give readers confidence in the validity of your findings.

What It Takes to Create a Report That Sticks

Building a benchmarking report that achieves these outcomes requires strategic planning across a few key areas:

Data Sourcing Strategy

Start with data only you possess, like first-party usage data from your platform that provides unmatched insights competitors cannot replicate. Combine this with customer surveys or supplement with subject matter expert quotes for qualitative depth. Aggregate and anonymize to protect individual customer data while revealing category-wide patterns.

Design and Format Excellence

The most successful reports balance comprehensive analysis with scannable highlights. Transform raw data into compelling visual stories by partnering with designers who understand data visualization. Create charts that reveal insights at a glance. Write copy that explains why the data matters, not just what it shows. Package statistics as “snackable” social media content, and include downloadable one-pagers for easy sharing.

Multi-Channel Distribution

Great data dies without strong distribution. To maximize impact, launch your report with coordinated campaigns across PR, social media, email, webinars, and sales enablement. Create tiered assets: executive summary for time-pressed leaders, full report for practitioners, slide decks for internal sharing, etc. And don’t forget to train sales teams to reference key statistics during their conversations with prospective clients.

Optimizing for Citations

You’ll also want to structure your content for maximum quotability and citability by AI engines. To boost discoverability, use descriptive subheadings that work as standalone facts, and be sure to create FAQ sections addressing common questions. Build infographics for visual learners, and implement schema markup to help search engines understand your data. Include methodology sections that establish credibility and, finally, make statistics easy to cite with clear sourcing guidelines.

Consistent Refresh Cadence

A report is only as valuable as it is current. To keep your data fresh, commit to regular updates, e.g. annually for comprehensive reports, quarterly for trend data. Mark your calendar now: If you launch in January, start data collection in October. Teasing an ongoing data initiative creates anticipation and provides reasons for re-engagement.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Even with the best intentions and compelling data, a few critical mistakes can undermine even well-executed benchmarking reports. Here are three to avoid:

Weak Methodology

Small sample sizes and cherry-picked data can destroy your credibility. Invest in rigorous methodology, even if it means less favorable results. Consider partnering with research professionals if your own team doesn’t have the resources necessary to produce a truly top-notch report. And always disclose limitations or margins of error.

Sales-First Content

Readers — both humans and machines — detect and reject reports that exist primarily to promote products. Focus on category-wide insights, include competitor data where relevant, and save product mentions for subtle footer CTAs.

Underinvesting in Distribution

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your report is if nobody reads it. Budget 40% of project resources for distribution and amplification. That number may sound daunting, but without aggressive distribution, even the most groundbreaking data won’t move the needle.

The Future of Authority Marketing

The window of opportunity is open now, but it won’t be forever. Categories without established benchmark reports offer first-mover advantages. So, it’s a good idea to start now: Begin by auditing your data assets, surveying your customers, or analyzing your platform metrics. Then, transform these insights into the authoritative report your industry needs but doesn’t yet have.

As AI search changes how information is surfaced and cited, the brands supplying reliable benchmarks will own the reference points that everyone else leans on. Those who wait risk competing in categories already defined by others’ data.

Need help turning raw data into a report that drives citations and pipeline? Talk to Contently about building your next benchmark study.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

What makes a benchmarking report different from a white paper?

A white paper typically presents a company’s perspective or solution, while a benchmarking report is rooted in original data and industry-wide trends. The latter is designed to be cited, compared against, and referenced as an objective standard.

How much data do I need to publish a credible benchmarking report?

There’s no magic number, but larger sample sizes improve credibility. What matters most is transparency: Clearly explain your methodology, sample size, and any limitations so readers trust your findings.

What resources are required to create a strong benchmarking report?

Successful reports usually require collaboration across data, design, and distribution. This might mean partnering with research specialists, investing in design for clarity and impact, and budgeting a sizable share for promotion.

The post Why Branded Benchmarking Reports Are Everywhere Right Now appeared first on Contently.

Remember when the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button was Google’s biggest gamble? Now, it’s their entire business model, and your traffic is the casino’s take.

Your best-performing article still ranks #1, but traffic’s down 30%. Search your primary keyword and there it is: a Google AI Overview perfectly summarizing your content. No click required.

Welcome to the age of zero-click search, a blunt term that means exactly what it sounds like: searches where users get their answers without ever visiting your site. Industry veterans are calling the phenomenon “Google Zero” (less self-explanatory but just as ominous-sounding).

This new era means rankings alone no longer guarantee engagement. Your audience absorbs AI-generated answers directly on Google’s platform, bypassing your site entirely. This is the defining challenge of content marketing today. In an era dominated by AI-powered SERP previews, winning means creating digital destinations worth visiting, not just pages that pull rank.

Here’s how brands can adapt.

Understanding the Zero-Click Search Landscape

Google’s AI Mode represents a fundamental shift in how users source information online, compressing entire articles into punchy, AI-powered summaries. Users love the instant gratification. Brands and media companies, on the other hand, are in panic mode.SparkToro analysis from 2024 found that for every 1,000 Google searches in the US, only 360 clicks went to the open web.

Let that implication set in: Out of every 1,000 queries, 640 now lead to no clicked results.

Some publishers are impacted more than others

This trend has only ballooned in 2025, and click-through rates (CTRs) are plummeting. Publishers in reference verticals that have historically relied on search visibility report devastating traffic losses; some witness double-digit drops in referral visits, even as their keyword rankings hold steady. Semrush data finds that science, health, people & society, and law & government are the industries seeing the largest share of AI Overview growth.

The erosion is surgical, with Google’s AI scalpel removing the meat and leaving only bones:

• Recipe sites see their content distilled into lists and cook times.
• Long product reviews shrink to bite-sized bullets.
• Communities and dev sites have detailed Q&As sliced into decontextualized code snippets.

Zero-click search also strips away narrative, perspective, and experience, leaving only commoditized fragments that serve Google’s ecosystem.

The upside for marketers

But here’s what many panicked marketers miss: This isn’t a content apocalypse, but a process of natural selection. Commodity content is the dinosaur.

Most of the formats endangered by zero-click search were already oversaturated (all those “10 Best Tools for X” listicles you’ve been banging your head against a wall writing for the past decade). Many were competing on efficiency, completeness, and SEO tricks rather than on real innovation or brand distinction. Google Zero simply accelerates a reckoning that was always coming.

And here’s the twist: AI Search often surfaces sources that live well beyond the first page of Google’s traditional rankings. In other words, content that was once invisible in the old SEO hierarchy can suddenly become citable and top-of-mind in AI summaries. For brands willing to invest in distinctive, authoritative insights, the playing field may actually be more open than before.

Building a Destination Content Strategy

There are a few tactics for thriving in the Google Zero era. “Destination content,” for instance, inverts the classic SEO playbook. Forget adjusting for every last query and optimizing around keyword density; instead, focus on building branded content experiences that users actively seek out. These are digital destinations that drive interaction, build habit, and deliver value AI cannot compress.

Here are a few examples of what these strategies look like in practice:

1. Utility and interactivity

Example: Tools, assessments, and calculators. Google’s AI Overviews can summarize general best practices, frameworks, or even steps to use a tool, but they can’t generate dynamic, personalized outcomes tied to an individual user’s inputs, data, or context. ChatGPT can mimic personalization if you paste in content or data, but without integrations it can’t apply the proprietary scoring logic, benchmarks, or datasets that make branded tools defensible.

That unique value — rooted in owned IP and interactivity — is what keeps tools like HubSpot’s Website Grader a step ahead of zero-click answers. Users enter their site to get their specific recommendations, a direct exchange of effort for individualized insight that no AI summary can replicate.

2. Memorable Narrative and Voice

Example: Serialized storytelling and editorial franchises. Readers return for evolving narratives, strong opinions, and a distinct voice beyond just facts. (Think of the difference between Wikipedia and a respected analyst’s ongoing columns.) AI can summarize the facts, but not the evolving insight, context, or strategic nuance. For instance, Rare Beauty’s Substack leans into longform, behind-the-scenes storytelling that blends personal anecdotes, mental-health reflections, and candid product development updates. It stands out by offering authenticity tied deeply to the brand, giving readers a reason to subscribe rather than passively consume.

3. Deep, Engaging Experience

Example: Interactive flipbooks, quizzes, and content hubs. Build content networks that reward deeper exploration. Think of an immersive guide that walks a user through a complex topic using clickable flows, rich visuals, and progressive disclosure, instead of flattening content into a one-and-done summary. According to industry guides, formats like flipbooks, quizzes, polls, and interactive infographics are trending as tools for deeper engagement, boosting dwell time and even delivering audience insights.

4. Unmatched Credibility

Example: Subject matter expertise and original research. Every year, Edelman publishes its Trust Barometer, surveying more than 30,000 people across 28 countries on trust in business, media, government, and NGOs. The findings are widely cited by media outlets and executives, and the report’s methodology and charts compel readers to click through for detail.

Such research-driven content stands apart because it offers proprietary insights users can’t get anywhere else. It positions the brand as a trusted authority, fuels citations and coverage, and compels readers to click through for methodology and nuance.

Diversifying Discovery and Distribution

Smart brands aren’t putting all their chips on Google anymore. Instead, they’re engineering multiple discovery paths that are immune to AI summarization and constantly shifting SERP formats. The most resilient strategies balance owned channels, native participation, and interactive experiences — each reinforcing brand visibility outside of Google’s walls.

A few ways to do this include:

1. Email Newsletters

Email newsletters remain the gold standard of owned distribution. Immune to zero-click harvesting, newsletters deliver content directly to your audience on your own terms.

The strongest programs build around a clear editorial promise, tailored segmentation, and actionable next steps. Engagement metrics also look different here: unique opens,real click-to-open rates, and organic subscriber growth matter more than sheer volume. A newsletter welcome in a crowded inbox is a stronger signal of affinity than any search ranking.

2. Native Social Discovery

Native social discovery offers another durable channel. On Reddit, credibility comes from contributing expertise before dropping links — a strategy with extra upside, since Reddit is currently the single-largest source feeding AI search results. On LinkedIn, brands are finding traction with shareable carousels and concise insights designed for in-platform engagement. And in private communities like Slack groups, Discord servers, or other niche forums, value comes from participation, not promotion. Brands that show up with utility and authenticity win trust; those that push content for clicks don’t.

3. Content-Driven Events and Interactive Experiences

Webinars anchored by actionable tools, workshops, or playbooks create live value, while the content generated during those events (clips, FAQs, templates, case studies, etc.) can be repurposed across other touchpoints. The most effective teams go a step further, building “distribution kits” for every major asset. That means automated email sequences, platform-specific social adaptations, community prompts, and even snippets for sales enablement and internal knowledge transfer.

Redefining Performance Metrics in the Google Zero Era

Organic sessions, once the bedrock KPI for SEO success, are no longer reliable on their own. In the age of zero-click search, when Google’s AI Overviews siphon answers directly from your content, traffic becomes unpredictable. To future-proof a destination content strategy, brands need to shift from measuring visits to measuring value.

That involves monitoring a new set of metrics.

Relationship Metrics

Email signups, subscriber growth, retention, and community participation are now among the strongest signals that your content is worth returning to. Unlike a fleeting pageview, these metrics reflect ongoing trust and affinity.

Engagement Signals

These signals reveal depth of impact. Look beyond clicks to measures such as engaged reading time, scroll depth, recirculation into related articles, and direct repeat visits. Even the ratio of direct or bookmarked traffic to organic search traffic tells a story: Audiences are coming back because they want to, not because an algorithm sent them.

Utility and Habit Metrics

These indicators capture how your content integrates into users’ workflows. Tool completion rates, repeat usage of assessments, template downloads, calculator sessions, and resource revisits are strong indicators of content that delivers enduring value. A user who saves and reuses your template is worth far more than one who skims a single article.

Contextualized Traditional Metrics

Traditional SEO metrics like rankings and organic sessions still matter, but only in context. When search is one of many pipelines — not the only one — fluctuations lose their power to derail your growth.

Escaping the SERP

The rise of zero-click search doesn’t signal the death of content marketing, but it just might be the end of lazy content tactics. Google Zero is forcing brands to confront a truth long in the making: Visibility is meaningless without engagement. Traffic is volatile. Relationships endure.

Winning in this era means rethinking what you measure, how you distribute, and why your audience should care. It means building destinations worth seeking out, not just pages that happen to rank. You don’t have to fight AI or abandon SEO entirely — these remain important parts of the mix (and we’ll be covering tactics for LLM optimization in future articles).

But survival in the Google Zero era isn’t about winning clicks; it’s about winning commitment. Brands that build trusted relationships, deliver irreplaceable utility, and foster genuine communities will discover something liberating: when audiences choose to seek you out, no algorithm can make you disappear.

Ready to future-proof your content strategy? Partner with Contently to build destination experiences your audience can’t ignore.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

1. What exactly counts as “destination content”?Destination content is any experience your audience seeks out directly, rather than stumbling across through search. That could mean an interactive tool, a trusted newsletter, or a content hub with resources they bookmark and revisit. The key is habit and value: It has to be worth returning to even if Google never sends them.

2. Should we stop investing in SEO altogether?SEO is still important, but it shouldn’t be your only strategy. Think of it as one pipeline among many. Rankings and search traffic should be contextualized alongside relationship, engagement, and utility metrics. The real hedge against zero-click search is diversification.

3. How can smaller teams compete if they can’t build tools like HubSpot’s Website Grader?Interactivity doesn’t have to mean a massive engineering lift. Simple calculators, quizzes, or even well-structured templates can deliver personalized value. The goal is to create something useful enough that your audience wants to return.

The post ‘Destination Content’ Is a Lifeboat In the Google Zero Era appeared first on Contently.

It’s a cautionary tale replayed endlessly across one of the world’s most influential community-driven platforms.

But for brands, Reddit can no longer be dismissed as a marketing minefield to be avoided. The platform has around 108 million daily unique visitors worldwide, and users spend an average of around 16 minutes consuming content per session — far more time than on many other social platforms.

Perhaps most importantly, the site’s sprawling archive of authentic conversations now serves as one of the primary gatekeepers for AI Search. Google’s $60 million-per-year agreement to license Reddit content signals that this influence is now entrenched at the highest levels of SEO and GEO.

The message for marketers is unambiguous: The rules of digital influence are being drafted on Reddit, whether you’re participating or not.

Reddit Has Traditionally Been Thorny Territory for Brands

Historically, Reddit has been hostile to overt marketing efforts. The graveyard of brand blunders is filled with failed AMAs and cringey misfires: Nissan, REI, and travel ticketing site Skiplagged have been dragged for clumsy attempts at engagement. Electronic Arts’ now-infamous 2017 defense of “pay-to-win” mechanics in Star Wars Battlefront II earned the most downvoted comment in Reddit history.

The platform’s persistent hostility to brands is tied to three deeply structural and cultural dynamics:

1. Authenticity above all. Reddit’s entire ethos centers around authentic, user-first contributions rather than top-down brand messaging.
2. Community-driven scrutiny. Every subreddit has its own culture, rules, and moderators, which means outsiders — especially brands — are expected to adapt seamlessly to the community.
3. Anonymity breeds candor (and crass comments). Under the cloak of anonymity, Redditors can be brutally honest. They won’t hesitate to tell you exactly what they think of your brand, and they have a keen nose for sniffing out inauthenticity.

As a result of all of the above, traditional marketing tactics that may work elsewhere are swiftly rejected here. Marketing-speak is mocked, subtle self-promotion is quickly exposed, and contrived campaigns are dismantled within minutes. (If you want a vivid illustration of this, just head on over to r/HailCorporate, a subreddit dedicated to unmasking brand intrusion.)

Reddit’s upvote/downvote mechanics also impose real-time accountability on content. Public comment and post histories are visible by default — though since June 2025, users can hide it from their profiles. (Moderators, however, retain 28-day access.)

Finally, moderation can be a rude awakening for brands accustomed to sanitized feedback loops. Volunteer moderators enforce each subreddit’s rules publicly and quickly. Missteps can result in instant removal or bans. And unlike platforms where content disappears, Reddit has a long memory: Deleted posts often persist via archives and mirrors, which means that one ill-conceived campaign can haunt a company for years.

