Advance your content career with these skills

May 22

Whether you’re a freelancer, ad copywriter, blog manager, or any other type of writer; you are at a wonderful starting point for a successful career. Having this sort of experience is the foundation for higher level strategy. But it’s not as simple as waiting or an opportunity to fall in your lap - how do you take initiative to climb to a more strategy-focused position?

The good news is, you don’t have to wait around for someone to give you more responsibility. Experimentation and self-learning can go a long way if you’re committed. Advocate for yourself as a more valuable specialist by tapping into one of these fields:

Strategy: Organize and plan content according to frameworks, complete competitive analyses to determine new areas of focus, and create content inventory spreadsheets to categorize existing content and performance.
SEO: Perform onsite audits, build keyword strategies, and provide documentation for staff on how to optimize the website.
Increase Industry Expertise: Attend webinars and conferences in your industry to better understand your customers and build thought leadership. Get to know your company’s subject matter experts and schedule meetings to discuss trends they are seeing.
Marketing Automation: Even without HTML or email knowledge, you can map out a marketing automation strategy. Where are you funneling leads throughout the buyer journey? What content should they see at what times? This sort of plan is the foundation of lead generation.
Process: When blogs become lengthier and demonstrate deep thought leadership, they’ll include many elements:
- well-designed header images
- custom graphics and charts
- callouts to visit other pages
- keyword optimization
- Internal linking strategy
Creating and documenting writing processes can improve the efficiency of generating this sort of content. What tools do you use to manage the blog; how do people provide ideas; and how do you collaborate with SMEs, SEO specialists, and designers to help you draft, write, edit, and publish?