13 Content Marketing Best Practices to Boost Results

Content marketing best practices include using measurable goals, diversifying formats, and collaborating with subject matter experts. Adopt these standard processes to get more value from your content marketing.

Publishing without a clear content marketing strategy isn’t likely to get you very far.

Sure, you might create some great pieces. But what goals are you achieving? Is your content truly moving the needle for your business?

Whether you’re a content marketing expert or beginner, incorporating current best practices into your strategy will keep your content sharp, relevant, and focused on results.

Establishing a strong framework for strategy, creation, optimization, and analytics is the key to achieving long-term success.  After all, the ultimate goal is to attract the right people, build trust, and convert visitors into loyal customers.

Here, we’ll share the top content marketing best practices for digital marketers, as well as some rookie mistakes to avoid.

To deliver exclusive insider tips, we’ve enlisted the expertise of two HawkSEM team members: Caroline Cox, senior content marketing manager, and Josie Rojewski, content marketing writer.

To truly succeed, you need a well-defined content marketing strategy with clear, measurable goals. (Image: Unsplash)

13 content marketing best practices

Ready to see maximum return on investment (ROI) from your content marketing?

From boosting visibility and driving organic traffic to amplifying brand awareness and accelerating growth, here’s how to leverage your content to achieve your business goals this year and beyond:

1. Start with measurable goals

Hitting “publish” on new content and hoping the views roll in isn’t going to cut it. To maximize the value of your content, you need a well-defined content marketing strategy with clear, measurable goals.

Here are a few goals to consider:

• Increase brand awareness
• Generate more leads
• Boost organic traffic
• Book more calls
• Drive more sales

Once you zero in on precisely what you want to accomplish, you can create content to achieve these goals. This sets the stage for targeted content creation and simplifies performance monitoring along the way.

That’s why the most successful content marketing campaigns have a well-defined goal map complete with actionable steps to get there (aka strategy).

And once you hit those goals, keep raising the bar by setting new ones.

2. Track performance

Content goals? Check. Now, how do you know if you’ve hit them?

According to Cox: “Keeping an eye on your content performance and user behavior on your site tells you a lot about what is and isn’t resonating with your audience.”

This is why giving your content a purpose is so important. With clear objectives, you can track your content’s performance and determine whether it’s meeting your expectations.

This helps you identify areas of improvement, optimize your content strategy, and ultimately drive traffic and results.

ConversionIQ, for example, makes this easier by syncing all of your data from Google Ads analytics, Bing, HubSpot, and more, into one user-friendly dashboard. The more accessible your metrics, the more quickly you can optimize and refine your strategy.

So what metrics should you use to measure your content’s success?

Cox recommends looking at elements like traffic, SERP rankings, and new-and-improved keyword rankings.

“This helps frame our strategy by illustrating what topics we may want to create more content on, which pages deserve a revisit or refresh, and which keywords resonate with our audience most,” she says.

3. Know your audience

Effective content marketing is about drawing in the audience most likely to connect with your brand, ultimately leading to increased engagement and sales.

To do so, you need a crystal-clear understanding of your ideal customer or client.

Collaborate with your marketing team and hone in on who your people are.

• What are their demographics?
• How about their interests?
• What are their pain points and goals?
• What technology do they use?

Use these questions to clarify your ideal customer profile (ICP). Then, develop buyer personas that paint a clear picture of the audience you want to target and their buyer’s journey.

Cox says, “The most important factor in quality content marketing is providing the reader with real value, whether that’s answering a question, educating them, helping them solve a problem, or something more.”

With a clear understanding of who that reader is, you’ll be able to create content that effectively resonates with and engages them.

4. Establish a brand personality

Your brand personality represents the soul of your brand. It embodies your values, mission, personality, and unique selling proposition (USP). It also differentiates your business from the competition.

By aligning your content with your brand identity, you can create a cohesive message that resonates with your target audience and builds an emotional connection. It also provides a framework for all your future marketing campaigns.

