Key Takeaway: In his presentation, "Designing a Content Engine: Going from Ideation to Creation to Distribution", Ross Simmonds defines content as the foundation of culture and the internet. It is readily available and it’s important to ensure you have a content culture to create assets that the audience wants and embraces.
Evaluate Your Content Portfolio
A tweet isn’t just a tweet. A Youtube video isn’t just a video.
In order to make great content you need to: remix, revise, remove and redirect your content portfolio.
- If the content generates x # of backlinks or traffic and needs work, revise it.
- If the content generates x # of backlinks or traffic and doesn’t need to be revised, redirect it.
- If the content doesn’t generate x # of backlinks or traffic, but is still valuable, republish it.
- If the content doesn’t generate x # of backlinks or traffic, but isn’t valuable, remove it.
Pro Tip: Check out our guide to auditing your site’s content based on the top SEO factors.
Pieces of content that generate tons of links are tools, definitions, stats, and research.
Content Creation
Brands, don’t limit your own content, take a look at what other industries and brands are doing. A few ways to do this is to reverse engineer early success from past blogs, Youtube videos, the results page, and just out of the place of curiosity.
💡 Pro tip: Study the sitemaps of your favorite sites, you’ll find hidden gems.
Google is changing the way we view and receive information-- Google is becoming the destination. To combat this, create better content than Wikipedia.
Wikipedia content is directly on the SERP. If you reverse engineer Wikipedia pages to identify related content you can create digestible user-friendly content to compete with.
Bring old content back with a modern touch (revise), you can update the date of a post even without making content updates if the topic is still relevant.
Next Step, Distribution
When you press publish the job is just beginning, what’s next is distribution. With ad costs up, limited budget and SERP features, content distribution and SEO are key.
A few easy ways to distribute content is to:
- Reshare: followers change, don’t be afraid to reshare past posts
- Repost: content to new places and new niche audiences such as Facebook Groups and Subreddits
If the content isn’t resonating well with your site, republish as a guest blog or on Medium.
Don’t be afraid to remix content into assets and experiment.
Disney created a bunch of flops, but we always remember the hits!
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