Publishing content is an important marketing tactic that is employed increasingly by businesses and marketers alike.

Publishing quality content relevant to your niche is one of the most effective ways to attract visitors to your website and establish your expertise within your field. It is also one of the best ways to push up your Google ranking.

But creating and distributing content is time-consuming. It is thus important to make sure you do it right and get the most out of your content.

In this article we will take a look at seven simple things you must do before your publish your content. This will improve the quality of your content and boost your results.

 1. Check Your Title With Google Keyword Tool

Google Keyword Tool is a popular tool used to find keywords based on actual Google search queries. It is one of the most popular and widely used keyword research tools. In addition to its usefulness in planning your SEO strategy, it can prove very effective in content marketing. I use it to get new ideas and topics to write about.

Another area where I find this tool very effective is for refining my titles before I publish content whether it a blog post, article or tutorial. This allows me to choose titles that users are actually searching for.

2. Make Sure Your Title is Compelling

The title of your content is one of the most important elements and plays a significant part in determining its success. Anattention grabbing title helps to grab the attention of readers and ensures your content is read. Readers tend to scan online content as opposed to reading each and every word from start to finish. This is why good formatting is essential for the success of your content. Formatting your content with paragraphs, sub-headings, bullets, bold and italics where relevant improves readability and makes it easy for readers to scan through your content.

3. Make Sure To Included An Image

Including media, images or other relevant graphics in your content improves quality and makes your content more appealing for readers. Images also help to break up large chunks of text and make your content easier to digest.

I highly recommend including at least one image in all content you whether it is an information page to promote your products or a blog post. It is also better to avoid the usual stock images if possible as they are easily distinguishable and are impersonal.

If you don’t already use Flickr, you must give it a try. It is an excellent site for sourcing images for your content and there is a wide variety to choose from. The images are taken by people like you and me so they tend to be more personal and can have a better impact when added to your content.

Most importantly, most of the images are available under the Creative Commons License which means you are free to use them in your content as long as you give due credit to the owner of the image.

4. Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

Including information from other sources including quotes, facts and figures makes improves the overall quality of your content and makes it more valuable for readers. However, it is essential to give necessary credits where it is due whether is an idea that you came across on a blog or the results of study that is relevant to your topic. Many publishers make the mistake of not giving due credit or referencing the source.

Proper citation and credits are essential in all forms of online publishing. It makes you come across as professional and adds credibility to your content. But most importantly, it helps to avoid plagiarism. Images are one area where lack of proper citation is most evident. It often results in copyright infringement cases that ultimately result in fines.

Here are some examples of items that require citation:

• Direct Quotes
• Statistics, Facts and Figures
• References to Studies, Research and Report
• Theories and methodologies
• Images, graphs, illustrations

5. Check Google To See Topic is Not Covered to Death

It is also important for your content to be detailed and unique. While it is not always possible to cover a topic that has never been covered, at the least you can make sure the exact same topic has not been covered hundreds of times on other websites.

When covering a popular topic, try to provide a different viewpoint or cover it from a new angle. This should also be reflected in the title you choose. I have come across content before that provides a new spin to an existing topic but because the title is identical to others; many users may never get around to reading it.

Before publishing my content, I find it very useful to type my title in Google and looking at the results. This only takes a minute. This gives me an idea if the same topic has been covered several times and how I can make mine different.

6. Share It On Social Media

Content will only be useful if others know about it. No matter how relevant your content is for your intended audience, it is not likely to provide much benefit if no one knows about it. Sharing content with others on social networks is a simple and effective way to let others know of your content. It can be a very effective way to attract readers. Even if you don’t have many followers you need not worry. Good content on social media has a high potential to go viral as it gets shared, liked or retweeted by other users.

You may want to use third-party social media dashboards such as HootSuite to share your content to all social networks you use at once to save time of having to do it separately on each network.

7.  Don’t Forget to Proofread

This is one of the most basic quality checks that everyone already know about. Nevertheless, it is often overlooked. I come across sites everyday with spelling or grammatical errors. It only takes one typo for your branding and quality perception to be negatively affected. You don’t have to hire a proofreader to do this. Simply spending an extra 5 to 10 minutes to review your content before hitting publish or sending it out for distribution should be sufficient.

This is also a good time to go through your checklist and add images, relevant links, or make further tweaks to add further value to your content. Most text editors have built-in spelling and grammar checks that you can use. Alternatively there are many free web based tools that you can use for further testing.

Conclusion:

Publishing quality content on a regular basis is important if you want to promote your business and get more visibility for your website. In order to be successful, your content needs to be of the highest quality. The simple tips above can help you to achieve this.

What About You?

Do you publish content regularly? Are you taking advantage of the tips above? What methods do you use to ensure quality?  Please add your response by leaving a comment below.