For the vast majority of brands online today, content creation remains the most important element to improving SEO outcomes, brand awareness and sales. As an increasing amount of competition continues to appear in every niche, brands must strive to produce as much relevant, quality and entertaining content as possible to remain in their audiences’ good graces.

Many people who create content may have specific workflow processes for doing so, but those who are new to the game may not know where to begin. In order to produce quality content in a reliably consistent fashion, you need to understand the process from start to finish. Below, we’ll talk about each step that should be a part of your content creation process.

The Idea Stage

Before you can begin to bring any great content to life, it must start with an idea. This is sometimes the most difficult part of the process for content creators. Whether you’re writing a blog post or putting together a video interview, you need to carefully consider what elements you’ll be pinging users with in the content.

What are the main points you wish to cover? How will you structure the content to appeal to readers? Are there any special considerations that need to be made for a specific audience? This brainstorming session of sorts – when done properly – can help ensure that content lives up to its potential.

The Creation Stage

Once you have carefully articulated all the main points to be covered in your content, the process then shifts to the actual creation stage. In this part of content creation, you must physically work to put each piece of puzzle together. Whether this involves graphic design, creative writing or thorough journalism can vary, but it is truly the proverbial meat and potatoes of content creation.

If you have planned out the content well, this part of the process will almost seem robotic in nature; you know what you have to do, and now you are doing it.

The Publication Stage

Once your content has been created, the process then turns to publication and promotion. It is not enough to merely create content and make it visible: you need to ensure you’re pinging users with as many notifications about it as possible. While this doesn’t mean spam people with unwanted plugs, it does mean that you must effectively market the content.

This can be done in any number of ways: from email marketing and search engine ad campaigns to organic posts on social media and shares on Reddit. By getting the word out as much as possible, the content is more likely to generate a successful outcome for your brand.

The Monitoring Stage

Last but definitely not least, the monitoring stage of content creation is when you take a step back and observe how your content performs. It is not enough to develop a great content idea, turn it into an actual piece and then promote it: you need to know how and if your efforts are payingoff.

One of the most common ways to monitor your content’s progress and success is to use analytics to measure the number of likes, shares, clicks and overall engagements it generates. This will help you slowly but surely make correlations between various content types, styles and themes and the amount of engagement they generate – which helps you craft better content in the future.

Content creation takes time and patience, but knowing the steps involved can help you get the most value from it. What are some of the biggest struggles you have faced while creating new content? Tell us below about your most frustrating experiences.