Guest post by Kevin Ocasio.

The internet has completely revolutionized the world of content marketing. Through the web, your content can now literally live forever as opposed to their relatively short lifespans in the heydays of newspapers, magazines and the like. This phenomenon, however, has also given rise to the dilemma of making eternally marketable content. Aside from coming up with great content ideas to write about, you now also have to worry about a myriad of other factors. These include but are not limited to building stronger relationships with your audience and customers, and providing them with valuable, actionable content.

What are the things you need to do to make your content marketing as effective as possible? We came up with these time-tested content marketing questions. Answer yes to all of them and you can be sure that your content marketing is at its best.

First of all, what you have to do is define which niche will be the basis for your content. Doing so will enable you to assess your own strengths and weaknesses. More importantly, it will help you realize the value that and your content can bring to a specific market.
For example, instead of targeting people who want to start a blog (which is decidedly a wide niche), why not target people who want to start blogging for business instead? That way it will be easier to plan your goals and how to achieve them.

Next is to analyze the content of your competitors. How does your content compare to theirs? Doing a guided comparison will not only show you how your content stands in the competition. It may also reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Which of their weaknesses can you take advantage of in the market by playing up your strengths?

Next thing to do is to clearly define your goals. What is it that you aim for? To come up with, Semrush suggests using the SMART method:

Specific
Measurable
Agreed-Upon
Realistic
Time-based

Try using this formula: Goal + Method + Target Timeframe

ex. I want to double my site traffic by promoting my website across all social media site within 10 weeks.
Following a formula or pattern makes your goal feel more achievable and will keep your motivation intact.

This second checkpoint is one of the most important parts. Determining who your audience are will be your ultimate guide to your content.
Some things you have to consider are:

age bracket and profession
topics or subject that influence them
platforms online that your target audience frequently spend their time on (blogs, social networks, forums, etc.)
best ways to reach your target audience

Based on the goal(s) you have decided on, create your content plan. For example, your goal is to increase brand awareness. What you can do is include the following in your content throughout the whole duration of your target timeframe:

tutorial videos
product demos
client interviews or success stories
case studies, etc.

Or if you want to increase the traffic to your website, you must include data that has strong ties to your niche.

Guest posts from influencers on popular blogs in the industry
Email newsletters
SEO-optimized blog content
targeted social media campaigns and ads

Also, do not neglect to include influencers in your niche on your content marketing strategy. This will only not help with reaching a wider audience but also add authority and credibility to your content.

For it to be effective, your content marketing plan should reach out far enough, even months in advance. To achieve this, you need a well-planned workflow that's flexible enough. You don't want to be locked in on the same tasks over and over and not be able to focus on the other aspects of your marketing strategy.

A workflow that's well-thought-out will help you plan your content, topics and promotions as well as properly distribute tasks to your team if you have one. Otherwise, it will still help you organize your own tasks. This will enable you to cover everything your content marketing strategy requires.

How catchy are your headlines? They are the first that your customers and audience will see before actually getting into your content. With that in mind, you have to ensure that your headlines are interesting and charismatic enough to be able to grab your audience's attention all the way through to the end of your content.

Admittedly, the title is usually the hardest to come up with. No worries. For your headline-making needs, you can include AnswerThePublic, Portent's Content Idea Generator and the like as part of your ultimate writing guide.

Read the whole Checklist here.