2025 Reddit: New Rules, New Tools, New Stakes

All that said, Reddit in 2025 is simply not the same beast it was in 2015. The platform is evolving, both in how it equips brands and in how its culture is shifting under the spotlight of AI search.

New Tools for Marketers

Recently, Reddit itself has signaled openness to brand partnerships and data licensing deals — a perhaps not-unrelated response to the widely publicized revenue struggles leading up to its 2024 IPO.

Whatever the motivation, over the past five years, the platform has rolled out a slew of products that signal a new posture toward brand participation, including:

• Reddit Pro: A native suite of analytics, post scheduling, and community insights to help brands engage more effectively.
• KarmaLab: Reddit’s in-house creative team, built to help brands craft content that won’t instantly get flamed.
• AMA Ads: Launched in 2025, these let brands promote upcoming Ask Me Anythings in relatively “safer spaces” than past free-for-alls.

These tools make it clear that Reddit is building out infrastructure to help brands participate without breaking community norms.

AI Search: Raising the Stakes for Authenticity

Despite the hurdles involved, there’s real urgency for brands to engage with Reddit. If you’re not active on the platform, you’re forfeiting control of how your brand is represented in AI-generated answers. Competitors or critics will happily fill the void.

A few clear indicators of Reddit’s growing influence in digital discovery include:

• AI systems cite Reddit constantly. After OpenAI’s July 2025 update, Reddit citations surged 87% and now account for over 10% of ChatGPT’s references.
• Search engines elevate Reddit threads. Google increasingly surfaces Reddit discussions when users want lived experiences, not polished marketing copy.
• Meritocracy rules. In Reddit’s culture, genuinely helpful contributions — not ad spend or brand size — determine visibility. Smaller, scrappy brands can punch above their weight if they provide genuine value.

The TL;DR: The world’s toughest focus group is now also the training ground for AI, and brands can’t afford to sit it out.

Subtle Cultural Shifts

The culture is also softening, at least in pockets. In certain subreddits, more specialized experts — engineers, academics, clinicians, etc. — are welcomed when they contribute genuine expertise. The implicit bargain is simple: Show up as a person first, a brand rep second.

How Brands Are Experimenting Successfully

Even with the tailwinds created by new tools and shifting community norms, it’s no excuse for brands to fall back on lazy campaigns. Success on Reddit requires a radically different playbook that centers patience, humility, relatability, empathy, and a focus on providing value.

A few brands getting it right:

• The Economist has run thoughtful AMAs with its editors, leaning into expertise rather than pushing subscriptions.
• Mint Mobile earned credibility by having employees (including Ryan Reynolds himself at times) participate directly in r/mintmobile, answering questions and cracking jokes rather than shilling.
• Purple Mattress launched r/LifeOnPurple, a community dedicated to sleep health. Instead of spamming product links, it became a global focus group where users traded advice.

There can be real results tied to these efforts. Mint Mobile, for instance, has seen over 44% of its social media referrals (more than 101,000 visits) come from Reddit.

On the other hand, there are real risks. Brands have very little real control over even the most branded of subreddits; a recent comment on the Purple community, r/LifeOnPurple (headline: “Purple has no moral fiber”) highlights how quickly conversations can turn critical.

Technical Brands and Radical Helpfulness

Technical audiences reward brands that bring real resources to the table. Sharing a GitHub repo, being candid about a failed migration, or troubleshooting alongside users builds more trust than a dozen blog posts.

Imagine for a moment a parallel universe to the scenario at the top of this article. In this alternative outcome, the same company’s lead engineer joins a thread about database performance concerns. She candidly shares the team’s journey migrating 50 million records, drops a link to their GitHub tool, and highlights both successes and setbacks. The community responds positively; screenshots begin circulating on X. Months later, her answer resurfaces when developers search for scaling advice.

This example showcases the real value of Reddit for brands: credibility meets connection at scale. In a world in which AI slop dominates feeds, people are flocking to Reddit presumably because of the very human, messy, and unfiltered exchanges that happen there. By showing up authentically — not aggressively — brands stand to win trust and gain relevance.

Contently helps the world’s top brands create stories that resonate with real people — and stand out to both audiences and AI.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

How do you measure success for brand activity on Reddit?

Engagement looks different on Reddit than on other platforms. Metrics include upvotes/downvotes, comment sentiment, referral traffic, and whether brand posts are organically referenced in other threads. Increasingly, success also means being cited frequently in AI Search results.

Can paid ads work on Reddit, or is organic participation the only path?

Reddit Ads can be effective, but they perform best when paired with authentic community engagement. A promoted AMA or native-style post without organic credibility often falls flat. Brands that invest in both paid reach plus ongoing community presence may see the strongest results.

What types of subreddits are most open to brand participation?

Smaller, niche, interest-driven communities (tech, health, hobbies) tend to be more receptive when brands bring expertise. Large default subreddits like r/funny or r/pics are usually hostile to overt marketing. The key is finding communities where your brand can add value to conversations that are already happening.

The post Reddit’s Resurgence: How the Internet’s Toughest Crowd Became AI’s Favorite Source appeared first on Contently.

Most of these assets lived squarely in marketing’s owned-and-operated channels. But sometime over the past decade, “content” stopped fitting neatly inside the marketing department. It has now spilled into every corner of the customer experience: product UI copy, customer support scripts, help-center articles, checkout flows, push notifications, and content to live on whatever buzzy new platform will inevitably debut next quarter.

The rise of AI Search represents another turning point. LLM and AI Search experiences often pull from authoritative and widely corroborated sources; brands with consistent, high-quality coverage tend to be cited more. It stands to reason that the more unified a message your brand delivers across every element of the digital ecosystem, the more likely it is that message will make it into AI-generated outputs.

As a result of all of the above, we’re seeing content career opportunities evolve. More and more companies are hiring roles like “Head of Content Experience” and “Director of Content Design,” marking a shift in how organizations think about the choreography of brand storytelling across multiple channels. In the past, marketing teams focused on what to say and where to publish it — landing pages, campaign assets, maybe a few gated PDFs. Today, the mandate is more ambitious: Design the entire content journey so that every touchpoint feels frictionless.

Why Content Experience Matters

With so many platforms and content formats competing for customer attention, brands face a real consistency challenge. People want to feel like the same company that reeled them in during a short-form video ad is also the one answering their questions clearly in a help article or walking them through a checkout process.

While a cohesive brand voice isn’t necessarily a silver bullet for sales, it can make your brand feel more professional and trustworthy. Salesforce research has found that 69% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments. At the same time, trust in corporations is reaching all-time lows; nearly three-quarters (72%) of consumers trust brands less than they did a year ago. 

In this climate, inconsistency can further chip away at confidence. Content experience is one of the levers brands can pull to counteract that.

Content Experience, Design, and Strategy: How Are They Different, and Where Do They Overlap?

Unlike content marketing, which often treats messaging as standalone assets, content experience treats content as infrastructure. It involves building the scaffolding that makes every interaction feel connected, from first click to task completion.

Here’s how the different roles tend to break down:

• Content Strategist: Sets the big-picture plan for what content to create, for whom, and why. They define voice/tone guidelines, editorial calendars, governance rules, and KPIs. A strategist might determine that the brand needs a library of onboarding tutorials, but they aren’t usually the ones crafting the microcopy inside the product.
• Content Designer: Works closely with UX and product teams to shape in-product copy and flows. They focus on clarity, accessibility, and task completion, writing for things like error messages, navigation labels, onboarding prompts, and help center articles — typically in the context of the interface.
• Content Experience Lead: Operates between strategy and design, with a systems lens. They ensure that content is consistent, discoverable, and adaptive across channels. This can include building modular content systems, implementing personalization logic, managing taxonomies, and coordinating delivery across web, app, email, and emerging platforms.

Unlike with traditional content marketing roles, content design and experience are not so much about producing more assets, but orchestrating existing ones into a coherent, user-friendly whole. The goal is to make sure that no matter where a customer encounters your brand — in an AI Search snippet, a push notification, or a complex product workflow — it feels like part of the same conversation.

These roles aren’t meant to work in silos; their real value shows when they collaborate across the full content lifecycle. A content strategist might partner with a content experience lead to ensure the high-level editorial vision translates into modular, reusable components that can live across multiple platforms. 

That same experience lead might work side by side with content designers to embed those components into product flows and ensure they’re consistent with voice, tone, and accessibility standards. In mature teams, these roles often sit in a shared content or UX organization, but they also act as liaisons to marketing, product, and customer support. The collaboration is cyclical: Strategy informs experience, experience informs design, and design feedback helps refine strategy.

Applying the Mindset Without a Dedicated Hire

You don’t need a Head of Content Experience to start thinking like one. Even without a specialized team, small shifts can move your organization toward a more cohesive, user-first content experience.

Here’s a quick-start playbook:

1. Audit your most important journeys

Map your top user tasks — whether that’s signing up for a trial, upgrading a plan, or finding help — across your site, docs, product UI, and support channels. Look for language gaps, redundant steps, or tonal mismatches that create friction or confusion.

2. Treat content as a design component

Work with your design system or dev team to bake voice, tone, terminology, and content patterns into the same place you keep visual components. If those standards live in your CMS and design files, they’re easier to apply consistently.

3. Create space for cross-functional reviews

Bring marketing, UX, and product teams into the same (virtual) room to critique real user flows. A quick “ad → landing page → trial → help doc” run-through can surface tone shifts and clarity issues that siloed reviews miss.

4. Pilot fixes in high-impact areas

You don’t have to revamp everything at once. Try a small, visible project like:

• • Launching a unified glossary so marketing, product, and support all use the same terms.
  • Applying progressive disclosure in onboarding copy to reduce overwhelm and speed up activation.

5. Give teams a cheat sheet

A single-page “language patterns” guide covering voice, tone, and terminology gives everyone a quick reference. When in doubt, they’ll have a shared source of truth.

While there’s a lot up in the air right now about the future of content (and the careers in this space), there’s one consistency we can count on: New channels will keep emerging. AI will keep reshaping how people discover and evaluate brands. The best way to future-proof your message is to make sure it already works everywhere — and that’s exactly what content experience thinking delivers.

At Contently, we help brands put these principles into practice, from developing voice and tone guides to creating modular, multi-channel content systems that keep messaging consistent everywhere your audience meets you. Learn more about our services, including our AI Studio, here.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

1. Do I need to hire all three roles — content strategist, content designer, and content experience lead?

Not necessarily. Many companies start by layering content experience thinking into existing roles. If you can’t staff all three, focus on cross-functional collaboration between marketing, UX, and product, and look for people who can work across silos.

2. How is “content experience” different from just good UX writing?

UX writing focuses on the clarity and usefulness of in-product copy. Content experience zooms out to orchestrate how all content — in product, marketing, and support — works together, so it feels like one cohesive brand conversation.

3. What’s the first step if my organization isn’t ready for a full content design or experience hire?

Start with an audit of your most important customer journeys and create a shared “language patterns” guide for all teams. Even small steps toward consistency can pay off quickly in trust, usability, and discoverability.

The post Strategy, Experience, Design: The Roles Redefining Content in 2025 appeared first on Contently.

Google’s new AI Mode, currently in the midst of a phased rollout, is likely the beginning of the end of the SERP’s 20-year reign. In general, this new era of AI Search is nothing short of — to borrow a phrase AI loves — a paradigm shift. Instead of serving up a list of links for users to explore, search engines now generate direct, conversational answers, often without requiring users to navigate off the results page.

This shift has myriad implications for brands and publishers, chief among them the rise of the zero-click search. The impacts of this evolution can’t be understated, and it will take some trial and error to create a new game plan for driving visibility and engagement in an AI-curated world.

But some tenets of traditional content strategy aren’t going away. While users can get quick summaries through AI Search, the detailed insights found in longform content are still an essential part of any brand’s digital presence. Here’s why longform still matters in this new era — and how leading marketers can evolve their traditional approach to keep content relevant and discoverable.

Why Longform Is Still Relevant in the Age of AI

Longform content continues to serve as the backbone for establishing authority and expertise online, and search engines still rely on rich, detailed narratives to verify trustworthiness and quality.

Here’s an overview of why longform isn’t going anywhere just yet.

Not Every User Wants a Summary

AI search tools are optimized for convenience, but they often surface overviews that are just that — cursory summaries. For users researching a complex topic, making a high-stakes decision, or trying to understand a nuanced issue, these condensed answers often fall short. That’s where longform content still shines.

Which brings us to our next point…

Longform Can Power Middle- and Bottom-Funnel Conversions

In a world where bite-sized answers dominate the top of the funnel, longform content becomes even more impactful at the middle and bottom. These are the stages where trust, differentiation, and depth matter most; they’re where prospects are comparing solutions, weighing trade-offs, and looking for signs of credibility.

Well-executed longform content can walk readers through complex ideas, unpack case studies, or showcase customer success stories in a way that builds confidence and nudges them closer to action. It can also be a powerful tool for nurturing relationships over time — whether you’re supporting an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy or educating high-intent leads.

Originality Drives AI Visibility

Finally, longform content isn’t just valuable to your audience — it’s instrumental to AI systems themselves. AI search tends to pull from what it perceives as high-authority sources, and not just because of length or formatting. Content that includes original reporting, proprietary research, expert interviews, or unique insights stands a greater chance of being cited, summarized, or linked to by AI platforms.

This is another area where longform can offer a strategic edge. When content is substantive, it sends stronger relevance signals to both humans and machines. Combine that with a thoughtful PR or content syndication strategy, and you’re increasing the odds that your content becomes the source of record — not just another reference in the pile.

How to Adapt Your Longform Content for the AI Search Age

Preparing your content for an AI-driven landscape means rethinking its structure and presentation to ensure it can be easily digested by both human readers and automated systems.

To give your brand the best shot of surfacing in AI-generated results, focus on key structural and semantic strategies, including:

Structure Content for Scanning

Content that’s well-organized with descriptive headings and clear sections makes it easier for readers and AI alike to locate key information. A logical, scannable structure helps your work get referenced accurately and ensures that the takeaways are immediately accessible. You’ll also want to optimize for zero-click consumption by enhancing your content with quick overviews, summaries, FAQs, and highlighted key points.

Focus on Information-Rich Content and Original Data

Every segment of your content should deliver meaningful insights, actionable advice, or deep analysis. By cutting the fluff and prioritizing substance, you create material that’s both engaging and valuable.

Further, embedding original research or reporting, compelling statistics, and distinct viewpoints not only enriches your content, but also differentiates your narrative from generic sources. Unique data and perspectives anchor your work in real-world insights, increasing the likelihood that your content will be valued by both human readers and AI systems.

Use Internal Linking and Content Clusters

Develop a robust network of interconnected content to improve overall search coherence. Content clusters allow for a more comprehensive portrayal of your subject matter, letting both users and AI systems understand the broader context of your expertise. This layered approach can enhance your reputation as a go-to resource in your industry.

Distribution Is the New Differentiator

While it’s still smart to invest in longform, how it gets distributed is just as important as what it says. According to recent guidance from Ahrefs, traditional signals like backlinks and keyword density may carry less weight in determining what content gets surfaced in AI-generated summaries. Instead, breadth and consistency — i.e., how many places your brand shows up across and within trusted content ecosystems — is gaining influence.

That means the old playbook of producing a whitepaper, putting it behind a gated download form on your website, and watching the leads pour in may not cut it anymore. Longform content should now serve as a modular asset: republished or referenced across reputable sites, broken down into excerpts or bylined pieces for external publications, and turned into visual or multimedia formats that can travel well.

In short: don’t just publish — propagate.

AI Changes the ROI Equation for Effective Longform Content

Here’s the good news: As much as AI is a disruptor in this space, it can also be a creative accelerator. Longform content that used to take weeks or even months to produce can now be turned around in just a couple of days, for a fraction of the cost—especially if you’ve got a strong human + AI team to tackle the heavy lifting.

At Contently, we specialize in combining editorial expertise with AI-enhanced workflows to help brands scale thoughtful, strategic content. Our AI Studio streamlines every step of the process, from research and outlining to first-draft generation and editorial refinement — so you can publish faster without sacrificing quality.

