Tips on Creating Written Pieces for Content Marketing

Basic strategy components on creating content

Lately we’ve been discussing the subject of content marketing and how its fundamental elements may change the way aspects of marketing are perceived by large groups of people. In fact, I feel anyone exposed to content marketing will be impressed by its ability to engage and inform, and more importantly, its willingness to offer valuable content for free.

In order to join the ranks of successful content marketers you will have to create great content and learn how to spread it throughout the internet. Using multiple platforms (written, audio, video, etc.) is one method of diversifying your content and interesting viewers. A great way of spreading your content involves utilizing your SEO skills to organically increase your content’s visibility in search engines.

When it comes to the your actual content, put your best material forward, on whichever medium or mediums you decide to use.

Recently, I’ve been asked about specifics for content marketing, mainly pertaining to the written content used in blogs. So, for any curious mind, allow me to elaborate…

Writing tips for content marketing

-Length

The length of an average article for content marketing should be 500-600 words. There is no real benefit in creating longer pieces, although you may need more words to tell your story successfully. If you are familiar with Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, then you are aware of the notion that the human attention span is decreasing as modern technology, especially television, increases. If you are a believer in this theory, 500-600 word articles should remain your focus.

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-Headline.

The average blog post headline cannot handle more than 5 keyword phrases. The number of 5 keyword phrases is even a bit much for headlines. I rarely see headlines with more than 2 keyword phrases in it. Due to this, an article between 500 and 600 words should be long enough to incorporate your keyword phrases to receive a keyword density of around 3%. Not only will you have a reasonably sized post, but it will also be keyword rich, so search engines will have a better chance of ranking it higher up the list.

-Headline Related Items.

These items are related to the headline and hold a great amount of importance when it comes to searches on that content. The URL, H1 (main headline), H2 (subhead), Meta Title, Meta Description, Keywords and Tags make up the bulk of these items. The more words in the phrases being searched for by the user, the more importance found in these headline related factors.

Additional Factors

Written content marketing pieces rely on some other key components in order to be found by search engines, and then users. Internal links from index pages, as well as links from other posts, user comments and inbound links from other reputable websites with strong page ranks will also help greatly.

You now have some tips on creating written pieces for your content marketing needs. Keep a consistency of strong content, keyword-rich pieces, and a variety of mediums. Top this off with organic promotion and you’ll experience the ability to reach your niche audience.

For more on content marketing, including the seven-step system for successful content marketing strategies, join our Content Marketing 2010 webinar on April 13th at 12:30 ET.