Content creation can sometimes feel like a production mill. In many situations, the goal quickly becomes one of creating as much content as possible in as little time as possible. With so many competitors on the web seeking to rank in the same search engines and perform well among audiences on social media, the strain and stress don’t take long to overwhelm you. Because of this, we often end up rushing through the creation process and hurriedly publish content before giving it a second thought. Before you publish your content, though, it’s a good idea to inspect a few key elements. We’ll talk about those today.

Check for Keywords

Great content is the key to exposure, strong search engine performance and user engagement. With that being said, there are dozens of other variables that can impact performance as well. Keyword dispersion throughout your content should be a prime concern in each and every post. Not only do you want to see keywords throughout the body and content itself, but also in key places such as your headings and subheadings. In fact, placement of keywords in headings and subheadings is much more important than keyword inclusion throughout the body.

Connect Your Content

If you are pinging users with a fairly consistent theme, then there are likely several other articles and blog posts from you that can be referenced throughout your new piece of content. By including as many as possible throughout each piece of content, you can be sure to build better link practices at the same time that search engines are making associations about your website. Especially when dealing with search engines, these links can provide immense value for SEO efforts – whether you’re linking internally, to other websites, or both (ideal).

Verify Target Audience

It’s very important to remember that you are writing for an audience. Without an audience to support your work, everything else falls by the wayside. If you are incredibly passionate – or, ironically, not at all passionate – about the subject you’re covering, then it can be all too easy to fall out of character and begin writing content that doesn’t resonate with your target audience. You want to ensure that your style, multimedia, perspective and other critical elements of content creation all fit with your target audience’s preferences. Don’t publish until you’ve double-checked!

Compel Readers to Act

Last but not least, any good piece of content should in some way compel readers to act. Whether this takes the form of a subscription, a comment, a share or something else is entirely up to you, but calls to action are critical components of content in the modern day. Pinging users with CTAs can help you accomplish anything from increased exposure to a boost in sales.

From building better links to asking readers to engage, you want to ensure your content is optimized. Join us tomorrow, where we’ll cover 4 more elements to check before publishing your content, and let us know in the comments what you always check for before publishing anything!