We’ve written about developing an effective content strategy in the past, and we’re back with more tips and tools to further your content goals.
Performing a Content Audit
If you’re redesigning your website, or just updating your content strategy, the first step in the process should be a content audit. While most of this can be done with a well-organized spreadsheet and your site’s backend analytics, a number of websites and tools are available to analyze other important data points like backlinks, or SEO ranking.
- Google Analytics: A great starting point for tracking site engagement, Google Analytics offers a suite of tools to track and examine things like site traffic, and session time, while also integrating with Google’s advertising platform.
- SEMrush: A comprehensive all-in-one service, SEMrush provides a host of marketing tools including domain analytics, a keyword researcher, and SEO dashboard, as well as a site audit tool that tests your site for things like usability, page response time, broken links, and redirect chains.
- Ahrefs Backlink Checker: A great tool in determining the fate of a given page on your site, Ahrefs backlink checker compiles a list of pages backlinking to your site, and shows you the top referring domains for your content.
Defining Target Personas
Knowing your target audience is key in marketing your content. The tools below make it easier to develop persona profiles for your target audience(s) in a more engaging, and organized way.
- Make My Persona: This free, and simple tool from Hubspot asks a few questions to guide persona definition, and allows for customizable sections to include any additional information.
- Userforge: Similar to Make My Persona, and also free, Userforge allows customizable creation of a more realistic persona profile, and aggregates multiple profiles all in one convenient space.
Identifying Content Topics
Coming up with relevant, imaginative content topics can be challenging. Use the tools below to shake up your typical content brainstorming, and identify pertinent topics for your blogs, infographics and beyond.
- BuzzSumo: Have a topic idea, but not sure how it will perform? BuzzSumo searches for the top articles and pages for a given topic, and shows you engagement data for social platforms. A paid version offers more data, but the free version is a great place to get the ball rolling!
- Ubersuggest: A great tool for keyword research, Ubersuggest shows the search volume for a keyword, or domain, the top ranked pages for that term, and even suggests content ideas.
- Title Generator: Going the random route may not always be the direct way, but this title generator comes up with 700 prospective post titles to get your idea generation back on track.
Social Media
Your brand or organization should use social media to convert users to your website, and extend the reach of your site’s content beyond dedicated users. However, creating and fine tuning a social media strategy that optimizes timing and impact of content can be tricky. We personally use Buffer to organize our social content, but a number of paid and unpaid services are also available to aide your social strategy including:
- HootSuite: Offering a host of plans, ranging from the most basic free plan for 3 social channels, to a $599/mo. for up to 35 channels, HootSuite allows you to schedule posts across multiple social media platforms, and features tools for analytics, and content curation.
- TweetDeck: A free and simple platform that consolidates your Twitter feed, notifications, and direct messages, that also allows you to schedule Tweets in advance without a paid software.
- Native Analytics: It might seem obvious, but native analytics tools like Facebook Analytics come with the account, and offer helpful insights on engagement, and content performance.
- FollowerWonk Analyze: This free Twitter tool produces reports on both an account’s followers, and those it follows with key metrics like active hours of followers, and social authority.
This list is just the tip of the iceberg, and if none of them suit your fancy, the good thing is there are always more to be found! Come back to our blog for more marketing and development insights.