Here are some questions to ask when developing your brand personality:

• What’s our mission, and what values do we embody?
• How are we different from our competitors?
• What tone and personality should we convey in our content and marketing campaigns?
• What are the main benefits of our offerings?
• Which channels and platforms does our target audience use to consume content?
• How can we tailor our content to their preferences?

Once you’ve got your brand identity solidified, create content guidelines that serve as a blueprint for every piece of content you create. This will keep all your new content consistent and in line with your branding.

5. Study the competition

Keep an eye on your competitors to gain insights into their strategies, tactics, and messaging. This allows you to understand what other businesses in your niche are doing and identify opportunities to differentiate your brand.

To be clear: the goal isn’t copying their strategy. Instead, it’s taking note of elements that work for them and finding areas where your brand can stand out..

Here’s a good starting point for what to survey:

• What topics do they cover that your brand can cover differently or better?
• Do you see gaps in their content that you can capitalize on to differentiate yourself?
• How do they use their content to reach a similar target audience?
• What’s something you like in their strategy that you can apply to your content while still maintaining your unique brand identity?
• Do they miss the mark anywhere? Perhaps some of their audience spends time on Instagram, but they’re not marketing there. Time to get ‘gramming!

By learning from your competition’s successes and mistakes, you can elevate your content marketing strategy and drive superior results.

6. Stay consistent

Publishing content consistently is essential for achieving authority, trust, engagement, and loyalty.

Regularly delivering high-quality content that’s relevant, valuable, and engaging helps you create a sense of reliability and dependability. This practice not only expands your reach but also fosters deeper engagement and loyalty.

From a content marketing standpoint, consistency includes four primary factors:

1. Routinely creating content for your target audience
2. Maintaining a uniform brand voice and tone in every piece of content
3. Publishing content on the same platforms regularly
4. Covering topics that align with your brand offerings

As you gain momentum and your audience grows, you can establish your brand as a thought leader and industry authority. You’ll grow a loyal audience base that looks forward to your insights and perspectives.

Pro tip: Create a content calendar to help you hit your marketing goals and ensure that your content aligns with your brand identity, messaging, and objectives, while also maintaining a regular publishing schedule. In this editorial calendar, include content formats, intent, and templates for every piece of content.

7. Diversify content formats

From long-form blog posts to quick social media updates to short-form videos, content creators have a wealth of options at their disposal.

So, is it better to master one or two mediums or diversify your content efforts across multiple channels? The decision to focus on one or multiple content types ultimately depends on your goals, resources, and audience preferences. 

For example, a B2B company might see better results with LinkedIn posts and case studies. A B2C brand is more likely to succeed with Instagram and TikTok content.

That said, we aren’t fans of putting all your content eggs in one basket. This could leave you vulnerable to changes in audience preferences or shifts in the market.

While it’s good to focus on types of content that work best for your brand and audience, experimenting with different formats and channels keeps you agile and adaptable.

“Staying in the loop when it comes to your audience and industry is important,” says Cox.

“As a busy marketer, it helps me to subscribe to a handful of industry newsletters so I can always be on top of the latest developments and trends.”

Remember, you’re writing for people, not just search engines. (Image: Adobe Stock)

8. Integrate solid SEO

Content marketing and SEO are two sides of the same coin, working together to help you achieve your marketing goals and drive success for your business.

Incorporating both practices into your marketing strategy creates a more holistic approach to attracting, engaging, and converting your target audience.

The problem is, all the other brands are attempting to do the same thing. So, how can you ensure your content ranks higher than theirs on relevant SERPs?

Conduct keyword research for your niche

If you were your ideal customer, what would you type into Google? Say your audience searches for “affordable painters near me,” and you’re a local painting company. What other queries pop up in Google’s related searches and “People Also Ask”?

Chances are high that those related queries revolve around a problem that you can solve, such as “How can I reduce the cost of painting?”

