Determine Your Purpose
Figure out exactly what you’d like to do with your content. Maybe you want to drive more organic traffic to your site, or garner more leads, or boost your brand recognition by positioning yourself as an industry expert. Settle on two or three overarching goals for your content and the results you’d like to see from it.

Know Your Audience
Determine the buyer persona you’d most like to appeal to. Instead of trying to be everything for everybody, having a target buyer persona will help you create and distribute content most helpful for those you’d like to convert. It’s a win-win; you’ll create useful content that will keep people coming back to your site, and your target audience will view you as a trustworthy authority in the field.

Establish the Angle
There’s tons of content being created every day. How do you stand out from the crowd? The research you do on your target audience will help you determine the unique personality of your content. Instead of dry lists of information or tips, infuse humor into your blog and webinars. Or alternate posts with serious information and fun promo-related quizzes à la BuzzFeed, like “Which Year-End Incentive Gift Are You?”

Decide on Types of Content
There are myriad content formats to choose from based on the information and your audience. Blog posts on websites are popular and when they contain site keywords, they can effectively drive traffic. Also consider e-books, which can be downloaded once people provide their name and email, along with infographics, podcasts and videos, which are 50 times more likely to drive organic search results than plain text, according to Omnicore. If you have an audience that’s super-engaged, consider interactive quizzes and polls. The more content types you use, the more interest you’ll generate. As people share your content, more link juice will be generated for your site.

SEO has 20 times more traffic opportunity than Pay-Per-Click advertising on both mobile and desktop.(Jumpshot/Moz)

Assess Your Current Position
If you already have content that’s been created and distributed, take the time to log it all and determine its effectiveness. Figure out which posts did better than others, for example. Identify gaps in the creation and distribution, and make sure your renewed strategy matches the goals you’ve developed and the buyer persona you’re looking to target. You can even use specially designed tools and apps to log the content and get a “big picture” view of it.

Create a Schedule … and Stick to It
The secret to driving traffic with content is to create and distribute it regularly. Commit to a schedule, make it a priority and make sure the quality will impress leads and prospects. Whether you post a couple times a week or month, be consistent so your fans know where to find you. Google also favors sites that are managed and kept fresh, and have updated content regularly, which helps you in organic search.

Measure Results
Set goals for your content so you know if it’s working and how to change course if necessary. Determine your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), like a certain revenue target for the month, getting more opt-ins for your e-books, improving your search ranking, seeing a specific increase in site traffic for the month and more. If you’re not meeting or exceeding your KPIs, make adjustments on the type of content you’re developing, where you’re distributing it and how often.

Key Terms

Buyer Persona: a profile of a target customer that includes insights about their buying decisions, like attitudes, concerns and criteria that determine their choice to work with one company over another.

Content Marketing: a type of marketing involving creating and sharing information online in a number of formats with the goal of enhancing interest in a brand’s products and services.

E-book: a short downloadable book of information with chapters containing actionable information and consistent branding. Often requires capture of an email address to begin downloading.

Key Performance Indicators: a measurable value indicating how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives and meeting specific milestones.

Link Juice: the value of a page based on the number of hyperlinks that link back to it across the internet. Search engines look at hyperlinks back to a site as “votes” that the site is valuable and worth promoting.

Private Blog Network: a network of websites used to build links back to a specific site to try to manipulate search engine ranking. While once commonly used, they can actually lead to a decrease in ranking for all sites involved and even an official Google penalty.

Webinar: a seminar conducted over the internet; people can tune in and watch and listen to a presenter, and may even be able to ask questions of the presenter.