AI may be reshaping how people search, but it’s also raising the bar for what gets amplified and cited. The brands that win in this new landscape won’t be the ones churning out shallow summaries; they’ll be the ones building meaningful, original content that machines can surface — and real people can actually use.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Will longform content still drive organic traffic in a zero-click world?

Even if users don’t always click through, high-quality longform content can still be surfaced, cited, and summarized by AI tools. That visibility contributes to brand awareness, trust, and discoverability across the web.

How should I structure longform content to be more AI-friendly?

Use clear headings, bullet points, summaries, and data callouts. Think modular — each section should stand alone if excerpted, and signal its value quickly to both AI and human readers.

Should I gate longform content behind lead forms?

Gating still has a place, but in the AI era, it’s often better to keep core content open and repurpose gated elements (e.g., checklists, toolkits) for lead-gen. Visibility across multiple high-authority platforms is now more important than locking content behind a form.

The post What Does AI Search Mean for the Future of Longform Content? appeared first on Contently.

These types of videos are rampant on TikTok, and with many of these accounts promoting their own Amazon Storefronts, they are a great way for Amazon — and Stanley, for that matter — to leverage real-life user experiences. UGC often works so well because it doesn’t feel like an ad; it feels like a true-to-life testimonial that allows a viewer to envision how a product might actually function in their own life. And that can still be true, even when it comes directly through a brand’s owned channels. Here’s how.

The most important lesson from user-generated content

One word: authenticity. Again, UGC works well when it is a genuine, organic discussion of a product or service, rather than a paid-for ad placement. Oftentimes, that’s in the form of a social post showcasing a product in action. Warby Parker’s well-known campaign, encouraging users to show off their eyeglass options with the hashtag #warbyhometryon, was a great example of this, generating tens of thousands of organic social posts from real-life customers.

But, you don’t need to share user-generated content on social media alone. Client testimonials are a fantastic way to make use of UGC for B2B brands, especially when they can be framed in a solutions-oriented light. Adobe Experience Cloud features myriad customer-generated case studies. Users can even search by industry and product, adding an extra layer of customization. When I searched for case studies for the Document Cloud product in the financial service industry, I was met with three hyper-relevant testimonials without having to waste time scrolling through case studies that may not apply to my search terms.

Encouraging more engagement from your community

When it comes to customer-generated content, especially for niche or B2B brands, the key is to find organic ways to encourage your audience to participate in UGC in a way that is also helpful to them. And there is arguably no better resource for encouraging customer-brand engagement than internal help hubs.

The IBM Data Science Community is one of the best user-generated content examples. It features a “Join the Discussion” section highlighting trending topics that are relevant for data scientists, from embeddable AI to decision optimization (topics I, as a content marketer, totally understand inside and out). Scroll further, and you’ll find thousands of discussion threads started by IBM users troubleshooting issues, not paid brand ambassadors. It reads more like a subreddit than a content marketing hub — and that’s why it works.

Utilizing UGC strategies in brand-owned content

User-generated content marketing works so well in part because there is no legal or compliance department telling users what they can and can’t say to their audience about a product, especially when it’s not an outright sponsorship. Plus, internet users (and Gen Z in particular) respond well to low-fi content that specifically doesn’t feel overproduced. Luckily, that unpolished appeal of UGC is still something content marketers can lean into on owned channels.

For instance, the fast-growing piercing retailer Studs has made piercing feel more accessible for a wider audience thanks to their low-fi organic videos of users giving an educational overview of their piercing experiences. They don’t harp on how great their Studs-branded earrings are; they simply share the answers to questions the piercing-curious would naturally ask. The result? Videos that give more “pep talk from your cool older sister” than “advertisement from a jewelry company.”

The beauty of user-generated content is that you really don’t have to overthink it. Put yourself in the shoes of your core audience: what are they actually interested in learning about your product? It may be as complex as building out a hub of hundreds of case studies for your dozens (hundreds?) of products like Adobe, or it may be as straightforward as providing “(ear)ducation” like Studs.

Or, maybe it’s just as indulgent as whatever on earth we’re all getting out of the “pack my Stanley” videos.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about user-generated content

How do you measure the success of user-generated content on owned channels?

Metrics like engagement rates, user interactions, and conversion rates are common indicators. It’s crucial to track how well UGC-influenced content drives authentic engagement.

What tools can brands use to source user-generated content effectively?

Tools like TINT, Olapic, and Stackla allow brands to aggregate UGC while ensuring proper permissions. They help streamline the process of discovering and curating user content.

How should brands handle negative user-generated content on their owned channels?

Brands should respond transparently and engage with negative feedback to resolve issues publicly. This approach builds trust by demonstrating a commitment to customer satisfaction.

To learn more about content strategy and best practices around user-generated content, subscribe to The Content Strategist.

The post How B2B Brands Can Leverage User-Generated Content appeared first on Contently.

The B2B buying process is, in reality, not as linear as what might be suggested by the concept of a buyer simply “moving down the funnel.” From the lens of the funnel, the buyers start at the brand awareness stage (at the top of the funnel), then become mid-funnel leads, and eventually make a sale or purchase. While it’s not perfect, it remains a framework to help inform our editorial decisions.

The middle portion of the funnel is equally as important as its outer compadres in defining a brand’s longevity and the success of a content marketing strategy. Marketers who devalue this stage or fail to invest in its maturation may be missing out on opportunities to further enhance relationships with potential customers.

According to a 2024 study conducted by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs and sponsored by Brightspot, 63% of the content marketers surveyed said content helped them nurture subscribers, audiences, and leads — which takes place at the middle of the funnel — in the past year. At the same time, nearly half (48%) of the content marketers surveyed said they find it challenging to align content with the buyer’s journey.

These data points should alert us to the importance of the stage between content creation and conversion. While leads pour in with successful top-funnel campaigns, it takes effective mid-funnel content to move them toward a sale.

What is mid-funnel content?

Mid-funnel content bridges this gap between initial intrigue and the final purchase. It is the layer of the conversion funnel that holds everything together.

Generally, mid-funnel content is most important to B2B companies. That’s because B2B sales cycles are generally more complex, which means you need to spend more time building and nurturing relationships with prospects. The middle of the funnel for B2C companies, by contrast, is focused more on customer-relationship management.

How do you know if you’re producing the right mid-funnel content? Let’s first distinguish where mid-funnel prospects come from and what our goals are when they get there.

From the lens of the traditional funnel, mid-funnel folks are viewed as either leads that have trickled down from your compelling top-funnel content or remain in your system as potential repeat buyers — though we now know that realistically, buyers may enter the funnel at any stage, and they may move back and forth between stages.

Regardless of how somebody arrived at the middle of your funnel, the goal of content at this stage is to provide material that will help buyers evaluate your brand and develop an affinity for it over your competitors. The magic happens by deepening the connection made in the top of the funnel with content that is specific to different segments of your overall audience.

Goals of mid-funnel marketing

While the content approach will be different depending on where in the spectrum they fall, the principle remains the same. Mid-funnel content must:

1. Nurture leads, drawing them to an eventual purchase. (Hello, ROI!)
2. Educate current and potential customers on the factors that differentiate your brand.
3. Continually inspire an emotional connection with unique audience segments to establish brand loyalty and create brand advocates.

Mid-funnel content is persuasive, educational, and targeted. Aimed at people already in your CRM system, mid-funnel content delivers the right content to the right people at the right time, usually with the help of marketing automation technology. (More on that in a minute.) While top-of-funnel content should be optimized for broad reach among your target audience, mid-funnel content should be intentionally crafted to speak to the needs of those closer to buying your product.

Email segmentation to nurture mid-funnel leads

The easiest and most effective way to nurture your mid-funnel email strategy is through segmentation. Age, gender, and geography are all valuable segments, but behavior-driven groups carry the most potential to connect in a relevant and valuable way with individual users. Newsletter subscribers will follow a different path than those who entered your system through a YouTube how-to campaign and will thus expect different material. Similarly, podcast subscribers will respond differently to product and service offers than the avid long-form reader.

What is at the heart of these unique segmentation patterns? Determining who you are talking to, where they came from, and what they are seeking, and being able to deliver targeted material at the optimal time for the purpose of engagement. (Remember, there are people on the other end of those Gmail and Outlook accounts.)

Types of content to nurture mid-funnel leads

Middle-of-funnel content may take any (or more) of the following forms. It’s all about having the right context mix to meet buyers’ needs.

Detailed e-books

E-books can be a great way to nurture mid-funnel leads. They can also serve to deepen the relationship between you and your audience by providing rich information on a particular topic.

HubSpot is a pro at this strategy. Its persuasive, data-heavy (and free) e-books are embedded in blog posts and easily accessible via the company’s website. As a mid-funnel tool, the focus is not on acquiring leads but on assisting the buyer in his or her evaluation process.

Case studies

Case studies or customer stories are an easy way to show, not tell, prospects exactly what you do through the eyes of the buyer by leveraging direct quotations and data points. The impact? The company demonstrates the power of its products through a user’s lens. They can be so effective that the Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs study revealed that 78% of content marketers have used them in the past 12 months — an increase from 67% the previous year.

Case studies are incredibly useful for content marketers as they can be repurposed into many formats, like blog posts, social media material, newsletter highlights, testimonials, and more. The website of Coursera for Business — the B2B arm of the online learning company — features a robust library of success stories in both video and downloadable formats, and visitors can search for content assets based on topic and other parameters.

Webinars

A webinar can be an interactive and engaging way to say to your prospects, “Here’s what you should know about your industry and here’s why we are best suited to address it.” The best webinars are those that provide unique and timely subject matter and an interesting narrative that’s relevant to the issues facing your audience. By choosing the right presenters and guests, showing compelling (but not overwhelming) visual elements, and making time for audience questions, your webinar can be a great way to nurture mid-funnel leads.

White papers and research

A white paper typically looks like a longform fact sheet or an e-book on statistical steroids. Call me crazy, but Docusign has nailed this white paper on measuring the value of an e-signature, providing data, colorful graphics and images, and actionable how-to’s for its entrepreneurial audience, all while promoting its product and brand.

Integrated email campaigns

Email campaigns can (and should) be more strategic than a weekly newsletter blast — they’re the bread and butter of the mid-funnel process. Groove is exemplary with its mid-funnel email campaigns, as are Dropbox and Marketing Sherpa. In each case, notice onboarding emails that inspire a double opt-in, follow-ups with new perks when engagement is low, personal 1:1 recommendations based on email or site interaction, and — here’s the kicker — humanized, engaging language.

ROI calculators

Rather intuitively, ROI calculators allow prospects to plug in website and company information to determine the necessary investment to reach set goals.

The power of automation

Keep in mind that the list above is neither exhaustive nor precise. Exactly what your content looks like will depend on how different segments fit into your overall sales goals. The short answer to mid-funnel content creation is that there is no universal content template. Mid-funnel strategy is successful by the nature of its specificity, creativity and case-specific data.

How do content marketers organize and monetize this specificity? Enter automation.

Too often, once marketers acquire leads after investing in top-of-funnel content, they hit their general audience with unspecific or final-sell material. Without paying attention to audience behavior and tailoring a relevant message, the relationship between prospect and seller is cheapened.

Mid-funnel prospects are humans, and, naturally, they want a degree of familiarity once the relationship has been initiated. That means you have to engage in a thoughtful and direct manner that is specific to them.

That’s where automation comes in.

Superior marketers adapt their mid-funnel strategy to provide authentic content to distinct groups and individuals. Automation — particularly of email — simplifies this segmentation, personalizing information during this critical stage in relationship-building.

At the heart of these segmentation patterns is a greater understanding of the motivation behind the behavior (i.e., desires) of your customers. Conceptualizing these actions — and the people behind them — will allow you to map and deliver content to tilt purchase decisions in your favor and create brand loyalists.

Automation tools for mid-funnel marketing

When you first hear the term “automation,” you may immediately think it’s cold and robotic. The opposite is the case. Tools like drip campaigns, lists, tags, and rules in email software, and smart lists and snippets, make it easy to organize segments of your audience to speak to them in a targeted and engaging way. Tools may even allow marketers to sort by company attribute (title, department, location), behavior, or timeframe.

Meaningful data supports automation’s role in fueling the mid-funnel portion of your content strategy. Automated emails have an 83.4% higher open rate and a 341.1% higher click rate, according to an Omnisend study.

For further examples of what to do and not to do in the automated mid-funnel, just look in your inbox. You’ll quickly be able to differentiate the companies that have effectively automated you into their systems — and responded to your behavior — from those that have you on blast.

Lead scoring

If automated mid-funnel content bridges the gap between intrigue and sale, how do we measure the impact of this content’s success?

Like creation and distribution strategy, the metrics used for mid-funnel measurement depend on your goals. If the goal of a mid-funnel campaign is to offer an upgraded service or a certification, the newsletter subscriber who always opens your email but never clicks on a link will hold a different value than the subscriber who went to your blog from the email, read the entire article, and downloaded an e-book on the same topic that corresponds to your improved service.

While the leads may have originated from the same newsletter list, it makes sense to assign different values to these people based on their actions. This numerical assignment represents different proximities to a potential sale.

Oracle, Act-On, and Salesforce each have CRM mechanisms to help assign value to prospects based on their one-to-one and/or segmented engagement. Organized as a numerical system, the lead-scoring process lets you assign points to prospects depending on a number of variables (age, gender, demographic, behavior), resulting in an evolving number for each audience member.

The result is twofold. In addition to determining the proximity of a prospect to a final sale at a given point in time (when and how are they likely to make a purchase?), lead scoring allows you to track touch points to help you start to determine the ROI on specific pieces of content. The more you understand your segmented lists, personalized emails, and the behavior of these groups, the easier it is to pinpoint valuable metrics and determine attribution.

Checklist

While there are no golden rules in mid-funnel marketing, here’s a recap of what you need to know. (Use it as a checklist, print out for your fridge, and ponder it over a sandwich.)

Align mid-funnel goals with overall sales targets. Marketing and sales should always be simpatico: Marketing spoon-feeds ripe leads to sales, while sales returns the favor with valuable insight.

Take advantage of automation tools and email campaigns. Remember the power of segmentation, personalization, and behavior-driven lists. As long as segmentation is thoughtful and intentional, a diverse array of leads will remain valuable for long periods of time.

Track audience behavior. Take the time to understand how people in your mid-funnel engage with you and reach out to them in real-time. This involves marketing and sales collaboration. Use sophisticated, actionable metrics that make sense for your overall goals. You need to understand how well your audience knows what differentiates your brand and what drives them down the conversion funnel. And don’t underestimate content engagement metrics.

Be forward thinking. Integrate mid-funnel content with social. Both mid-funnel and social strategy tie into brand authority, trustworthiness, and recognition.

Now, go forth. Nurture those audience relationships. And remember that the middle of the funnel is the glue that holds the funnel together.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about mid-funnel leads

How can I determine the right topics for my mid-funnel content?

To find topics that will drive ROI, you can start by analyzing your audience’s pain points, frequently asked questions, and the content they have engaged with most. You can also revisit the content topic pillars or themes that drive your content strategy.

What metrics should I focus on to evaluate the success of my mid-funnel content?

Buyer engagement can be measured by metrics such as email open and click-through rates; social media likes, shares and comments; and audience interaction levels with specific content types, like web or blog hyperlink clicks, repeat visitors, or time on page. Additionally, lead scoring and tracking how leads progress typically through the funnel will provide insights into content effectiveness.

How often should I send mid-funnel content to my leads?

Your mid-funnel content cadence should aim to strike a balance between maintaining engagement and avoiding overwhelming your audience. Generally, a bi-weekly or monthly cadence works well, but it’s important to monitor engagement rates and adjust your content calendar accordingly.

The post How to Nurture Mid-Funnel Leads with the Right B2B Content Mix appeared first on Contently.

Now, there are two ways to explain this coincidence. 1) Henry is currently a popular name for boys, so the advertisers looked at a baby name list and decided to put Henry on their ads. 2) Facebook and Instagram tracked my online behavior and created tailored ads to increase clicks and conversions.

And the correct explanation is option 2 — targeted advertising!

