SEO

11 Tips For Building An Exceptional Content Marketing Team

Published

2 years ago

January 5, 2022

11 Tips For Building An Exceptional Content Marketing Team

When companies are craving long-term, sustainable growth, they need to think about content marketing.

Content marking is knowing how, when, and where to publish, how to organize information online with the purpose of reaching a specific audience, understanding SEO, incentivizing profitable customer action, and so much more.

And it takes a blend of marketing knowledge, artistry and creativity, and content talent to bring it all together.

How do you build out an exceptional content marketing team – one designed and equipped to meet your organization’s content marketing goals and needs?

Put these 11 tips to work for you as you build yours.

1. Determine Your Marketing Objectives

Knowing your “why” or the vision is the most crucial step in your marketing strategy as this is how your company will promote itself to the public.

It’s also important to set goals for your content marketing program, which will help align the team, understand the purpose, and measure progress and success.

This is also an important first step as it’s the backbone of building the best team to execute the strategy and objective. It’s going to be awfully tough to get top talent to buy into your vision if you aren’t quite sure what it is yourself.

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2. Start From The Top

In large organizations, two important leadership roles are the Chief Content Officer (or also known as Director of Content Marketing) and the Content Marketing Manager.

The Chief Content Officer (CCO) is the person who oversees every facet of the content program to ensure that the company’s content marketing strategy is on point and meeting its business goals. This role is the backbone of the team, as the decisions and hiring will trickle down from here.
The Content Marketing Manager will report to the Chief Content Officer. This person focuses on laying out the roadmap for the team once the vision and/or strategy have been defined.

In smaller companies, these roles might be combined into one.

The Chief Content Officer and the Content Marketing Manager will then further define the job roles and a formal structure for what the team should look like.

This will help the hiring process and recruiting for these specific roles, not to mention keeping the team organized and on track.

3. Document Processes

In order for the content marketing team (or any team for that matter) to be successful, companies must document working processes and “standard operating procedures” or SOPs.

Without solid documentation, attempts to scale your content marketing team will result in chaos and unsure ownership and responsibility.

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Standard operating procedures provide your team a set of go-to instructions to guide their efforts so you can easily replicate successes and scale your content marketing campaigns.

4. Know Your Style

Establish the tone of voice, writing style, and messaging preferences that will be carried throughout your content.

Have a style guide and document the tone of voice and communication style so every person on the content marketing team represents the brand with the same integrity, values, and tone.

This is an important part of ensuring that each and every prospective customer has a similar experience with your brand.

It will also help you determine whether content team candidates are a good fit, as you compare their portfolio and writing style against your own.

Learn more about how to create a style guide (with examples).

5. An Editor Is Everything

The content editor is responsible for developing and implementing processes that ensure content quality and keep the brand out of hot water with copyright issues.

They edit the content so it is as clear, concise, engaging, and close to error-free as possible.

Editors also provide direction to the writers to ensure that each piece of content meets its objectives.

Look for an editor who is organized, meticulous, punctual, and proactive.

6. Keep Innovating With A Content Strategist

In smaller organizations, ongoing content strategy and planning might be handled by the Content Marketing Manager or Director.

This content professional has their finger on the pulse of your industry’s competitive landscape.

They are constantly considering and testing new content types and formats.

The content strategist brainstorms, ideates, and challenges the status quo. They’re always on the hunt for gaps in your customers’ journey and innovative content to fill it.

When larger companies look to hire a content strategist, they should search for someone who knows how to create exceptional content, has a big picture view of the industry, and understands the vision for the company’s future.

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7. Prioritize Brand Design

Hiring a designer for your content marketing team is crucial.

Research has found that 65% of the general population are visional learners, meaning they need to see information in order to retain it.

Furthermore, studies have shown that the brain can process images and videos 60,000 times faster than text, so it’s important that you have a designer on hand to create high-quality visuals to augment your written content.

The best content tells a story that evokes an emotional reaction or entices your site visitor to take action. Design is an essential element in creating those experiences.

8. Hire Experienced Writers Who Care

The best writers are also gifted researchers, so you don’t necessarily need to find a writer with a lengthy portfolio in your exact topic.

But it’s critical that you find writers who are passionate about the topic in order to create authentic, exceptional content.

According to Matthew Brew, Head of Marketing at EduMe,

“In-house content resources are crucial. Writing is very revealing – you can read someone’s level of interest in what they’re writing about. That’s why you need people all in on your mission to be true brand guardians, to really embody (or craft) your tone of voice.”

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Whether you’re building an in-house team or hiring through an agency, seek out writers who believe in the company’s mission and content strategy.

9. Diversify Your Team

Each person on your content team will have their strengths and weaknesses.

For example, some writers are great at producing highly informative and educated pieces, but may lack humor and cannot produce satire, and vice versa.

Your customer base is diverse and your content team should be, too.

Have content team members inventory their interests, strengths, and weaknesses. Use these insights to inform future job postings and seek out talent with complementary skills and attributes.