Answer that question with a blog post, and guide them to your affordable services as a solution, along with other cost-saving tips.

Create uniquely valuable content that goes beyond self-promotion

Although you want to build awareness about your offerings, you don’t want to sell too hard.

The most effective content marketing is all about providing value and subtly promoting your services between all that value. Most of the information you provide shouldn’t be self-promotional.

This will build enough trust for you to artfully add a tasteful call-to-action (CTA) for your company.

Set a minimum content length

Google’s sweet spot for good content sits at about 1,500-2,500 words. Why? Because that’s about how much space you need to cover a topic comprehensively.

When in doubt, choose quality over quantity. You’ll see better results by devoting a long-form format to a topic than pumping out a bunch of thin content.

Be careful with over-optimizing your content

Keyword stuffing — cramming a bunch of keywords into content — is a worst practice for SEO.

Remember, you’re writing for people, not just search engines. Cox says that one of the biggest mistakes she sees businesses make in developing their content marketing is focusing too much on writing for search engines rather than people.

“Writing for search engines first might seem like a good practice,” she says. “After all, better visibility means more traffic, right? But in the long run, it won’t help you stand the test of time or help you beat competitors who are putting real readers first.”

Of course, “keywords and backlinks are important,” Cox states. ”But they shouldn’t come at the expense of crafting a readable, quality piece of writing that sounds conversational rather than robotic.”

In other words, the key is finding the right balance between SEO optimization and creating high-quality content that delivers genuine value to your audience.

9. Revamp existing content

Publishing new content is great. But you should optimize existing content, too.

To stay ahead of the competition, you need to continuously adapt your content marketing strategy to changes in customer behavior, demand, and search engine algorithms.

“The top way to keep your content relevant and effective is to plan for regular content audits and refreshes,” Cox explains.

“This way, you can update, expand, and even combine content to ensure that what’s on your site is as accurate, relevant, and timely as possible.”

Look at your existing content and add new updates to links, statistics, research, and industry findings.

By optimizing older pieces, you can anticipate:

• Better search engine rankings
• Increased engagement
• Better ROI
• Enhanced authority and credibility
• Improved customer retention

The best content marketers constantly seek ways to evolve and improve their approach. So always be ready to pivot.

10. Monitor search engine algorithm changes

Search engines like Google regularly update their algorithms. This can affect how your content ranks and the outcomes it generates. As a result, even the best content marketing strategies need reworking from time to time.

For example, a Google algorithm update may prompt you to add more first-hand experience to your content, leverage subject matter experts, or avoid using AI tools to write content.

To stay on top of these changes, use tools like:

• Google Search Status Dashboard: This official list of Google updates provides real-time information on the status and duration of any major or minor changes.
• Google Search Central: This official X account shares timely information about Google updates with links that provide more details.
• Semrush Sensor: This Semrush tool monitors SERP volatility and provides data on affected SERP features.

11. Collaborate with subject matter experts

Expertise is a core component of Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines, which consider experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness when rating the quality of your content.

One of the most effective ways to incorporate expertise into your content is including insights and quotes from people who can speak authoritatively on the topic. These subject matter experts could include:

• Members of your company’s executive team
• Colleagues with deep experience
• External experts with proven experience

Interviewing subject matter experts is an art and a science. “Something I always recommend when working with subject matter experts is to frame your questions in a way that asks them about their experience with the subject, not just the subject itself,” Rojewski suggests.

She explains that great content always starts with independent research. But “your subject matter expert’s personal experience is going to be the element that no other piece has. It’s what can help your article cross the line into thought leadership rather than commenting on established best practices.”

12. Use AI tools strategically

AI tools can be a tricky topic for content marketers. By definition, generative AI tools can’t produce completely original content. So if you want to create valuable content that stands out on the SERPs, AI may seem like a no-go.