While this level of personalization may seem creepy and invasive, it can actually make the shopping experience more convenient, especially for people with a son named Henry. And for that, I thank Meta Ads.

But is targeted advertising always this effective?

As many times as I’ve had a smooth shopping experience after clicking on targeted ads, I’ve also been served wonky ads that made me think, “Why in the world did this company target me?”

Before we can conclusively determine the effectiveness of targeted advertising, let’s define what it is.

What is targeted advertising?

Targeted advertising is a form of online advertising that specifically caters to a particular audience based on its characteristics, interests, or behaviors. This allows businesses to reach potential customers who are interested in their products or services.

However, audiences aren’t defined by just one characteristic, which is why advertisers can use different types of targeting to reach their intended audience.

Demographic targeting — Targeting based on factors like age, gender, income, and education.

Geographic targeting — Targeting based on location, such as city, state, or country.

Behavioral targeting — Targeting based on a user’s online behavior, such as browsing history, search history, or purchase history.

Psychographic targeting — Targeting based on personality traits, values, and lifestyles.

Businesses love targeted website advertising because it allows them to deliver more relevant ads, effectively allocate their advertising budget, improve their ROI, and enhance the customer experience. Yep, even though targeted ads can feel like an invasion of privacy, personalized promotions actually improve customer satisfaction.

How can targeted advertising be used for content marketing?

Targeted advertising can be a powerful tool to maximize the impact and reach of your content marketing strategy. Essentially, content marketing provides the substance, while targeted advertising ensures the substance reaches the right audience. Together, they create a more effective and impactful marketing strategy.

But you have to make sure your targeting and content strategy work hand-in-hand to ensure a seamless experience for your customers. First, design ads that encourage users to click through to specific landing pages — blog posts, product pages, customer review pages, etc. Make sure your targeted ads on social media and search engines perfectly align with your landing page content, and visitors will be more likely to become customers.

This approach is all about creating consistency throughout the entire customer journey and can be used to promote high-performing content, retarget website visitors, promote a content series, support social media campaigns, and generate leads.

Is targeted advertising effective?

Here’s the big question: Do ads actually work? To answer that question, we need to look at the numbers:

In 2023, the value of global digital marketing reached $366 billion, and that number is expected to grow at a rate of 13.6% every year for the next decade. In fact, the majority of CMOs in the United States and Europe are planning to increase their budgets for social media marketing, online videos, and influencer marketing in addition to the 9.1% of total revenue spent in 2023.

The reason CMOs are willing to pour more money into digital and targeted advertising is because marketing data collection and analysis is getting more sophisticated every day, leading to more effective ad spend and higher ROI.

Targeted online advertising is only as effective as the advertiser. To create effective targeted advertising campaigns that reach the right audience, generate leads, and drive sales, businesses need to:

• Gather relevant data
• Analyze the data to identify trends
• Clearly define their target audience
• Develop targeted ads that resonate with their audience
• Select appropriate channels for their ads
• Test and optimize
• And monitor ad performance

Yes, you have to complete all these steps to ensure successful targeted advertising campaigns. And there are a lot of brands who are willing to do it right. And since I just got an “A deal picked just for you” alert on my phone from Amazon, let’s talk about how Amazon uses targeted ads to grow their business:

Amazon’s targeted advertising success

Amazon is a prime example of a company that has effectively leveraged targeted advertising to drive significant growth and revenue. Their targeted advertising strategies have been particularly successful in:

Personalized recommendations

Amazon uses a sophisticated algorithm to analyze customer purchase history, browsing behavior, and product reviews to provide highly personalized product recommendations. These targeted recommendations have led to a significant increase in sales, because customers are more likely to purchase products that align with their interests.

Retargeted campaigns

Amazon uses retargeting campaigns to engage customers with abandoned carts. By reminding customers of their abandoned carts and offering incentives, Amazon successfully increases conversion rates.

Lookalike audiences

Amazon expands its reach by creating lookalike audiences based on its high-value customers. By targeting users with similar characteristics, Amazon is able to acquire new customers who are more likely to complete purchases.

Dynamic product ads (DPAs)

DPAs allow Amazon to target specific products to users who have shown interest in similar items or categories. This targeted approach ensures customers see relevant products, increasing the likelihood of clicks and conversions.

What are the challenges and limitations of targeted advertising?

While targeted advertising offers many benefits, there are some potential challenges and limitations that business owners and marketers should be aware of.

Ethical concerns

Let’s be honest — data collection is creepy. “There is definitely a ‘creepy line’ for targeted advertisements,” says technologist and writer Robert Quinlivan. “We’re being slowly conditioned to accept privacy invasions as inevitable, but people are still creeped out by the ‘surprise’ factor.”

The collection and use of personal data for targeted advertising raises privacy concerns among consumers. The more personal the data (think sex, health, and finances), the less comfortable people are about others knowing it. For this reason, we now have stricter data privacy regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA, which have made the targeted advertising process more complex.

Ad fraud

Ad fraud occurs when bad actors put out bots — automated, fake users — to click on ads many times. These extra, fraudulent clicks fool companies into thinking their ads are working and puts more money in the pockets of advertising firms.

According to Imperva’s 2024 Bad Bot Report, “almost 50% of internet traffic comes from non-human sources. Bad bots, in particular, now comprise nearly one-third of all traffic.” What’s even scarier is that Bad Bots can now mimic human behavior, making it difficult to detect and prevent fraudulent clicks.

If you notice sudden traffic spikes, high bounce rates, or near-nonexistent session duration, reach out to your ad provider. You can also implement fraud prevention tools to ensure your clicks are coming from humans.

Over-targeting and ad fatigue

Over-targeting occurs when a business excessively targets a specific audience segment to the point where it becomes intrusive or irrelevant. This can lead to ad fatigue, a phenomenon where consumers become so overwhelmed by repeated exposure to the same ads that they tune them out. Excessive targeting can also lead to negative brand perception if consumers think a brand is spammy or intrusive.

You can prevent over-targeting and ad fatigue by focusing on multiple audiences and limiting your ad frequency. Also, be sure to track campaign performance to identify signs of ad fatigue, so you can make the necessary adjustments to ensure the best customer experience possible.

In short, targeted advertising is complex, and it’s not going anywhere. Yes, new regulations may make data collection more difficult, but targeted advertising has proven to effectively reach specific audiences, increase sales, maximize the impact of content marketing, and improve the customer experience. So, as you create your own targeted advertising campaigns, just remember: don’t be creepy.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about targeted advertising

What are the ethical concerns related to targeted advertising?

Targeted advertising relies on the collection and use of personal data, which can be seen as an invasion of privacy. And consumers may not be fully aware of how their data is collected and used for targeted advertising, creating a lack of trust among consumers. This problem becomes worse when businesses share personal data with third-party advertisers, which often happens.

How can businesses effectively measure the ROI of targeted advertising campaigns?

Here are the key metrics businesses should track and analyze to determine the effectiveness of their targeted advertising campaigns: click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, cost per acquisition (CPA), return on ad spend (ROAS), brand awareness and recall, and customer lifetime value (CLTV).

What are some future trends or developments in targeted advertising?

Targeted advertising is a rapidly evolving field with several promising trends, like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, to help predict future customer behavior and preferences. Businesses will also need to adopt more privacy-focused approaches to data collection, so users can have greater control over their personal data.

For more insights on content strategy, subscribe to The Content Strategist. 

The post Targeted Advertising: Does it Actually Work? appeared first on Contently.

Whether you’re a seasoned SEO content strategist or just getting started, or you’ve hired a SEO strategist from Contently’s talent network, using the software at your disposal can make the difference between getting lost in the search engine shuffle and rising to the top of the rankings. In this post, we’ll explore some of the best SEO tools that can empower your B2B marketing efforts, ensuring your strategy is both effective and efficient.

Best free B2B SEO tools

Google Analytics

Let’s start with the most obvious: Google Analytics. Likely, you are already using it. If not, there are several reasons why you should.

First, what better tool than one developed by the same search engine on which you want to rank? Second, unlike many tools that provide data based on proprietary algorithms that estimate keyword traffic, Google Analytics gives you hard data on actual visitors hitting your website.

Oh, and it’s free!

Beyond that, Google Analytics offers a wealth of search engine optimization features and benefits: multiple traffic statistic options, real-time audience tracking, site visitor behavior views, conversion reporting…the list is endless.

Integrating Google Analytics into your content management system is as simple as dropping in a few lines of javascript into the portion of the HTML. WordPress users don’t even have to do that; there are simple plugins, like Google’s own Site Kit, to make this process much more simple.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is another must-have SEO tool, and it’s also free. It enables you to research and discover relevant keywords, get search volume and forecast data, and determine keyword cost.

The only drawback is that you must have a Google Ads account to access the tool. However, you don’t have to use Google Ads; you can just register for an account. You can find Keyword Planner under the “tools and settings” option in the navigation bar.

7 More Essential B2B SEO tools

1. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a robust SEO platform that lets you discover new keywords and monitor ranking progress. In addition, you can track competitors’ keyword rankings and backlinks and complete a website audit to find SEO issues.

B2B content marketing managers will love the content discovery feature that finds the most popular articles on any topic. And it’s perfect for developing an SEO-focused content calendar.

Ahrefs has a variety of plans to suit your team’s needs, but most marketing teams will need a more robust plan than the basic version. They do offer a suite of free SEO tools that offer some help (but they aren’t as robust as a paid account).

Ahrefs pricing: Lite ($129/month), Standard ($249/month), Advanced ($449/month)

2. Semrush

Semrush is a favorite tool among SEO professionals and content marketers. Like Ahrefs, it comes with a comprehensive set of platform features and benefits, including keyword research, competitive analysis, a suite of content marketing tools, rank tracking, and much more. While similar to Ahrefs, Semrush only gives statistics for Google searches, while users can conduct keyword research for multiple search engines using Ahrefs. On the other hand, Semrush offers more detailed keyword reporting than its competitor.

You can use a few of Semrush’s tools for free, but to conduct more searches or access its more robust tools, you need to pay for it.

Semrush pricing: Pro ($139/month), Guru ($249/month), Business ($499/month)

3. AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic (ATP) is another keyword discovery tool that takes a slightly different approach to providing information about what customers are searching for.

The first step is to enter a keyword. ATP then utilizes a visual mind map-style functionality to reveal relevant keywords—you can click on any of those to show even more keywords.

According to the developers, AnswerThePublic “listens” to autocomplete data from search engines like Google, then lists every useful phrase and question people ask about your keyword. It’s free to use, but you can upgrade to a paid version with more features.

AnswerThePublic pricing: Individual ($11/month), Pro ($99/month), Expert ($199/month)

4. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider is a must-have for B2B marketers aiming to boost their website’s technical SEO performance. It efficiently crawls your entire site, identifying issues like broken links, duplicate content, and poor site structure that could hurt your search rankings. Its ability to handle JavaScript-heavy sites and generate XML sitemaps ensures your content is fully optimized for search engines.

Additionally, Screaming Frog’s integration with Google Analytics and Search Console offers deeper insights into your site’s performance. With a user-friendly interface, customizable options, and bulk editing capabilities, it’s a powerful tool that helps B2B marketers make data-driven decisions to stay ahead in a competitive landscape.

Screaming Frog offers a free version of the tool that can crawl up to 500 URLs, but to get the most out of its capabilities, you’ll want to upgrade to the paid tier.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider pricing: $259 per year, per license (each user requires a unique license)

5. BrightLocal

BrightLocal is a crucial tool for B2B marketers focusing on local SEO, offering a comprehensive suite tailored to enhance local search visibility. With features like rank tracking for specific locations, citation monitoring across directories, and review management, BrightLocal ensures your business stays competitive in local markets. Its local SEO audit helps identify issues that could hinder your visibility, allowing for quick optimization to boost search rankings.

The tool also excels in competitive analysis, offering insights into local competitors’ performance and highlighting missed keyword and citation opportunities. Additionally, BrightLocal’s citation management and review response tools streamline your local SEO efforts, ensuring consistency and accuracy across all platforms. With customizable reports and data visualization, marketers can easily track progress and make informed decisions to dominate local search results.

BrightLocal pricing: Track ($39/month), Manage ($49/month), Grow ($59/month)

6. SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb is essential for B2B marketers looking to outmaneuver competitors and understand their audience. It offers powerful competitive analysis tools, allowing you to compare traffic, analyze competitors’ keywords, and explore shared audience segments. With in-depth audience insights, including demographics and browsing habits, marketers can craft highly targeted campaigns that drive results.

The tool also provides comprehensive traffic analysis, revealing where your visitors come from and how they engage with your site. Additionally, SimilarWeb keeps you updated on industry trends and offers SEO audits, keyword research, and ranking tracking, making it a critical asset for optimizing your SEO strategy.

It’s one of the pricier tools available, but it provides a wealth of data organized in easy-to-follow charts that are great for presentations.

SimilarWeb pricing: Starter ($125/month), Professional ($333/month)

7. Clearscope

The last tool on the list, Clearscope, was developed primarily with content marketers in mind. Give it a target keyword, and the platform locates and analyzes top-ranking content, then recommends relevant terms, word count, readability, and other optimization factors.

Users copy and paste their content into Clearscope’s text editor. It grades the content based on the recommendations. Users then modify the content to achieve the recommended score to improve its ranking.

Clearscope is the most expensive of all the tools on this list, and they don’t offer a free trial.

Clearscope pricing: Essentials ($189/month), Business ($399/month)

Choosing the right B2B SEO tools for your content strategy

Identifying the right SEO tools is crucial for B2B marketers who want to maximize their impact and drive measurable results. With so many options available, it can be overwhelming to determine which tools align best with your specific business needs.

That’s where the SEO content marketing experts at Contently come in. We’re here to help you navigate the landscape, choose the most effective tools, and integrate them seamlessly into your strategy. With Contently by your side, you can confidently optimize your SEO efforts, ensuring your business stands out in a crowded digital marketplace.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about SEO tools

What criteria should a business use to decide between free and paid SEO tools?

Businesses should consider their specific needs, budget, and the scale of their SEO efforts when choosing between free and paid tools. Free tools may be sufficient for smaller businesses or those just starting, but paid tools often offer more advanced features, better support, and scalability, making them more suitable for larger enterprises or businesses with aggressive growth plans.

How do these tools integrate with each other or with existing marketing software?

Many SEO tools, such as Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and Semrush, offer integration capabilities with other marketing software like CRM systems, content management systems (CMS), and data visualization platforms. Integrating these tools can result in more streamlined workflows, centralized data, and the ability to make data-driven decisions across different marketing channels.

What kind of support or customer service is available for these tools?

Support varies widely across different tools. For example, free tools like Google Analytics offer community forums and documentation but lack dedicated customer service. Paid tools like Ahrefs and Semrush typically provide more comprehensive support, including live chat, email support, and sometimes dedicated account managers, which can be crucial for resolving issues quickly and efficiently.

Subscribe to The Content Strategist newsletter to get the latest updates on innovative SEO tools and content marketing strategies.

The post 9 Best SEO Tools for B2B Content Marketing Success appeared first on Contently.

Developing a distinctive voice defines your brand’s unique identity and builds a sense of authenticity with customers—an increasingly important factor in sales. Research from Asendia found that 65 percent of consumers are more likely to shop with brands they feel are authentic.

Getting there isn’t easy, though. Your team could spend hours debating whether your brand is more of a Beyoncé—powerful, versatile, and inspiring—or a Freddie Mercury—bold, charismatic, and passionately unique.

Brand voice exercises can help channel creativity where it’s most needed and develop a content strategy that hits all the right notes. Here are a few to try at your next brainstorming session.

Choose a celebrity spokesperson

Even if you don’t have the budget for a celebrity spokesperson, thinking about which star you’d pick can be a useful brand voice exercise.

Have everyone on your team jot down the three celebrity spokespeople they’d recommend for your brand. These can be actors, musicians, entrepreneurs, activists, political personalities, historical figures, literary characters, or archetypes—as long as they’re not actually associated with your company.

This branding exercise lets you lean into your brand’s identity or playfully subvert it. Either way, you’ll get key insights about where you can take your brand voice.