10. Define Career Paths For Ambitious & Motivated Team Members

Ensure there are pathways for advancement on your team. Perhaps an individual starts as a writer; how can they become an editor, then a Content Marketing Manager?

What skills will they need to develop, and how will you ensure they have the time and resources to do so?

Make sure your team is constantly growing as individuals and know that they are valued enough for internal promotions and opportunities.

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Promoting internally tends to cost less than hiring externally, and creates organizational loyalty and a higher employee retention rate, as well.

11. Face-To-Face Training & Communication Are Important

New hires need real-time communication and training, whether through video conferencing or in person.

People will get to know individuals much better when you can hear their voices and see their facial expressions versus communicating through chat or by phone.

Asynchronous training videos can help team members in different timezones get up to speed, but it’s important to make time for regular 1-on-1s between managers and their direct reports.

Regular team meetings can help keep everyone connected and moving in the same direction, as well.

Building out a content marketing team can be daunting, but the payoffs are well worth it.

When you have a cohesive, energized team constantly pulling in the same direction and turning out their best works in your company’s name, you’ll realize your content goals – and then some.

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Featured Image: Pits vec/Shutterstock

Related Topics:building Content Exceptional Marketing Team tips

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SEO

brightonSEO Live Blog

Published

16 hours ago

April 25, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Hello everyone. It’s April again, so I’m back in Brighton for another two days of ~~sun~~, sea, and SEO!

Being the introvert I am, my idea of fun isn’t hanging around our booth all day explaining we’ve run out of t-shirts (seriously, you need to be fast if you want swag!). So I decided to do something useful and live-blog the event instead.

Follow below for talk takeaways and (very) mildly humorous commentary.

SEO

Google Further Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation In Chrome

Published

19 hours ago

April 25, 2024

Max

Close-up of a document with a grid and a red stamp that reads "delayed" over the word "status" due to Chrome's deprecation of third-party cookies.

Google has again delayed its plan to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser. The latest postponement comes after ongoing challenges in reconciling feedback from industry stakeholders and regulators.

The announcement was made in Google and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) joint quarterly report on the Privacy Sandbox initiative, scheduled for release on April 26.

Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Phaseout Pushed To 2025

Google states it “will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4” this year as planned.

Instead, the tech giant aims to begin deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome “starting early next year,” assuming an agreement can be reached with the CMA and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The statement reads:

“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.”

Continued Engagement With Regulators

Google reiterated its commitment to “engaging closely with the CMA and ICO” throughout the process and hopes to conclude discussions this year.

This marks the third delay to Google’s plan to deprecate third-party cookies, initially aiming for a Q3 2023 phaseout before pushing it back to late 2024.

The postponements reflect the challenges in transitioning away from cross-site user tracking while balancing privacy and advertiser interests.

Transition Period & Impact

In January, Chrome began restricting third-party cookie access for 1% of users globally. This percentage was expected to gradually increase until 100% of users were covered by Q3 2024.

However, the latest delay gives websites and services more time to migrate away from third-party cookie dependencies through Google’s limited “deprecation trials” program.

The trials offer temporary cookie access extensions until December 27, 2024, for non-advertising use cases that can demonstrate direct user impact and functional breakage.

While easing the transition, the trials have strict eligibility rules. Advertising-related services are ineligible, and origins matching known ad-related domains are rejected.

Google states the program aims to address functional issues rather than relieve general data collection inconveniences.

Publisher & Advertiser Implications

The repeated delays highlight the potential disruption for digital publishers and advertisers relying on third-party cookie tracking.

Industry groups have raised concerns that restricting cross-site tracking could push websites toward more opaque privacy-invasive practices.

However, privacy advocates view the phaseout as crucial in preventing covert user profiling across the web.

With the latest postponement, all parties have more time to prepare for the eventual loss of third-party cookies and adopt Google’s proposed Privacy Sandbox APIs as replacements.

Featured Image: Novikov Aleksey/Shutterstock

SEO

How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results

Published

2 days ago

April 24, 2024

Max

How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results

ChatGPT is a game changer in the field of SEO. This powerful language model can generate human-like content, making it an invaluable tool for SEO professionals.

However, the prompts you provide largely determine the quality of the output.

To unlock the full potential of ChatGPT and create content that resonates with your audience and search engines, writing effective prompts is crucial.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the art of writing prompts for ChatGPT, covering everything from basic techniques to advanced strategies for layering prompts and generating high-quality, SEO-friendly content.

Writing Prompts For ChatGPT

What Is A ChatGPT Prompt?

A ChatGPT prompt is an instruction or discussion topic a user provides for the ChatGPT AI model to respond to.

The prompt can be a question, statement, or any other stimulus to spark creativity, reflection, or engagement.

Users can use the prompt to generate ideas, share their thoughts, or start a conversation.

ChatGPT prompts are designed to be open-ended and can be customized based on the user’s preferences and interests.

How To Write Prompts For ChatGPT

Start by giving ChatGPT a writing prompt, such as, “Write a short story about a person who discovers they have a superpower.”