However, AI tools can be hugely helpful with certain steps of your content marketing workflow. For example, Rojewski suggests considering AI tools for ideation and outlining. You might also use AI-powered tools for keyword research or competitive analysis.

But she advises approaching these tools with caution. “I definitely recommend keeping in mind that these tools are trained by content that already exists. It’s uber important not to directly cut and paste any AI-generated paragraphs,” Rojewski explains.

In addition, she encourages content marketers to oversee AI production carefully. “It’s a great way to get to the meat of an idea, but expressing the idea in your own voice as a writer is paramount. These tools aren’t a replacement for the human eye.”

13. Distribute content across marketing channels

Publishing great content is just one step in any content strategy. To maximize the reach of your content and hit other important goals, you should also take time to distribute everything you produce.

For example, suppose you publish a great blog post with the intention of attracting search traffic. To drive even more traffic, distribute it by:

• Sharing a link to the post on your social media stories
• Turning the post into an infographic or social media carousel
• Adding a summary of the post to your email marketing newsletter
• Discussing key points from the article in a podcast or YouTube video

Keep track of analytics for each content distribution channel. Then, use this data to guide your content marketing strategy and determine where to invest your team’s time and resources.

Why do content marketing best practices matter?

A successful content marketing strategy sets up your business for long-term, sustainable growth by:

• Building trust and authority with your audience
• Boosting SEO and driving organic traffic
• Amplifying brand loyalty and thought leadership
• Increasing lead generation and conversion rates
• Maximizing your ROI through measurable growth

A well-executed content marketing strategy can be the secret weapon that sets your brand apart from the competition. You’ll have a roadmap to create a captivating online presence that engages your audience and drives growth for your business.

The downside? Mastering successful content marketing doesn’t come naturally to everyone. But we’ve got the intel to help you kickstart your content strategy.

Familiarize yourself with these 13 content marketing best practices, and you’ll be able to overcome obstacles and achieve measurable success in no time.

Pitfalls to avoid in content marketing

Following content marketing best practices can be a game-changer for elevating your brand. If you’re a content marketing newbie, though, it’s easy to fall into some common traps that can stunt your business’s growth and reputation.

To help you achieve success in your content marketing efforts, here are a few faux pas to avoid.

Publishing low-quality content

One mistake Cox often sees businesses make is focusing on quantity over quality.

“Experience tells me it’s better to spend time publishing fewer high-quality, thorough, well-researched pieces of content than a ton of short, hastily-written pieces of fluff that don’t really help the reader.”

The former, she adds, will do a much better job of helping you gain brand authority and consumer trust.

Prioritizing SEO over quality

Optimizing your content for search engines is crucial for reaching the right audience, driving engagement, and lead generation.

But Cox warns, “While search engine results page visibility is important, it’s the quality and value of your content that keeps readers on the page and wanting to know more, rather than bouncing to the next search result.”

Not enlisting the pros

If your in-house team doesn’t have a content expert with the skills or bandwidth to craft high-quality content efficiently, then hiring a content marketer or outsourcing to an agency can allow your businesses to create high-quality content while saving time and resources for other tasks.

Cox says there are pros and cons to outsourcing. For one, you may pay less in the long run, but you may be limited in communication, revisions, and reliability.

While in-house writers are more of an investment, it lets you work closely with writers to ensure they stay consistent, garnering in-depth knowledge of your content style, target audience, and overall marketing goals.

Rojewski explains, “What makes working with an agency successful boils down to building and nurturing relationships. Not every agency is going to be a perfect fit, so look for one that puts in an effort to understand your brand, voice, and goals.”

The takeaway

By mastering these content marketing best practices, you can build your brand, expand your reach, and establish a strong and enduring online presence that translates to more revenue.

Prefer to take the guesswork out of content marketing? Together, we can create a winning strategy that blends creativity and data-driven insights to craft content that can’t be ignored. Let’s talk!

This article has been updated and was originally published in May 2023.