For example, if you’re Coca-Cola, you might suggest Tom Hanks. Known for his feel-good roles, the actor is iconic and relatable across generations—just the match for a classic, all-American soda brand.

Already known for infusing its commercials with subtle humor, Capital One might pick Martha Stewart. Her insider trading scandal makes her an edgy pick for a brand in the financial sector, but she could give comically exaggerated tips on turning mundane financial tasks into crafty rituals.

If you’re a bold and creative brand like Ben & Jerry’s, Frida Kahlo could be a great fit. The artist was fearless, expressive, and unconventional—just like the ice cream company’s topping-packed pints.

And who better to represent Cadillac than Samuel L. Jackson? His confident, commanding presence and fearless attitude embody the brand’s image as a symbol of prestige and performance.

Play with your picks, including both obvious and edgy spokespeople, to see how they influence your brand voice.

Describe the opposite of your brand

If you have an established strategy, it’s easy to get comfortable describing your brand voice with the same handful of adjectives. Once your team repeats those four words over and over for a long period of time, they start to lose their meaning. This branding exercise helps combat this creative stall by having your team think about what your brand is not. It’s one of the best brand exercise questions to refine your voice.

Take Ikea, for instance. Ikea is minimalist but not boring. It’s accessible without being generic. Patagonia is eco-conscious but not preachy, and its designs are stylish without sacrificing functionality. Lego is imaginative but not overly complex. It encourages creativity and problem-solving without being overwhelming.

This gets easier as you jump from brand to brand, and you can always try out a few before taking on your own. Rolex is timeless but not old-fashioned. Dove is inclusive but not overly sentimental. Trader Joe’s is fun but not frivolous. You get the idea.

Go to a hypothetical dinner party

This one’s a classic. If your brand could come to life as a person at a dinner party, who would you be? And if dinner parties aren’t a thing with your audience, sub in something more relevant. The high school cafeteria, a frat party, even a busy gym can all work for this brand voice exercise.

Let’s try this one with airlines at a dinner party. Delta might be the dependable, well-traveled guest who effortlessly helps the host take care of everyone. JetBlue makes everyone chuckle by sharing the latest memes on their smartphone. American Airlines is the formal one who knows exactly which utensils to use at every course. And Southwest’s casual and approachable vibe puts everyone at ease.

Consumers do this branding exercise for companies all the time, so you might as well give it a try on your end. For more inspiration, check out this brand archetypes infographic from Printsome. It categorizes household name brands into different archetypes. M&M’s is a jester on a mission to enjoy life, Google is a sage on a quest for knowledge, and Crayola is a creator who’s “non-conforming by nature.” Which archetype would best represent your brand and why?

Read your social media posts out loud

This is an exercise often practiced by novelists, playwrights, and fiction writers who want to make sure their dialogue really sizzles. If a person who doesn’t work as a writer feels odd reading a character’s dialogue aloud, that tells the writer the copy may need work.

Not all your social media copy needs to translate perfectly to the ear, but certain things will become obvious if you take turns reading tweets, LinkedIn posts, and Facebook updates out loud. Your messaging might sound too robotic, or you’ll begin to notice that you’ve peppered into too many exclamation points.

At a previous job, we had an unofficial habit of declaring ourselves “thrilled” to do everything—thrilled to receive invoices, thrilled to send a draft, thrilled to attend a conference. It got disingenuous very quickly.

If you stumble over certain words or find yourself cringing over a phrase, it’s a sign that the language might need simplification or a more conversational touch to help your brand voice come through.

Study your audience from afar

Social media marketers are eager to talk to their audience and build a sense of community. But simply reading—without commenting or interjecting—can be a helpful brand voice exercise. It teaches you what your customers actually sound like and gives you ideas for tailoring the way you communicate with them.

Let’s say you’re in charge of audience engagement at a tech startup that’s just developed an app for working mothers. Before you start creating content, find out how these mothers speak to each other on Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram. Do they use a lot of emojis? Do they quote-tweet each other with commentary instead of simply retweeting?

If they’re sharing inspirational, positive videos, that’s a move you can follow. If they share stories about modern parenting, set up some Google alerts and post on-brand articles about relevant aspects of your audience’s lives on your feed.

What you say and how you say it matters.

There’s no right way to do these brand voice exercises. However, you do have to decide how closely you want your brand to sound to your target demo. Some consumers might enjoy being addressed by brands who see them as equals, especially if you’re in the food and beverage industry, but many others follow brands in a more aspirational sense that warrants authority and professionalism.

For instance, I would very much like to be a Free People woman, but budget-wise, I’m more like a TJ Maxx woman. If Free People started branding themselves as a hub for bargain shoppers, I wouldn’t be so inclined to save for a sweater as soon as it goes on sale. That would seriously dilute my concept of what they sell—the dream that a young woman might leave Manhattan, move to Santa Fe, and dress only in naturally dyed linen pants and learn to paint.

Is your brand a friend to your consumers where they are today? Or do you sell the goods they hope to buy frivolously in 5 years? Your brand voice has to make that clear.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about brand voice exercises

How often should I do a branding exercise and update my brand voice?

It’s a good practice to review and potentially update your brand voice annually or whenever significant changes occur in your market or business strategy. Regular check-ins ensure your brand voice remains relevant and resonant with your audience.

What if my team has conflicting views on the brand voice?

If there are differing opinions, consider using a structured approach to decision-making, such as voting or consensus-building sessions. Clear guidelines and objectives can help align the team and focus on what best represents the brand’s goals.

How do I ensure that my brand voice remains consistent across different platforms and channels?

Consistency can be achieved by creating a detailed brand voice guide that outlines tone, style, and messaging rules for each platform. Regular training and audits will help maintain uniformity across all channels.

Looking for more creative ways to define and refine your brand voice? Subscribe to The Content Strategist for insights and practical advice.

The post For Content That Hits All the Right Notes, Try These Brand Voice Exercises appeared first on Contently.

This process—going through your backlog to see what is effective and what is lacking—is called a content audit. Rather than a chore, a website content audit is a useful exercise for maintaining an effective marketing strategy. It helps teams take a big-picture view and explore content gaps and potential opportunities.

An overview on the content audit process

So, are you wondering how to perform a content audit? There are lots of approaches and tools and you should consider whether your end goal is to improve SEO, increase conversions, or drive traffic. Regardless, your audit should contain these key steps below.

1. Find every asset produced in a certain time period

This is the most time-intensive part of the process, and it can get unwieldy fast. The trick is to set boundaries. You don’t want to waste time going back 10 years—any data or commentary you used has likely lost its relevance. Instead, review and inventory content from the last two or three years.

Pay attention to how much you struggle during this exercise. Does your organization have an efficient labeling and archiving process? How can you improve on it to ease future content audits?

2. Map content to your marketing infrastructure

Once you round up all your content, the next step is to tag everything. Not only will a sound tagging structure help you organize your old assets, but it’ll also give you direction for new pieces. Common tags could apply to parts of the marketing funnel, personas, topic pillars, industries, and so on.

3. Identify what’s worth keeping

This is the fun part. As you’re applying your taxonomy, a good audit will reveal what content you can reuse, repurpose, or discard.

Benefits of a content audit

Now that you know how to conduct a content audit, what can you expect next? There are several universal benefits, and having a tidy content inventory is just one of them.

Save money

When surfacing forgotten assets, you might find content immediately ready to go live or assets that only need minor revisions. After Contently conducted an internal audit in 2022, we discovered 22 articles that offered our audience crucial advice but had outdated research. We updated the copy and then resurrected all 22 links. Rather than start from scratch, the audit saved us time and money that can be redistributed elsewhere. Just this year, we went deeper and reviewed a decade’s worth of blog content to determine what needed refreshing or rewriting — instead of creating new content — so we could continue to provide the best-quality content to our audience.

Increase efficiency

Wasting content is bad, but this stat is even more disheartening: on average, 42 percent of salespeople don’t use B2B content marketing assets to generate sales/revenue, according to a Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs study. Why? Maybe because your content is either unusable or unfindable.

Either way, your content ecosystem has a problem. If people can’t easily find the content they need, it doesn’t matter how good it is. And if content is easy to find content but not very good, it won’t get used either.

An audit is the perfect opportunity to assess why content goes unused. Perhaps there is a workflow breakdown, or your salespeople don’t know where to access the content they need. Whatever the reason, make it a point to decrease the clutter. So, if you find a piece of content that can’t be repurposed, delete it.

Maintain consistency

Marketing departments reorganize all the time — software systems change, brand guidelines evolve, and goals adjust. As you’re deciding what content to keep, make sure old assets fit these changes. Getting to this point may require updating tags, tweaking language, and uploading content into a new system.

Once you’re done auditing, you’ll have a great opportunity to do a broad analysis of what content performed well and why. You can then use that historical data to inform your strategy moving forward.

Companies that take the time to maximize their editorial assets can see big results. Are you ready to start a content audit? Contently’s expert content strategists can help you with the overall strategy, recommendations and execution of each step.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about how to perform a content audit

How often should a content audit be conducted?

It’s generally advisable to conduct a content audit annually or bi-annually, depending on the volume of content and changes in your marketing strategy.

What tools can be used to conduct an SEO content audit?

Tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, Screaming Frog, and content management systems (CMS) with built-in analytics can help you identify what content is performing well and what content could use some attention if you’re doing an SEO content audit specifically.

Who should be involved in the content audit process?

Typically, a cross-functional team involving marketing, sales, and sometimes even IT or product teams should be involved to ensure that the audit is comprehensive and aligned with broader business goals.

To learn more about how to do a content audit or how to build a content strategy that performs, subscribe to The Content Strategist.

The post What Is a Content Audit and Why Do You Need One? appeared first on Contently.

I’m being a little facetious — I enjoyed the chartreuse memes and apple dances as much as anyone. But in recent years, the concept of timeliness in a content marketing calendar has become less about utility and more about jumping on trends for the sake of relevancy.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s a time and place for incorporating memes and internet discourse into your content strategy. Staying “with it” is important. But timely content doesn’t need to (and, in my opinion, shouldn’t) pander. Building timeliness into your content strategy also doesn’t require spending endless hours scrolling through social media just to make sure you don’t miss what the kids are talking about. With enough forethought and intention, you can easily put together a content marketing calendar that makes space for timeliness without adding more onto your already-full plate.

Plan around your industry-specific seasonality

While timeliness does not necessarily mean jumping on every and all conversation happening around the internet, it also does not necessarily mean bland acknowledgments of public holidays. Timely content should exist for a clear reason; sharing a social media post wishing your clients a happy and restful Labor Day is a nice gesture, but it’s not what I’m talking about here.

Seasonality, in regards to content marketing strategy, means aligning your content with what your audience is naturally thinking about. Below is a great example from Becker, a professional education organization with a core audience segment of CPAs and aspiring CPAs. By providing specific tips for accountants looking to manage the exhausting workload of tax season, they’re further positioning themselves as an expert resource for professional development while seamlessly directing readers to their larger library of resources.

And the best part? Tax season happens literally every year. (And don’t we all know it.) Not only is this seasonal milestone easy to anticipate, but Becker doesn’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel with their content every fall.

When it comes to your own seasonal content, anticipating industry-specific seasonalities means you’re also not reinventing anything with your own marketing content calendar. You can even use these moments as an opportunity to refresh existing content. Let’s use a tax season example while we’re on the topic: since tax brackets, contribution limits, filing dates, etc., change every year, updating this information in your company’s existing tax resources every year is a straightforward way to keep your content marketing timely and relevant. You want to be there for your audience whenever you can anticipate a larger demand for information.

Yes, stay on top of trending topics

Please don’t interpret my downplaying of meme utilization in your brand strategy as encouraging you to avoid social media trends altogether. I think every content strategist should be aware of emerging trends within their industry, but that doesn’t mean being on top of every trend out there.

Take skincare, for example: remember when every other TikTok on your feed was a young woman sharing her slugging routine? (Just me?) This was a great opportunity for dermatologists, skincare brands, and health experts to weigh in on this “new” trend. Not because they were hopping on the bandwagon of something everyone online was discussing, but because this topic was actually relevant to their business.

Below is an example of how heritage skincare brand CeraVe did just that. Not only were they able to add their expertise to the slugging conversation, they were able to use it as an opportunity to organically highlight one of their core product offerings.

But, of course, how do you stay ahead of the discourse in your industry in an oversaturated online community? Delegating social media research to a team member can be a worthwhile move, but that doesn’t mean they need to spend half their workdays scrolling. Social listening tools like Hootsuite and Brandwatch and trend reports from Google Trends can easily cut down the time spent researching social trends. I also recommend subscribing to industry-specific channels and newsletters; as a freelance writer, I am deeply tuned into Freelancing With Tim, a Substack run by a former New York Times editor. And, of course, there is also good old-fashioned checking in on the competition. The more you understand your competitor’s strategy, the better you can curate your own.

Build a flexible content marketing calendar template

As I mentioned earlier, putting together your content calendar for digital marketing does not have to be the daunting task it sounds like. You’ll want to start by outlining the cornerstone events or seasonal themes that you can anticipate ahead of time, which you can plan bigger-lift content around (things like white papers with industry research or larger newsletter campaigns). Then, you’ll want to leave placeholders for more timely content — social media videos or blog posts that allow you to jump on trending topics, because they ideally don’t need as much lead time. It’s also always a good idea to have a backlog of evergreen content ready to post (or be updated) at any moment.

Here’s an example content marketing calendar template that a travel agency might use to help get ahead of timely content for the year ahead:

• Q1 content themes: New Year’s Resolutions, Valentine’s Day, early spring break planning
  • The best weekend getaways for your 2025 travel bucket list
  • Underrated East Coast travel destinations for couples
  • Where to take your kids on spring break (without breaking the bank)
• Q2 content themes: Spring flowers, Memorial Day, summer planning
  • A comprehensive guide to the unpredictable but otherworldly superbloom season
  • Last-minute Memorial Day travel itineraries for families
  • The rise of “adult summer camp”: the TK best group adventure trips for grownups
• Q3 content themes: late summer/Labor Day, off-peak travel, fall foliage planning
  • TK (literally) cool summer destinations to escape the heat
  • The best European towns to explore during the shoulder season
  • How to maximize fall colors during your New England foliage road trip
• Q4 content themes: autumn getaways, family gatherings, end-of-year holidays
  • Quirky and cozy autumn weekend getaways, from airstream glamping to treehouses
  • How to optimize your Thanksgiving travel schedule while staying sane
  • Last-minute travel packages for a truly memorable New Year’s weekend

Getting ahead of your content strategy always takes a little bit of up-front work, but trust me — your future self will be grateful for the time saved from scrolling.

As the Content Strategist: FAQs:

What tools can I use to keep my content calendar organized?

Project management tools like Trello, Asana, and Airtable are great for organizing and tracking your content calendar. These platforms allow for collaboration and real-time updates, ensuring your team stays aligned.

How do I measure the success of timely content?

Track metrics like engagement rates, website traffic, and conversions to assess how well your timely content is performing. Compare these metrics to your evergreen content to determine if your strategy is resonating with your audience.

What if a trend fades before I can publish my content?

To avoid missing the trend, prioritize quick content production for time-sensitive topics. If a trend fades, consider repurposing the content to align with more relevant discussions or evergreen themes.

For more tips on how to create and execute your editorial calendar, subscribe to The Content Strategist.

The post Jumping on a Trend: How To Curate a Timely Content Marketing Calendar appeared first on Contently.

We started writing blog content in 2011—back when Facebook fan pages and Klout scores were the marketing trends of the moment. Needless to say, a lot has changed since then. We wanted a data-backed action plan for making our content as relevant as possible in 2024 and beyond.

While the process was more complicated than I anticipated, the journey was incredibly educational and, dare I say, even a little fun. It revealed valuable insights about content longevity, SEO, and how our readership has evolved.

Here’s what the exercise taught me—and what I think other content marketers can learn from my experience.

How to refresh content: Our process

When we set about auditing The Content S trategist, we quickly realized we had a larger, more complex problem on our hands—one that wouldn’t be fixed with a quick SEO scan of our blog content. The more we dug in, the more we found we had a fundamental issue with our top-of-funnel marketing strategy. As I put it to my team, we were trying to catch a fish with a hole in our net.

