Employee reviewing infographic on monitor screen
Online content is meant to inspire, engage and inform. More importantly, the goal is to put a company on the radar of the target audience. Even if an informative blog post doesn’t immediately convert readers into customers, the information stays in the back of their mind. Consumers will see the company as a useful resource, perhaps prompting them to consider the offer later.
While digital content can be a great way for businesses to reach increasingly savvy audiences, producing it takes a lot of effort. There’s a lot more to social media posts, online articles, and website pages than meets the eye. Businesses need a well-executed strategy, plus talented content creators with a penchant for research and a bit of technical expertise.
Ultimately, however, creative people are only people and the demands of the job can become overwhelming. That’s when content teams should get some help from AI tools in handling the details. Here’s a look at how content marketing teams can harness the power of AI to improve their strategies in 2023.
1. Discover online search intent
Most content marketing professionals know that audiences use keywords when searching for information online. It doesn’t matter if people type the words on a keyboard or use a voice assistant to pronounce them. Conventional content strategies focus on the keywords consumers are likely to use. But while simple keyword research tools can reveal what phrases the audience is searching for, keyword research alone cannot reveal search intent.
That’s a problem because recent updates to search engine algorithms put more weight on search intent than on keywords. If companies want a post to rank, it’s more important to understand consumer intent than to sprinkle targeted phrases throughout a piece. Search intent gets to the heart of why someone searches. a content strategy built around this ‘why’ will better satisfy an audience’s information hunger.
This is where AI can step in. Research tools powered by AI perform more advanced analytics that reveal search intent. They do this by identifying patterns in the online behavior of a specific audience. AI looks at how a company’s consumers interact with the digital content and at the same time makes behavioral predictions. These insights give content teams more than just keyword-related topics by showing what information triggers engagement or conversion.
2. Build content frames
The words people read on their devices don’t come out of the blue. Someone has to plan, organize and make them. But with the sheer volume of content creatives must produce, coming up with those words can be more challenging than it seems. Ideas can run out, not only in terms of topics, but also in main lines and the “meat” of various pieces.
AI programs fuel creativity by generating topics, headlines, and content suggestions. When teams are not sure what to write about next, AI generates new ideas. Topic generators analyze the material a company already has to come up with new titles in seconds. Then these programs can go further than that. Topic generators also examine competitor content, online search trends, long keywords, and search intent.
The results provide writers with a comprehensive base for months of content. In addition to topics, AI programs can create blog summaries. A content creator only needs to give the tool a topic to work with. From those outlines, writers can begin to work out what each section will say. They can also use AI to produce some of those details, tailoring words to specific tones, audiences and search intents.
3. Check for errors
If there’s one thing that’s certain about people, it’s a tendency to make mistakes. Mistakes, no matter the degree, are how people learn. But when it comes to content creation, mistakes usually stand out like a sore thumb. Once grammar mistakes are visible to everyone online, they can distract readers from the authority of the content.
Editing and proofreading can be closely related to writing. Nevertheless, these activities require different skills. It’s rare for creatives to excel at every aspect of online content creation. It’s hard even for seasoned content creators to remember all the rules as there are multiple style guides and conventions.
Grammar checkers with built-in AI help guide writers through those lines. These programs mark more than spelling errors. They identify ways to make sentences clear and concise while highlighting misplaced words. While AI may not spot every mistake, it can help writers polish their content. These programs also show you how to make the language more appealing and tailor it to specific reading levels.
4. Monitor content performance
Content marketing is a long-term strategy. Most companies will not see immediate results. After someone publishes on a piece, companies can reasonably expect it to take weeks, months, or even years to generate a return. However, this length of time doesn’t mean that content marketers will never see the fruits of their efforts.
Industry stats show that content marketing revenues have increased to nearly $66 billion in 2022. And if the predictions are correct, those revenues will double by 2026. At the same time, not every piece of content a company creates will yield an acceptable ROI. Some blog posts never get the traction content teams thought they would. In addition, the information on landing pages can become outdated and stale.
Creative teams can manually analyze content performance, but it takes a lot of time. In addition, there are pattern-based indicators that people may miss. Content audit tools with AI capabilities get the job done faster and more accurately. They identify underperforming content and point out reasons why a piece is not meeting the benchmarks. Audit tools steer teams in the right direction, enabling them to optimize content in ways that can improve performance.
The role of AI in content strategy
Companies rely on content strategies to increase brand awareness. But given the sea of information online, creatives are under increasing pressure to deliver and help their business stand out. AI can improve the skills of content teams by helping them with audience insights, content ideas and much more. With the capabilities of AI, content marketers can take their strategy and results to the next level.