ChatGPT will then generate a response based on your prompt. Depending on the prompt’s complexity and the level of detail you requested, the answer may be a few sentences or several paragraphs long.

Use the ChatGPT-generated response as a starting point for your writing. You can take the ideas and concepts presented in the answer and expand upon them, adding your own unique spin to the story.

If you want to generate additional ideas, try asking ChatGPT follow-up questions related to your original prompt.

For example, you could ask, “What challenges might the person face in exploring their newfound superpower?” Or, “How might the person’s relationships with others be affected by their superpower?”

Remember that ChatGPT’s answers are generated by artificial intelligence and may not always be perfect or exactly what you want.

However, they can still be a great source of inspiration and help you start writing.

Must-Have GPTs Assistant

I recommend installing the WebBrowser Assistant created by the OpenAI Team. This tool allows you to add relevant Bing results to your ChatGPT prompts.

This assistant adds the first web results to your ChatGPT prompts for more accurate and up-to-date conversations.

It is very easy to install in only two clicks. (Click on Start Chat.)

Screenshot from ChatGPT, April 2024

For example, if I ask, “Who is Vincent Terrasi?,” ChatGPT has no answer.

With WebBrower Assistant, the assistant creates a new prompt with the first Bing results, and now ChatGPT knows who Vincent Terrasi is.

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

You can test other GPT assistants available in the GPTs search engine if you want to use Google results.

Master Reverse Prompt Engineering

ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for reverse engineering prompts because it generates natural and engaging responses to any given input.

By analyzing the prompts generated by ChatGPT, it is possible to gain insight into the model’s underlying thought processes and decision-making strategies.

One key benefit of using ChatGPT to reverse engineer prompts is that the model is highly transparent in its decision-making.

This means that the reasoning and logic behind each response can be traced, making it easier to understand how the model arrives at its conclusions.

Once you’ve done this a few times for different types of content, you’ll gain insight into crafting more effective prompts.

Prepare Your ChatGPT For Generating Prompts

First, activate the reverse prompt engineering.

Type the following prompt: “Enable Reverse Prompt Engineering? By Reverse Prompt Engineering I mean creating a prompt from a given text.”

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

ChatGPT is now ready to generate your prompt. You can test the product description in a new chatbot session and evaluate the generated prompt.

Type: “Create a very technical reverse prompt engineering template for a product description about iPhone 11.”

Reverse Prompt engineering via WebChatGPT

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

The result is amazing. You can test with a full text that you want to reproduce. Here is an example of a prompt for selling a Kindle on Amazon.

Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {product), capture the writing style and the length of the text :
product =”

Reverse prompt engineering: Amazon product

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

I tested it on an SEJ blog post. Enjoy the analysis – it is excellent.

Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {text}, capture the tone and writing style of the {text} to include in the prompt :
text = all text coming from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-bard-training-data/478941/”

Reverse prompt engineering an SEJ blog post

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

But be careful not to use ChatGPT to generate your texts. It is just a personal assistant.

Go Deeper

Prompts and examples for SEO:

Keyword research and content ideas prompt: “Provide a list of 20 long-tail keyword ideas related to ‘local SEO strategies’ along with brief content topic descriptions for each keyword.”
Optimizing content for featured snippets prompt: “Write a 40-50 word paragraph optimized for the query ‘what is the featured snippet in Google search’ that could potentially earn the featured snippet.”
Creating meta descriptions prompt: “Draft a compelling meta description for the following blog post title: ’10 Technical SEO Factors You Can’t Ignore in 2024′.”

Important Considerations:

Always Fact-Check: While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool, it’s crucial to remember that it may generate inaccurate or fabricated information. Always verify any facts, statistics, or quotes generated by ChatGPT before incorporating them into your content.
Maintain Control and Creativity: Use ChatGPT as a tool to assist your writing, not replace it. Don’t rely on it to do your thinking or create content from scratch. Your unique perspective and creativity are essential for producing high-quality, engaging content.
Iteration is Key: Refine and revise the outputs generated by ChatGPT to ensure they align with your voice, style, and intended message.

Additional Prompts for Rewording and SEO:
– Rewrite this sentence to be more concise and impactful.
– Suggest alternative phrasing for this section to improve clarity.
– Identify opportunities to incorporate relevant internal and external links.
– Analyze the keyword density and suggest improvements for better SEO.

Remember, while ChatGPT can be a valuable tool, it’s essential to use it responsibly and maintain control over your content creation process.

Experiment And Refine Your Prompting Techniques

Writing effective prompts for ChatGPT is an essential skill for any SEO professional who wants to harness the power of AI-generated content.

Hopefully, the insights and examples shared in this article can inspire you and help guide you to crafting stronger prompts that yield high-quality content.

Remember to experiment with layering prompts, iterating on the output, and continually refining your prompting techniques.

This will help you stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing world of SEO.

More resources:

Featured Image: Tapati Rinchumrus/Shutterstock