There was no easy way to fix this. Even though it would be a huge undertaking, we needed to conduct a simultaneous content and search performance audit to figure out what was broken and where.

This was a three-part process, involving:

1. SEO and keyword analysis

We knew we weren’t ranking as high as we wanted to for our main areas of expertise and that we needed to retool our SEO approach. So, we started out by conducting a comprehensive keyword and competitor analysis.

First, we used Contently StoryBook—our proprietary content strategy tool—and Contently Analytics, along with third-party tools like SEMrush, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console to determine the strength of our organic keyword distribution and rankings. We audited the keywords we were currently ranking for to determine if they still made sense for our brand and audience.

We also conducted an SEO competitor analysis against companies who offer similar solutions to Contently. This audit revealed that our competitors were outranking us in several key areas. While we had been busy being the most well-known CMP in market, our competitors had gotten scrappy, creating mass amounts of content to help them rank for a wide array of keyword variations, often with lower search volumes. We needed to take back some of that space they had acquired.

2. A comprehensive content audit

In conjunction with the SEO audit, we thoroughly assessed all our existing content. This revealed a disconnect between the type of content we’d been publishing for the past three years and the topics that are the most interesting, valuable, and searched for among our target audience.

We categorized our existing content into four main buckets:

1. Relevant topic, quality content, needs SEO
2. Relevant topic, not high-quality content (e.g., out-of-date or misaligned)
3. Quality content, misaligned topic, misaligned SEO
4. Content that no longer served any purpose

This categorization helped us understand the scope of the problem and prioritize our efforts.

3. Gap analysis and strategy development

Based on how much of our content fit into each category, how it was ranking, and the keywords we were targeting, we were able to begin pinpointing specific areas in which our top-of-funnel marketing activities had come out of alignment with our brand and target audience.

If I could put out a PSA to other marketers recapping what I learned from this process, it would be that having an integrated marketing strategy is incredibly important—every activity, whether paid, owned, or earned, needs to be coordinated and aligned. In our case, misalignment led to a compounding effect: Because our strategy was off base, our keywords were out of sync, our content was missing the mark, our rankings were falling, and our audience was finding what they needed elsewhere.

Post-audit actions to update content

To address these issues, I set to work developing a multi-pronged strategy to revitalize our content, improve its performance, and strengthen our keyword rankings.

Here’s what we did—and how other content marketers can apply these learnings to their own strategies.

1. Identify which stories to save vs. toss

The first step involved determining if a story was worthy of updating or if it needed to be removed from the blog entirely. We found that almost all of our content was salvageable in some capacity.

“Saving” content was crucial for a few reasons. In addition to the prior investment—we’d already put effort and dollars into publishing the material—keeping content live helps maintain our domain authority. If we were to remove an article from our site and redirect traffic to another page, it could take Google’s algorithm months to recognize the page no longer exists and deindex us for that keyword hit. So, we opted to update rather than remove wherever possible.

Takeaway for other content marketers: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater! Most content—with the exception of niche posts like announcements for long-past events—can be rejuvenated. Evaluating each piece carefully to determine the most efficient approach can save you time, effort, and budget later on.

2. Determine which “saved” stories need to be rewritten vs. refreshed

Some stories needed a full rewrite, while others just needed a minimal refresh—updated cultural references, links, stats, SEO, etc. So, we separated our “salvageable” pile into two categories. On Contently, we created two different story brief templates and workflows for these projects. The “refresh” brief was slightly shorter and didn’t need as much review built in, so those workflows were more streamlined. Tackling these lighter refreshes first gave us a few easy wins and a sense of accomplishment.

Takeaway for other content marketers: Make decisions about whether or not you’ll update a URL slug or how you’ll change your SEO approach before re-publishing.

3. Create new, evergreen blog content to fill gaps

Early in our auditing process, we identified that we were missing some key themes in our content repository. So, for each topic gap, we planned a series of 4-6 net-new stories that would slot neatly into those gaps, complementing our existing content and providing more comprehensive guidance for our readers. We made these stories as evergreen as possible, focusing on adaptable strategies rather than fleeting trends.

Takeaway for other content marketers: Use your audit as an opportunity to identify and fill content gaps. Create new, evergreen pieces that address current trends and user needs. This approach helps ensure your blog content remains a useful resource for your audience long after publication.

Other learnings and takeaways from our blog content audit

Conducting this audit for our content marketing blog was a team effort—there’s no way I could have handled the lift alone. As soon as I recognized the depth and breadth of work involved, I took a look at our budget to allocate funds for support staff, including a managing editor to oversee the content refresh process and an SEO strategist to handle keyword research, SEO optimization, and ongoing analysis of our performance.

Working with our Creative Marketplace team, I staffed both of these roles with experienced professionals. To work efficiently with these team members, I set up some key processes from the get-go, including:

• A robust editorial calendar for tracking progress and noting insights
• Biweekly, recurring meetings
• Regular feedback loops to continuously improve our process

Working with the managing editor, I also developed a scalable pricing model so I could easily plan and budget for the number of content refreshes vs. rewrites vs. net new stories needed each month and quarter.

This flexible pricing plan will prove useful for future content, too. It enables me to adjust as needed if we identify a big opportunity to cover a new cluster of keywords. I can quickly and easily pivot my strategy and prioritize the budget toward the more immediate need.

Takeaway for other content marketers: If you’re already working with Contently, your managing editor or SEO strategist can support the bulk of the tactical day-in, day-out work behind the scenes, freeing up your time to focus on the bigger picture. If you’re not working with us, it’s a great idea to partner with experts who can help you get the most out of the content you have.

So, what’s next? To be honest, we’re still working on it! Content auditing and refreshing is never truly “done”—but now, we have a better system in place and fresh content to work with. We’re committed to maintaining this process, regularly revisiting our content to ensure it remains relevant, valuable, and optimized, and that our funnel stays healthy.

It may be a Sisyphean effort, but my inner data nerd is up for the challenge.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about blog content audits

How long does the content audit process take?

The duration of a content audit can vary greatly depending on the volume of content and resources available. For Contently’s 10-year content audit, it took several months to complete all stages, from initial analysis to implementation of new strategies.

How often should a company conduct a content audit?

The frequency of content audits depends on the company’s size, content volume, and industry changes. As a general rule, conducting a comprehensive audit annually, with smaller quarterly reviews, can help keep content fresh and aligned with SEO best practices.

What specific SEO metrics are likely to improve after a content refresh?

Likely improvements include higher keyword rankings, increased organic traffic, and better engagement rates. They might also include factors like time on page, bounce rate, and conversion rates. That said, the exact metrics will depend on your company’s goals and larger blog content strategy.

Are you ready to refresh your blog content strategy? Get started by scheduling a time to speak with a member of our team.

The post What We Learned From Refreshing a Decade’s Worth of Blog Content appeared first on Contently.

Many companies in marketing, media, or communications rely on freelance contributors, yet brands don’t always know how to effectively integrate these new teammates.

Whether you’re looking to find new freelancers or already have external contributors helping out, you’ll benefit from a freelance onboarding process. Providing freelancers the right resources from the beginning will help them create better work and ultimately make your job easier.

How to ace freelancer onboarding

To help you along the way, we’ve compiled a six-step freelancer onboarding checklist, a cheat sheet of sorts that you can use to onboard freelancers now and into the future.

1. Explain the company and business objectives

Full-time employees have a tendency to take company messaging for granted. They’re around it so often that it becomes second nature. When you work with freelancers, you can’t assume they’ll instantly know the nuances of your business. The first part of your freelancer onboarding process should focus on educating them on these core details.

Marketers typically think about lobbing their pitch at prospective clients, but the same exercise could help you onboard freelancers. To create and maintain a productive relationship, you need to be clear about what the company sells, who it wants to reach, and how it wants to accomplish its business goals.

You can repurpose existing HR content—brand videos, welcome packets, training quizzes, FAQs—to get freelancers thinking the way you do. But keep in mind that you should pay freelancers for this time.

2. Introduce the team

Be thoughtful about how you introduce freelancers to full-timers. Just because they won’t physically be in the office doesn’t mean you should rattle off names of people on a group email. If you anticipate freelancers working repeatedly with full-timers, set up brief one-on-one calls between those individuals as part of the freelancer onboarding process. If you have a content management platform like Contently, make sure they know how to use it.

3. Set rules for communication

Before you hire and onboard freelancers, decide on a system that includes how you’re going to communicate with them.

One option is to divide your freelancer team into tiers. I’m on several editors’ email lists where they blast out editorial calendars, but others message me directly to ask about my availability. A couple simply forward me press releases and offers for interviews, and I can choose whether to bite or not.

Of course, there’s also the question of instant messaging and communicating with your full-time creators. In some cases, brands give full Slack privileges to freelancers. In other cases, the part-time creators are confined to certain channels. Either way, I’ve seen enough evidence to know that it’s helpful when freelancers join company culture. They pick up on brand messaging faster if they can see internal discussions.

4. Style guide and pitch guide

What’s your stance on the Oxford comma? Are there any words or phrases that employees can’t use? Do visual assets need to include certain colors, or are there any off-limits shots a freelance photographer should know about? Sending a style guide to freelancers will give them answers to all the little creative questions that you already know in the back of your head. As your brand evolves, you should also update the style guide occasionally, answering any new inquiries received from freelancers as they go through their onboarding process.

Along with the style guide, you should also send your freelancers a pitch or brief guide, which can live as a PDF, Powerpoint deck, or Google doc. Format doesn’t matter as much as content. A freelancer can’t pitch you ideas effectively without knowing at a high-level what you’re looking for. Do you want to approve their intended sources ahead of time? Should the pitch be in narrative format or are bullet points okay? Do you want pitches delivered to you the same day each week, via email, or do you accept them on a rolling basis?

Tell them exactly how you prefer to be pitched, including the communication channel they should use and the structure their pitches should take.

5. Gather a portfolio of past success

There are a ton of reasons to file your biggest successes together, but onboarding freelancers is one of the biggest. If you tell 10 new freelance hires to “read the archives,” expect maybe two or three to walk away with the same vision you have in your head.

On the other hand, if you have a directory of standout articles, infographics, white papers, and case studies to choose from, they’ll have an easier time seeing things your way. If, for instance, you’re asking them to write a new version of a piece of content that always works for you, show them the original! Tell them why it worked, what you’d like them to repurpose, and where you’d like them to add in new material.

6. Ask for feedback

Routinely interview your freelancers the way you interview your clients and seek feedback from full-timers. If you’ve been working with a freelancer for a few months, ask them to reflect on the freelancer onboarding process. Did they understand the brand when they began? What do they know now that they wish you had told them back then?

Once you have the answers to some of those questions, make sure to update your internal freelancer onboarding checklist to address any adjustments you’ve made to the process. The goal here is to internalize feedback and adjust your system to better serve freelancers who join in the future.

The better you are at freelancer onboarding, the faster your team will benefit from their contributions.

To learn more ways to improve your working relationships with creatives, subscribe to The Content Strategist.

The post How A Checklist Can Improve Your Freelancer Onboarding Process appeared first on Contently.

What is a content strategy template?

A content strategy template is a roadmap for how you plan to use individual pieces of content to reach your organization’s goals. It can help ensure that your content marketing goals are effective and consistent across various parts of the organization and that no one is going rogue and spending time creating something that won’t help you reach your goals.

It covers all the key parts of creating and maintaining your ongoing content output. It also makes sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to goals, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), the target audience and how content fits in with the overall marketing strategy. That’s a lot to rest on the shoulders of a single powerhouse document! Let’s get into the details of what to include below.

Features to include in your content strategy template

While your needs may vary based on whether the content strategy template is for a chain of coffee shops or a medical supply company, here’s a step-by-step guide to creating a general template:

Set your content marketing goals

The first step in content strategy planning is to answer the question, “What are we doing here, and why?” Are you hoping to create more brand awareness for your new FinTech app or improve lead generation for new bank customers? Or maybe you’re simply trying to retain your existing customer base. By setting out with clear direction from the very beginning, you’ll be less likely to waste energy on ideas that don’t support your brand’s main objectives; plus, having clearly defined goals will go a long way to making the content strategy a valuable template for everyone across your organization.

Identify your target audience

Now that you’ve got your goals ironed out, who are you trying to reach with all this insightful content? Which demographic are you trying to communicate with? Millennial homeowners with an annual income of $75k+, women 50+ with disposable income looking for a vacation home? Do you have a primary as well as a secondary audience? Can you group these audiences into specific personas to better direct your marketing efforts? The more you know about the people you want to reach, the more likely you are to provide content that resonates with them.

Create your pillars and subtopics

Brand pillars are key to focusing your content. A straightforward way to think about your brand pillars is to consider the overlap between what the brand cares about and what the audience cares about. For example, to create a pillar for an eco-friendly clothing brand, you might consider “Sustainable living.” From there, you can break down the broad categories into more specific subtopics (“Low-waste living”) and, finally, story ideas themselves (“10 tips to make your clothes last longer”).

Define how you will measure success

What does success look like for your content marketing goals? Is it the number of eyeballs on a particular page or click-throughs on a CTA? Are there different KPIs for different marketing campaigns and types of content? Besides making you look good when you reach your goalposts, KPIs can let you know if your efforts are focused on the right things.

Perform a content audit

Take a look at your existing content and decide if it fits with the goals and audience you’ve defined above. Does the content meet your goals and resonate with your intended audience? Are they engaging with it? Why or why not? Are there any content gaps where you could be meeting more of your goals?

Choose your content types and channels

What kind of content are you going to produce? Depending on your audience and goals, a long-form blog post, a video, or an infographic may be more appropriate. You can also use various formats to get your message across and reach different groups of people at various points in the marketing funnel.

Outline a content creation process

Define an approval and workflow process that includes all the necessary people and steps. Write everything down so that everyone can quickly refer to it. That way, everyone knows what’s expected, and details, like a round of fact-checking, are less likely to fall through the cracks.

Review your content consistently

Implement regular check-ins to review your strategy and individual content elements. Using the data gathered from your KPIs and feedback from your organization, you can optimize each piece of content as more information becomes available over time. For example, you can adapt longer-form content to rank for certain keywords or repurpose a blog post into bite-sized social media posts for better engagement.

How and where to use a content strategy template

Once you’ve developed a working document and populated it with your ideas, it’s time to put your content strategy to work. It can be especially useful during quarterly and annual strategy meetings to help you make sure any new plans fit in with the overall strategy and goals.

Pull out your content strategy template whenever you need to see where new ideas would fit in the bigger scheme of things, and evaluate how the content resonates with the greater marketing strategy. This is helpful when you want to scale your content creation efforts larger–whether by involving more divisions, campaigns or product sections of your organization.

One of the big benefits of having a consistent template is that it’s easier for people to give feedback and, when the time comes, provide approvals since everyone can clearly see how content fits into the bigger plan, its purpose, and how you can measure its success.

Lastly, whenever a new team member joins, this document can become a key point of reference to help them get up to speed.

Download this free content strategy template as a starting point, then customize it to your needs. While it will likely change over time as you refine your objectives and focus, having something written down helps move things forward.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about Content Strategy

How do I choose the right format for my content?

The right format depends on your target audience and goals. Consider what type of content your audience engages with most and the message you want to convey—blog posts for in-depth information, videos for visual storytelling, or infographics for data visualization.

How do I balance an SEO content strategy with the overall content strategy planning?

Incorporate keyword research, on-page SEO elements, and link-building strategies into your content planning. Using tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs can help you identify relevant keywords and track your content’s SEO performance.

What should I do if my content isn’t performing well?

Analyze the performance data to identify potential issues, such as lack of engagement or poor SEO. Adjust your content strategy by refining your topics, improving the quality of your content, and experimenting with different formats and distribution channels.

Contently can help you create and activate on your content strategy goals. Connect with us to find out how!

The post Use a Content Strategy Template To Scale Up Quickly appeared first on Contently.

Read on for the essential elements of how to create a successful content marketing strategy.

1. Set a mission, goals, and KPIs

You wouldn’t cross the Atlantic Ocean without navigation equipment. In the same way, you wouldn’t wade into the deep waters of the branded content without knowing where you were headed. An effective content strategy includes a clearly defined idea of where you’re going.

