This is a guest post by Jemima Lopez. She is a is a freelance blogger and writer who writes for Zen College Life, the directory of higher education, distance learning, and best online schools. She welcomes your comments at her email: lopezjemima562 @ gmail.com.


I realize that the title of this post is somewhat ambiguous, but I feel that titles like "How to Utilize Good Content" (with maybe "content strategy" or "marketing" thrown in for good measure) scare off more people than it brings in. Hopefully you haven't all stopped reading now. Fact of the matter is, content strategy and marketing is important, and you have more control over it now on the internet than anyone would have ever though possible 20 years ago. I just hope to deliver you some useful information that you can apply in a more practical setting to your own websites or online reputation.




Write Your Idea Down

Simple as that. If you're old-school or sentimental for antiquated habits, you can write it down in a paper journal. But odds are you will end up rewriting the idea online as that’s where the idea will ultimately come to fruition. I personally store my ideas in Evernote, so it's always accessible.


Study and Critique Your Idea

This is the more complicated aspect of content strategy. There are tons of great ideas that make their way online everyday. Some are only seen by a couple people. Some blow up so quickly that the original creator has no idea what to do with the sudden buzz. It seems like most ideas get rushed online with little preparation leading to little payoff, regardless of the merits or even popularity of the idea itself.

I do recommend taking your time with any new ideas you have, whether they are for existing sites or for a whole new online project. Bounce them off of friends and peer professionals, and anyone else whom you trust and whose opinions you value. Brainstorm around the idea. Is this something that can be expanded into a whole series of posts or publications? Are there any offshoots or cross-over ideas that would play off the idea well? Are there already executions of this idea on the web? How will yours be different?


Discern What Your Idea Is

At a certain point in the brainstorming and examining process of your idea, you will probably start considering where your idea would thrive the most and what would be the best use for your idea. If you feel the idea has some substance and falls in the realm of topics that your site or blog covers, you would probably do best to strategize how you want to tie in the idea with the site and how frequently you want to publish iterations of the idea.

More importantly, you should also consider how you want to market the idea off-site. Not every idea you have for a website is inherently marketable, and some of them are better left as they are, content on your site. However, some of the ideas you have for content on your site will be directly marketable offsite. Most of these are known as link baits, and they are designed to be shared anywhere possible in an effort to get more clicks to your site.

There is still one other alternative at your disposal for any great idea. If you feel that your site, SEO, and social media do not hold enough clout for your idea to even get any exposure, you can always present your idea through someone else's site as a guest post. If your idea is strong or engaging enough, it might attract the audience of wherever it is posted to click through your site to see what other ideas you have to offer. If you feel like you are having trouble getting your site and social media off the ground, guest posting might be one of your best bets.