I love to do content research — what’s more satisfying than falling down a few Google rabbit holes? (Don’t answer that.)  Of course, great marketing content is built on more than just Google search results. I’ve put together a six-step guide to how I do my own content research for HubSpot blog posts using a real-life example. Table of Contents What is content research? Why is content research important? Components of Content Research How to Do Content Research On the one hand, content research is exactly what it sounds like — researching content. But it’s a deceptively simple term for […]

Within the last few years, many marketers have started asking, “What is the future of content marketing? And is it worth our investment?” I think that’s a valid question, considering a sound content marketing strategy is one of the best ways a business can help shape its brand identity, garner interest from prospects, and retain an engaged audience. However, content marketing is constantly changing. And it definitely doesn’t look the same as it did 10 years ago. To fully understand the evolution of marketing, we need to understand both where it’s been and where it’s going. In this post, we’re […]

Ranging from brief social posts to deep-dive digital guides, I’ve written thousands of pieces of content for SaaS companies, small businesses, government offices, major nonprofits, and my own websites. These pieces of content were tracked and analyzed to gauge their success, but all using unique measuring sticks. How? Using a tailored content scoring process. With your own tailored content scorecard, you can create a data-driven process for measuring your individual content marketing success. I’ve gathered examples from my own websites and brands across industries, plus tips to help you create a powerful content scoring system. I even have a metric […]

Content mills: the corner of the internet where everyone’s promised the moon, but most people are left in the dark. Writers are offered an opportunity to be nurtured by editors, build their writing skills, and develop a professional portfolio. Companies are promised quality work that’s delivered quickly for a minimal investment. I don’t think anyone comes out a winner in 90% of these arrangements. I know I lost when I wrote for a content mill ten years ago. Now with a freelance writing career and a book deal to my name, I see my time writing for content mills as […]

Creating successful marketing campaigns and compelling content starts with understanding the numbers behind your strategies. For me, content marketing analytics are like having a behind-the-scenes guide — they reveal what’s working, what’s not, and where there’s room to grow. By using data effectively, I gauge the impact and success of my efforts. In this blog, I’ll walk you through some of the best tools I’ve come across for doing that. But I’ll start by discussing why content marketing analytics are absolutely essential. Table of Contents Content Marketing Analytics Tools What are content marketing analytics? Why are content marketing analytics important? […]

I love content monitoring! Well, not as much as chocolate, or cake, or chocolate cake … But when it comes to work-related processes, it’s one of my favorite things. Why? Because it helps me analyze what is and isn’t working. I can then use these actionable insights to create or improve upon any content strategy. Honestly, I love content monitoring so much that I want you to love it, too. And that‘s why I’ve included as much of my knowledge on the subject as possible in this article. I’ve also gathered more “must-know” insights from other content specialists. On the […]

I remember exactly where I was when I stumbled upon the concept of cornerstone content for the first time. It was a fresh winter’s morning in late December, and the sunshine glistened over the frosted ground … Okay, I kid, I kid. So, the cornerstone content model isn’t exactly ‘Moon Landing’ material. But, it did completely revolutionize how I think about and implement content strategy. As a junior content marketer, it gave me my first logical framework for creating, organizing, and managing content production. Before then, it kinda felt like I was throwing content ideas at the wall until something, […]

As a content professional with almost a decade in the game, I have been a part of several content marketing teams and projects. While each project came with its own objectives and obstacles, one thing remained constant: a consistent underestimation of what a content marketing team achieves for the organization at large. The natural assumption about content marketing teams is that we write a bunch of blogs with some SEO guidelines or create some witty social media posts, and voila, the job is done! As an insider, I have seen firsthand that a solid content marketing team does much more […]

Over the past five years, I’ve been creating content for some of the most successful content-first brands. And if there’s one thing that all their content marketing strategies have in common, it is a solid content gap analysis. Think about it. Every time you look up a topic, you will find hundreds of blogs that are just slight variations of each other. What really helped me and my clients win was this: focusing on what no one else was talking about. In this blog, I will walk you through the step-by-step process of doing content gap analysis and explore best […]

Over the past three years, I’ve written over 200 marketing content pieces from blog posts to guides to landing pages. Over that time, I’ve witnessed more and more brands investing not just in new content, but in content optimization. It makes sense why content marketing teams are optimizing their content. Brands that produce hundreds of pieces of content each year suddenly find themselves with a library of thousands of outdated blog posts that erode brand trust and drag down their SEO. Your content is an asset that you need to protect and invest in to continue reaping the benefits. To […]