Instead of throwing ideas at a wall like partially cooked spaghetti to see what sticks, try being intentional about what you’re producing and why. As Robert Rose at the Content Marketing Institute points out, “In a perfect world, creative content workers would spend less time assembling content and more time thinking of innovative and remarkable content to create.”

First of all, what’s your mission? Is it to attract new customers to your brand, to increase brand loyalty, or to close the deal on a specific product? This is the time to get philosophical. Ask the big questions, like “What are we doing here?” and “Why are we doing this?” If the answer is “I don’t know” or “It’s just what we’ve done in the past,” then this is your opportunity to reevaluate.

From there, outline your specific goals, making sure they’re measurable and achievable. For example, “Increase website conversions by 10% before the end of the fiscal year” is a better goal than “Get more conversions.”

KPIs (key performance indicators) are quantifiable content metrics that show how close you are to achieving your goals. For example, a makeup company might have a goal of increasing awareness of a new sustainable makeup line. If your KPI is blog content views, you could create an article about why environmentally-friendly ingredients are also beneficial for your skin.

2. Study your audience

It’s time to dig deep and learn about your customers. Who are they? Think about demographics such as age, gender, location, job title, salary, etc., and behavior patterns. What are they likely to engage with? What are they likely to buy? What problems do they have, and how can you help solve them with your abundantly helpful content marketing?

You can dig through your research and data to create buyer personas. Then, when you create content, you’ll have an idea in your head of who it’s for. If you’re starting from scratch with your customer research, Google Analytics and your own audience surveys can become your best buds.

3. Perform SEO analysis

Even though the world of SEO is changing, it’s still so important to your overall content strategy. Before you go around making changes to your existing SEO strategy (or start to build one), take a look at how your current content is performing with the help of Google Analytics and Google Search Console. These two free tools, along with a host of useful paid ones (such as ahrefs, Semrush and SEOquake, to name a few), can help you measure, track and gather valuable information about what drives people to your site and what they do once they arrive.

An SEO analysis can help you answer important questions such as, but not limited to:

• How many of your customers come in from a search for something related to your product vs. a search for your specific company?
• Where should you focus your marketing efforts?
• Where are your marketing dollars not being used efficiently?
• What’s working for the competition?
• What do your customers want to read about?

With that information in hand, keyword research can help inform you about where to focus your efforts as you create SEO-driven content moving forward.

4. Conduct a content gap analysis

Now that you have goals and data, you’re almost ready to begin producing new content. But before you start, don’t skip a key step: a content gap analysis. While creating new branded content is important, in order to stand out, you should assess the competition. First, list your top competitors, then look at what topics they’re covering and how they approach them. Do a deep dive into what your competitors are producing and track it all in an Excel spreadsheet, or use a tool such as Sprout Social to gather your data.

For example, a quick Google search may reveal that many banks may offer stories on ETF investing strategies. However, deeper analysis might reveal that either the stories are outdated, lacking in detail, provide no practical takeaways, are hard to understand or are poorly written. Therein lies your opportunity to improve on what’s out there, rise in the SEO rankings, and promote your bank’s brand simultaneously.

Finally, use your research and analytical skills to look at your own content to see where you can improve and repurpose what you’ve already created.

5. Map the buyer’s journey with a content marketing funnel

Very rarely do you get a customer coming to your brand with a credit card in hand, ready to buy whatever you’re offering. More typically, they go through stages of getting familiar with your brand, thinking through their options, and eventually becoming loyal customers. This is called the buyer’s journey and is outlined (very generally) in the image of the content marketing funnel below.

Most of your readers will come in at the brand awareness phase, and by the time they trickle down to the end, only your best leads remain. But, as our blog on turning prospects into customers with a robust content pipeline mentions, “The idea of a buyer’s journey as a straightforward path from discovery to purchase is increasingly being debunked. Modern consumers meander, zig-zagging in and out of stages, influenced by a multitude of touchpoints along the way.”

This isn’t a linear journey, and there’s no set time frame for customers to move from the top to the bottom of the funnel. So, at each stage, you have to map out the customer’s pain points and needs and create content to match.

6. Develop a content distribution strategy

A content distribution channel is the way or platform you use to deliver content to your audience. Content distribution channels can be divided into owned channels (website/blog, email newsletters, social media, etc.), earned channels (media coverage, guest blogging, sharing on social, etc.), paid channels (social media ads, sponsored content, etc.), and shared channels (user-generated content, partnerships, etc.).

You can use each content distribution channel’s unique strengths and reach strategically to maximize your reach and engagement with your target audience. For example, to reach lawyers or healthcare professionals, you might focus on promoting content on LinkedIn.

You could also examine where your competitors are distributing their content, as you outlined in your content gap analysis. This can provide insights into what works for your industry.

By carefully evaluating these factors, you can select the most appropriate channels to distribute your content effectively and reach your marketing goals.

7. Create a content calendar

With all the pieces above in place, it’s time to organize your wonderfully on-mission, SEO-focused, targeted ideas into a content calendar. Hinge some content on the significant calendar dates and seasons relevant to your business, and get started on some evergreen to have on the back-burner, just in case you need to post something when other content is delayed. Then, you can start filling in the gaps with new content that directly addresses your reader’s needs. And, don’t forget about content repurposing. If you have underperforming older content, can you find new ways to reuse or refresh what’s already been written? Before you know it, you’ll have a solid plan to move forward.

Just be careful not to fall into the trap of trying to produce as much as possible. Quality over quantity is the key here.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs About How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy

How often should I update my content marketing strategy?

Once you’ve learned how to create a content marketing strategy, it’s important to review it regularly. Consider reviewing your content strategy at least quarterly, and make updates as necessary. Regular updates ensure that your strategy remains aligned with your business goals, market trends, and audience needs.

What should I do if my content measurement indicated the content we’ve created is not performing as expected?

If your content is not performing as expected, analyze the content metrics to identify issues. Consider whether the content is relevant to your audience, if it’s optimized for SEO, and if it’s being promoted effectively. Adjust your strategy by improving the content quality, updating keywords, working on content repurposing, and experimenting with different content distribution channels.

How can content repurposing maximize the value of what we’ve already created?

Repurpose existing content by updating outdated information, turning blog posts into infographics or videos, compiling related articles into an eBook, or breaking down comprehensive guides into smaller, digestible pieces. This maximizes the value of your content by reaching different audience segments in various formats.

Stay on top of SEO updates and trends in content marketing by subscribing to The Content Strategist.

The post How To Create a Content Marketing Strategy From Scratch appeared first on Contently.

This is somewhat remarkable when trust in traditional media is at an all-time low — and trust in brands isn’t far behind. I’m pretty skeptical of the things I read online these days. But I ascribe so much authority to these podcasters that I spend hours with them each week, and I often find myself parroting their perspectives to friends and family at dinner parties.

It’s the kind of word-of-mouth advocacy brands often spend years trying to achieve. This podcast managed to do it in just three episodes. Which got me thinking: Why are some content formats seen as more or less trustworthy than others? How does perceived credibility affect engagement? And what does all this mean about content diversification for brands that want to cultivate that rare and elusive dynamic with customers — real, genuine rapport?

The sad state of consumer trust

According to data from Qualtrics XM Institute, just half of consumers have confidence in the companies they do business with. Gallup cites meager levels of trust in social media sites among both younger and older users. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer has the ominous tagline, “Innovation in Peril.” And with generative AI now on the scene, the situation is becoming even more complex.

On an optimistic note, trust in podcasts and user-generated content is on the rise. In a “did not have that on my 2024 bingo card” moment, Reddit is actually reporting record levels of trust. Social media stalwart YouTube is currently the platform Americans trust most for social commerce.

While influencers have never been so prolific — in 2024, authors and therapists alike are turning to platforms like TikTok to establish a “personal brand” — they have their own trust issues. For one, they’re often perceived as inauthentic. What’s more, the line between genuine recommendations and paid promotions has become so blurry, it’s often difficult for audiences to discern real reviews. (And when audiences can’t determine which reviews are real versus paid, they might disengage from the conversation entirely.)

Still, some flavors of “influencerism” are on the up and up, like the subscriber models on platforms like Substack, Patreon, and even OnlyFans. Consumers seem to be craving some agency in their content curation, and they’re satisfying it by subscribing to individuals they perceive as having clout or expertise — versus placing trust in old-school institutions or opaque algorithms.

There’s a confluence of factors contributing to these shifts: the rise of parasocial relationships, evolving consumer psychology trends, and skyrocketing distrust of AI-generated content being chief among them. I don’t know what the next six months hold. The one prediction I can make with confidence is that as volatile as the consumer trust landscape is now, it’s going to see more ups and downs as AI becomes further embedded in our everyday lives.

How to build brand authority via content diversification

In the face of all this turbulence, content diversification is an increasingly smart strategy. By leveraging a variety of content formats, brands cast a wider net for establishing credibility and engaging audiences across multiple touchpoints.

Due to ongoing algorithm changes, it’s becoming harder and harder for brands to count on any one platform, like Google or social media’s “walled gardens,” for traffic. Diversifying creates more opportunities to collect first-party data, which I think is going to be critical in the coming months as Google’s AI Overviews officially rolls out and traffic to websites inevitably continues to drop.

Here are a few ways you can diversify content — and begin experimenting with formats outside your current comfort zone.

• Written content. In a world of AI “slop,” brands need to think beyond the basic blog post. Publishing genuine thought leadership in 2024 involves offering unique or useful insights (and that means actually unique or useful), sharing personal experiences, providing real value, or otherwise finding ways to add a human touch. What’s more, thought leadership doesn’t need to come exclusively from your C-Suite — giving employees at different levels a platform to share their insights is a unique opportunity to drive genuine, human-to-human engagement with audiences (and make your team members feel like their voices are valuable to boot).
• Video content. If you haven’t broken into this space due to sticker shock or resource constraints, consider starting small. Dabble with behind-the-scenes footage or live Q&A sessions that help humanize your brand or give it an air of transparency or authority. You can use AI tools to break up webinars or longer video content into shorter, snappier, and more social-friendly snippets. Optimized video content can also help increase findability through voice search, an increasingly important facet of SEO.
• Audio content/podcasts. If you’re just getting your feet wet, you can start out with low-commitment options — like participating as a guest on an established show, and embedding that audio in your blog or social media content.
• Interactive or experiential content. Explore options like quizzes, polls, or interactive experiences to boost engagement with users or customers. Consider experimenting with interactive storytelling and allow users to choose their own path.
• Email. We’ve come full circle, folks. Email, which just a few years ago looked like a relic of a bygone era, is making a resurgence — especially as SEO sees its biggest shake-up in decades.

Contently specializes in helping brands create high-quality, diverse content across both written and multimedia formats. If you’re unsure how to get started with content diversification, don’t be shy — reach out to our team for guidance.

From omnichannel to trust-centric: content diversification in 2024

Building trust, credibility, and brand authority isn’t a zero-sum game. Investing in one format isn’t going to diminish the impact you’ve achieved with another, as long as you’ve got the bandwidth to keep a consistent publishing cadence — and an appetite for quality control.

When it comes to building credibility, it’s also critical to stay nimble and keep a constant finger on consumers’ pulse. What worked five years ago won’t be as effective today, and the same will be true two years from now. (Heck, what works in July may be outdated by September at the current pace of progress.) Ask yourself: How are audiences interacting with new content formats you try? Which ones do they seem to like? What feedback are they leaving, and how are they communicating it? The key to long-term success lies in remaining adaptable to emerging trends and platforms — and not being scared to try new things.

By creating a healthy content mix, you up the odds that your brand’s message will land on receptive — even eager — ears. It might even come up at a dinner party or two.

Want to stay ahead of the latest trends in content marketing — like the diversification of content — and learn how to build brand authority? Subscribe to The Content Strategist for expert insights and actionable tips delivered straight to your inbox.

The post Give Your Brand Authority a Boost With Content Diversification appeared first on Contently.

AI fluency is a key content skill

Technology has laid the foundation for modern marketing, and generative AI is reinforcing the walls. Today’s marketing teams are revolutionizing their strategies using generative AI tools. Many are already seeing the results. According to a recent McKinsey survey, 34% of respondents report using the technology in marketing and sales. Content generation is the most popular use case.

That means we, the human marketers, must hone our ability to communicate well with our machine colleagues. As writers, we need to learn how to “speak” AI with better AI content prompts. Once you master the basics, your better prompts will more quickly and effectively produce assets that meet the needs of the business.

Let’s look at a few ways to improve your generative AI content prompts.

Best practices for writing generative AI content prompts

1. Get specific with your content prompts

Details matter when working with generative AI. The right request made in the right way improves your odds of getting text or images you can use in your blog post.

To illustrate, let’s see what happens with different kinds of AI content prompts. I am using image generation AI to demonstrate the different results from different prompts, but the same principles apply equally to AI text generation.

Check out the results I got on Image Creator from Microsoft Designer, chosen for this exercise because it is free and has a straightforward user interface. Image Creator uses Dall-E 3, the image generation platform from OpenAI, developer of the GPT-4 large language model (Microsoft is an OpenAI investor).

A content prompt is a set of instructions you give to the generative AI to shape its output. Prompts can be general, describing in simple terms what you want the image to show. For example, a prompt that says “father with his young son” gave me the following four options.

Because my request wasn’t super-specific, the AI made decisions about how to render these images based on what it knows from its training data. Those decisions were … odd. It’s a mystery why two of the four show the father and son flying, and all evoke Superman, either directly (as with the upper left) or more subtly (the upper right). Regardless, the mistake here is that I did not provide enough information, nor was I sufficiently specific.

As content marketers, we often know what we want or need, at least as it pertains to our brand’s editorial guidelines and visual style. We want to include those details in our prompts for better results.

So what happens when I iterate to include more specifics in my prompt? After multiple adjustments, I land on asking for a “photograph of a dad walking with his son on a rocky beach during the day.” Note I specify the type of image (photograph), the content (an adult male and a male child), the environment (rocky beach) and time of day (daytime). The resulting images are more down-to-earth—literally. I could also vary the results by adding specifics about the emotions I want to convey (e.g., a feeling of closeness between father and son) and different image styles (e.g., drawings vs. photographs).

It’s worth noting, however, that image generators can make mistakes as they interpret imagery in their training data and try to create new renderings. For example, the clasped hands in the upper left “Superman” image show blurring rather than precise distinctions between the fingers. In another example, one of my experimental images (not shown) had the father and child clearly walking together, but one facing forward and the other back.

Thankfully, there is a free “prompt book” that teaches creatives how to write better prompts for DALL-E. Originally developed for DALL-E 2, it includes some general prompt advice that is more broadly useful.

That brings me to my second best practice.

2. Use the right AI tools for the job.

Image Creator is just one of multiple generative AI tools for visual assets, just as ChatGPT is just one for text. At the risk of stating the obvious, different tools have different specialties.

For example, Midjourney is another generative AI for visual outputs. But unlike Image Creator, which is democratic about aesthetics, Midjourney specializes in “pretty” images. As a server-based tool, its user experience is also more challenging to navigate than others, and it requires a membership subscription to access.

Beyond aesthetics, there is the question of what kind of output you need. In the world of visuals, business content regularly incorporates visual representations of workflows, concepts, or frameworks. Check out the results from my prompt: “Create a stylish workflow graphic depicting the 6 steps of the content process represented horizontally: ideation, delegation, creation, production, promotion, and measurement. Use bold complementary colors and represent each step using a distinct image.”

This is a pretty typical result. I have tested writing more effective creative prompts in different generative AI tools, and they all seem to struggle with business images, especially when they contain text. (What is Deligmuation?)

Consider this alternative using the same prompt on Stable Diffusion, which usually creates elegant outputs.

I suspect the cause of these mixed results is a lack of training. Perhaps the AI developers have not yet seen the value of teaching them about business graphics. While most of these tools allow you to make edits to generated images, I think there is a better way to get top results using generative AI. Namely, you can prompt the AI tool to generate the components you need and then compile them in a design tool like Adobe Illustrator, which also lets you manually input text where and how you want it.

3. Fine-tune your AI content fact-checking.

Now for some bad news: AI content generators can produce images and text with mind-boggling speed. Yet, these AI models only mimic what they see in their training data. They’re unable to separate facts or reality from misinformation—for now. Consequently, AI-generated text and images can look and sound very authentic and authoritative yet contain nonsense. One example from my first experiments with ChatGPT included an AI-generated statement that the tool made up but attributed to Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Since then, OpenAI and others have trained their platforms so that users can no longer prompt the tools to quote a public figure or write something in that person’s “voice.” But the tools do still make mistakes.

So, be careful: Don’t publish AI-generated content or images without fact-checking it first.

4. Be wary of copyright.

Now for some bad news: the legalities around generative AI copyright are fuzzy. In the case of visual images, OpenAI, for one, specifies in its user disclosures that the images it creates are not necessarily unique. The same prompt from two different users may result in a similar or nearly identical image.

The platforms often stipulate that creators have the right to publish the text and images they generate, but buyer beware. The platforms argue that using copyrighted material to train large language models constitutes “fair use,” an acceptable though vague standard in copyright law. If judges disagree with that argument, however, complications could arise down the road about the legal status of images and text produced with the help of generative AI.

The rights issues are not trivial. But they also won’t be 100% clear for some time, and the commercial market is marching forward anyway. As for their quality, generative language and image AI tools will continue to improve as people use them. Experimenting with them can give you the knowledge and experience to perfect your AI content prompts. You’ll also develop an informed opinion about when to use them and when human creativity is the better option.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about generative AI and content prompts

How can companies limit the risks of AI content creation?

Companies can limit risks by establishing clear guidelines on AI usage, including transparency about AI-generated content and adherence to copyright laws. They should also implement robust fact-checking processes to limit the risk of disseminating misinformation.

What rules should content teams establish to govern the use of generative AI?

Content teams should establish a clear set of ethical guidelines on how they will and will not use generative AI in their processes. The guidelines should reflect current thinking about copyright laws and promote transparency about AI-generated content. By establishing these rules, content teams can harness the power of generative AI while maintaining the integrity and credibility of their work.

How do different generative AI tools compare to each other?

Generative AI tools vary significantly in focus, usability, style, and quality. Some AI text generators, for example, focus on short-form content like email subject lines, social copy, web banner ads, and mobile texts. Others promise to draft long-form, SEO-optimized blog posts and pillar pages. Moreover, some are free to use, and some require a subscription. That variation — including cost — makes it essential that you know an AI tool’s pros and cons before you commit to a subscription.

To stay informed on all things content, subscribe to The Content Strategist for more insight on the latest news in digital transformation, content marketing strategy, and rising tech trends.

The post How To Level Up Your Content Prompts for Generative AI appeared first on Contently.

But mastering SEO isn’t as easy as sprinkling keywords like fairy dust and hoping for the best. It demands strategy, finesse, and oftentimes, the guiding hand of a freelance SEO strategist.

Think of these pros as the Merlin to your King Arthur. An SEO strategist can guide you through the perpetually changing labyrinth of Google’s algorithm. They’ll uncover target keywords that align with your content pillars, audit your existing content to find growth opportunities, implement smart on- and off-page tactics, and develop winning link-building strategies.

Want to summon one of these wizards for your team? Here’s our sage advice on recruiting SEO strategists and harnessing their alchemy for long-term success in search results.

What is an SEO strategist?

An SEO strategist (or search engine optimization strategist) is a digital marketing professional who finds ways to help a brand or website reach more people online. They can plan, implement, and manage the SEO strategy for your content to help it rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) and grow your web traffic. Some SEO strategists create plans for you to implement, while others help with execution, as well. An experienced SEO content strategist will be able to help you tailor your SEO plans to meet the needs of your content strategy.

Type of work an SEO strategist can do

SEO strategists can handle a variety of tasks related to growing your organic web traffic and helping your content appear in SERPs. Think of them as a behind-the-scenes expert on improving your brand’s visibility online.

When working with a freelance SEO strategist, you can negotiate on exactly which tasks you want them to help with. Take a look at this freelance SEO strategist job description from Contently for examples of the type of work they can do, including:

• Link-building strategies
• Website architecture audit
• Keyword research
• Competitor analysis
• HTML optimization
• Writing optimized meta descriptions and title tags

Where to find an SEO strategist

SEO strategists work behind the scenes, which can make them a little trickier to find than a freelance writer who has bylines proudly stamped on their polished copy.

You can streamline your search by tapping into Contently. Its marketplace has tens of thousands of SEO strategists and other freelance creatives who can level up your content.

How to vet SEO strategists

Your recruitment efforts should leave you with a list of SEO strategists to consider. But since you can only hire one of them, how do you make sure you pick the perfect match for your team?

Review their work experience

Start by getting a sense of their work and accomplishments. Look at their list of previous clients—if the SEO strategist has worked with other brands in your sector, they can hit the ground running when they start working with you. Testimonials from past clients can give you a closer look at what it’s like to work with them. Likewise, case studies serve as evidence of their results.

Check their credentials

Does the SEO strategist boast any relevant certifications? If so, that’s tangible evidence of their expertise and commitment to mastering their craft. It indicates they’ve undergone formal training and demonstrated proficiency in SEO skills, which could lead to better results for your brand. Keep in mind that SEO best practices change often—the more recent the credential, the more likely it is that the strategist has up-to-date knowledge.

Watch out for red flags

Perhaps the biggest red flag an SEO strategist can wave is a promise for quick results or top rankings. SEO strategists don’t control the search algorithm or which links it shows on SERPs. Beware of any strategist who offers shortcuts or guarantees overnight success.

Ask the right questions

Get to know your SEO strategist better over email or a brief call. This is an opportunity to share more about your work and goals, as well as get a sense of their approach to SEO content strategy.

Hannah Belport, senior operations manager at Contently who vets freelance SEO strategists, likes to ask strategists if they are more on the education/consulting side of things or are experienced with technical, page-level SEO, or both. “Neither is preferred over the other necessarily—both have strengths and their purpose,” she says. But it’s important to know what you’re looking for and whether the candidate’s skills are a fit.

Here are some questions you can ask an SEO strategist to see if they’re right for your business:

• What’s your typical SEO process?
• What SEO tools do you rely on?
• Which metrics do you use to measure success?
• How do you keep up with SEO trends and updates?
• What’s the biggest SEO challenge brands face today?
• How long does it typically take to see results?
• Can you provide examples of past SEO projects you’ve worked on and their outcomes?
• How do you approach keyword research and selection for a new project?
• How do you adapt your SEO strategies to different industries or business goals?

How to onboard an SEO strategist

Having a structured onboarding process for a freelance SEO strategist is like laying down the tracks before the train starts rolling. It ensures you’re both on the same page about the agreement, scope of work, expectations, payment structure, and goals.

Here’s how to onboard an SEO strategist.

1. Ensure you have a contract and scope of work in place. You’ll need a signed contract before you can start working with an SEO strategist (if you’re . Your brand’s legal team may have a freelance contract you can use, or you can look for templates online. At this stage, it’s also a good idea to draft a scope of work. It should include clear deliverables, deadlines, reporting cadence, key performance indicators (KPIs), and goals.

2. Establish a payment method. Freelance SEO strategists depend on on-time payments from their clients. Ask how they’d like to receive payment and share that info along with any pertinent details (like account numbers) with your accounts payable team. Freelancers typically expect to receive payment for projects within 30 days of sending an invoice. If you have an ongoing relationship with an SEO strategist, consider making more frequent payments to encourage them to stick around for the long term.

3. Share your brand materials. Helping an SEO strategist get deeply acquainted with your brand’s identity can help them fine-tune their techniques to reach your target audience. Send them essential materials, like your style guide, branding guidelines, customer personas, and content strategy.

4. Get them plugged into your systems. Granting access to your content management system (CMS) and web traffic analytics dashboard allows the SEO strategist to dive deep into your website’s performance metrics and content architecture. Work with your tech team to get them set up with usernames, passwords, and any other requirements.

Tips for working with an SEO strategist

Having a talented freelance SEO strategist on your team can spell the difference between your content thriving with visibility or fading into digital oblivion. If you find someone who drives results and is a pleasure to work with, you’ll want to build a positive relationship with them so you can collaborate again in the future.

Here are some best practices to keep in mind.

1. Don’t treat a freelancer as a member of your internal team. While they agree to deadlines, they work on their own schedule and can’t always commit to lengthy or impromptu meetings. Don’t assume they’re available for something at the last minute—freelance SEO strategists work with many clients at one time, so they might be busy with another project.

2. Establish a scope of work—and follow it. Freelance SEO strategists stick closely to the tasks outlined in the scope of work they’ve signed. If you want to add to their to-do list, expect to renegotiate the contract, deadlines, and the budget.

3. Pay invoices on time. Making timely payments shows freelancers that you value your relationship and their work. Do your best to get their invoices processed quickly. If there’s a delay in payment, get in touch with them right away and let them know when to expect the money.

4. Provide thorough, thoughtful feedback. Did you find their competitor landscape analysis particularly insightful? Give them a virtual high-five! Are you not into the SEO content ideas they pitched for a specific vertical? Let them know why and offer more clarity on what you’re looking for.

5. Address red flags right away. If you notice any red flags while you’re working with a freelance SEO strategist, don’t ignore them or take on the work yourself. Providing clear, immediate feedback gives them the opportunity to make adjustments and get back on track. Establishing a regular cadence for check-ins can also help you both maintain alignment on your overall SEO strategy.

Finally, try to connect with them on a human level. Working with freelancers over email can feel transactional. Developing a relationship that’s both professional and personal can foster better communication, mutual respect, and a collaborative spirit. Plus, they’ll feel more comfortable bringing their best SEO insights to the table.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about SEO strategy

How long does it take to see results from SEO efforts?

The timeframe to see results from SEO efforts can vary based on several factors, including the competitiveness of your industry, the current state of your website, and the strategies implemented. Generally, you might start to notice some improvements in your search rankings and organic traffic within 3 to 6 months. However, SEO is a long-term investment, and achieving significant results often takes 6 to 12 months or more. Consistent effort and ongoing optimization are key to maintaining and enhancing these results over time.

What are some long-term strategies for maintaining and improving SEO rankings over time?

Maintaining and improving SEO rankings over time requires ongoing efforts, such as regularly updating content, conducting keyword research, and performing technical SEO audits. Building quality backlinks, optimizing user experience, and staying informed about algorithm changes are also crucial. Additionally, monitoring performance metrics and engaging on social media can help sustain and enhance your SEO strategy.

What are backlinks, and how do they impact SEO?

Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your site. They are crucial for SEO because they signal to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. High-quality backlinks from reputable sites can significantly boost your search engine rankings, increase your site’s authority, and drive more organic traffic. Essentially, backlinks act as endorsements from other websites, helping to improve your site’s visibility and credibility in search engine results.

Looking to increase organic traffic to your company website? Work with one of our top-tier SEO strategy experts at Contently.

The post How To Find, Hire, and Work With an SEO Strategist appeared first on Contently.

We loved the originals, but then they faded into the background. Until a Hollywood exec decided it was time to give our dated favorites a modern makeover to entertain a new generation and immerse the older generation in nostalgia.

And with every new reboot, I think, “They know how to refresh content.”

If Hollywood can get a new cast, add CGI, and update the script to make Planet of the Apes feel original, we can refresh content to make our websites feel new. To get you closer to your next blockbuster hit, here are some best practices for your next content refresh.

What is a content refresh?

When we talk about refreshing content on your website, we’re not referring to a complete rewrite. Rather, a content refresh is enhancing existing content without starting from scratch. Here are some examples of how to update old content on your site:

Update information & stats

Often, we reference studies and surveys on our webpages and blog posts. But within a few years, much of that information is obsolete and irrelevant. So, updating your content with new statistics from credible sources can make your content fresh and relevant again.

Revise outdated sections

As mentioned above, sometimes a quick stat check can bring your webpage new life. But other times, you may need to revise whole sections or replace them with entirely new content. Google’s algorithm can detect substantial revisions to content and detect when outdated information has been replaced with helpful and accurate content. So, revising outdated content can improve both user experience and Google rankings.

Refresh tone & voice

It can take a second for new companies and brands to nail down their tone and voice. And LinkedIn actually recommends updating your brand guidelines every few years to keep your brand identity fresh and consistent across all your marketing channels. These updates are sometimes called “brand-accuracy updates.” If your brand has updated its brand or style guidelines, it’s probably time to inject your content with the new tone and voice that aligns with your current style.

Revamp visuals

Nothing shows your website’s age more than design and images. While there is no hard-and-fast rule for how often you should update images on your site, it’s a good idea to continuously scan your site for broken or low-quality images. This can also be done as part of a marketing refresh. When you replace your images:

• Use clear, professional images that reflect your brand aesthetic.
• Include relevant alt text descriptions for images to improve search rankings.
• Ensure images load quickly.
• Experiment with new formats, like video, infographics, or illustrations to increase engagement.

Improve readability

This is old news for all my content creators, but if your content isn’t scannable, people won’t read it. When you refresh content, be sure to use:

• Clear and concise language
• Shorter paragraphs and sentences
• White space! (White space makes your website look clean and inviting and is easier on the eyes.)
• Headlines and subheads
• Bullet points and numbered lists

Revisit links

The best way to frustrate your visitors and confuse search engines is to keep outdated and broken links. If you want to maintain and grow your audience, revisit all your internal and external links to ensure they are relevant and functioning. Checking your whole website for broken links sounds like the worst, so here’s an easy step-by-step guide to scan your website and eliminate useless links.

Implementing the above tactics will make your website look great and give your visitors a better user experience. But if you want to improve search-engine performance, make sure to include SEO-specific tactics in your content refresh.

How to refresh content while improving SEO

When you update your website content, it signals to Google relevancy and expertise. Which means Google recognizes substantial content changes and rewards them. While there’s no specific threshold when Google recognizes that a webpage has been refreshed, Google does focus on the overall impact and value delivered through content changes. Here are some additional tips to get your refreshed content noticed by Google:

Update the publication date

Change your publication date only if you’ve made significant changes to the existing content. Just updating the publication date is useless. So, make sure you make additional optimizations and revisions to your page so Google will recognize the content changes along with the updated publication date.

Optimize title tags and meta descriptions

Title tags are the first things users see in search results, so make them engaging, informative, and a reflection of the refreshed content. Your meta descriptions serve as mini summaries of your webpage and encourage users to click through to your content. Both title tags and meta descriptions should include keywords and accurately reflect the current content.

Maintain consistent URL structure

A consistent URL structure allows for the creation of clear breadcrumbs (navigation trails) and effective internal linking between related pages. This helps search engines understand the website’s structure and content flow, which can improve search rankings.

Leverage internal linking

Internal links are like helpful little tour guides on your website, directing users and search engines to the most relevant and valuable content. Be sure to include internal links on your web pages to strengthen link juice (ranking power), improve crawlability and indexing, and provide keyword content for search engines.

The results will speak for themselves

Updating old content can be labor-intensive and time-consuming, but so is getting Bill Murray to agree to a fifth Ghostbusters movie. But, I promise, it’s worth it — refreshing your content will make your website look and perform like new.

Remember, you don’t have to start from scratch; just use our tips and tricks to update your current content to make your website more user friendly and visually pleasing. Not only will these strategic updates get you better search engine rankings, but visitors will love them too.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about how to refresh content

What are some SEO-specific tactics to consider during a content refresh?

Besides updating content, you can optimize title tags and meta descriptions, maintain consistent URL structure, and leverage internal linking to improve search engine visibility and performance.

Are there specific industries or types of content that benefit more from frequent refreshes compared to others?

Industries with rapidly changing trends or evolving information, such as technology, fashion, or healthcare, often benefit from more frequent content refreshes to stay relevant and competitive.

How do you measure the success of a content refresh in terms of user engagement?

User engagement metrics such as bounce rate, time on page, and click-through rates can indicate the effectiveness of a content refresh in capturing and retaining audience interest.

Now that you know how to refresh content, check out more from The Content Strategist to discover more digital marketing tips.

The post How To Refresh Content So It Performs Like New appeared first on Contently.