Leverage Your Cornerstone Content to Expand Your Reputation

In today’s digital landscape, creating quality content is a crucial component of any successful online marketing strategy.

However, constantly churning out new content can be time-consuming and expensive. The good news is that you don’t have to start from scratch to expand your online reputation. By leveraging your existing cornerstone content, you can reach a wider audience and achieve your content marketing goals.

Cornerstone content is the foundation of your website or blog – it’s the content that best represents your brand, services, and values.

Whether it’s a comprehensive guide, an in-depth case study, or an authoritative how-to article, your cornerstone content is the piece that will have the greatest impact on your audience.

In this blog post, we’ll guide you through the process of identifying, evaluating, optimizing, repurposing, and promoting your cornerstone content.

You’ll learn how to turn your existing content into a powerful marketing tool that can help you achieve your business goals. So, if you’re ready to take your content strategy to the next level, let’s get started.

Understanding Cornerstone Content

To leverage your cornerstone content, it’s important to first understand what it is and why it matters.

Your cornerstone content is essentially your “greatest hits.” It best demonstrates the value you have to offer your audience. This is the material you want people to see first when they encounter you online. 

Why is cornerstone content important?

First, it helps establish your authority and expertise on a particular topic or subject matter which demonstrates that you’re knowledgeable and reliable. This builds trust with your audience and is crucial for creating long-term relationships.

Secondly, cornerstone content is important for search engine optimization (SEO). It helps search engines understand the purpose and focus of your website or blog, making it easier for them to rank your content in search results.

To identify this content, start by thinking about the key topics or themes of your website or blog.

What are the most important concepts that you want your audience to understand?

What are the topics that you’re most passionate about and have the most expertise in?

These are the areas where you should focus your cornerstone content.

Examples of cornerstone content include comprehensive guides, in-depth case studies, “how-to” articles, and frequently asked questions (FAQs) pages.

These pieces of content are typically longer and more detailed than other content on your website, providing your audience with comprehensive information and acting as a reference point for other related content.

Evaluating Your Cornerstone Content

Now that you understand what cornerstone content is and why it matters, it’s time to evaluate your current content. A content audit is an important first step in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your existing content, as well as any opportunities for improvement.

Start by making a list of all the content on your website or blog that you consider to be cornerstone content. This might include your most popular blog posts, your most comprehensive guides, or your most authoritative how-to articles. Once you have a list of your content, it’s time to start evaluating it.

Consider the following questions as you evaluate your cornerstone content:

• Is the content still relevant? Are there any outdated statistics or information that need to be updated?
• Is the content comprehensive and authoritative? Does it provide your audience with all the information they need on a particular topic?
• Is the content readable and accessible? Is the language clear and easy to understand? Are there any visual aids or multimedia elements that could help improve the user experience?
• Is the content optimized for search engines? Are you using the right keywords and meta tags to improve your search engine visibility?

As you answer these questions, take note of any areas where your content could be improved. Perhaps you need to update outdated information or add more visual aids to improve the user experience.

Maybe you need to optimize your content for SEO or improve the readability of your language. By identifying these areas for improvement, you can begin to take steps to optimize the content and expand your online reputation.

Remember, this content is the foundation of your website or blog. So it is important that it’s comprehensive, authoritative, readable, and optimized for search engines, you can improve your search engine visibility and attract more organic traffic to your website.

Repurposing Your Cornerstone Content

Once you’ve evaluated your cornerstone content and identified areas for improvement, it’s time to start repurposing it. Repurposing your content involves taking the existing content and transforming it into new formats, such as videos, podcasts, or social media posts.

The goal of doing this is to help you reach a wider audience, as different people prefer consuming content in different formats.

To repurpose your cornerstone content, consider the following formats:

1. Videos: Turn your content into a video series. Create short, engaging videos that summarize the key points of your cornerstone content.
2. Podcasts: Convert your content into a podcast series. Break down your content into shorter, more digestible episodes that can be listened to on the go.
3. Infographics: Create visually appealing infographics that summarize the key points of your content. Infographics are a great way to make complex information more accessible and engaging.
4. Social media posts: Create social media posts that highlight the key points of your content. Use engaging visuals and catchy captions to grab your audience’s attention.

When repurposing your cornerstone content, it’s important to keep the original content in mind. Your repurposed content should still maintain the same level of quality and authority as the original content.

Besides repurposing your content, consider updating your cornerstone content on a regular basis. This will help keep it relevant and up-to-date, which is important for maintaining your authority and expertise on a particular topic.

Now, let’s move on to promoting.

Promoting Your Cornerstone Content

Creating high-quality cornerstone content is just the first step in leveraging it to expand your reputation. To truly make the most of your cornerstone content, you need to promote it effectively.

Promoting your cornerstone content involves getting it in front of your target audience.

Let’s look at a few ways you can do this:

1. Share it on social media: Use your social media accounts to share your cornerstone content with your followers. Use engaging visuals and captions to make your posts stand out.
2. Reach out to influencers: Identify influencers in your industry and reach out to them to see if they would be interested in sharing your cornerstone content with their followers.
3. Run ads: Consider running targeted ads on social media or search engines to reach a wider audience.
4. Send it to your email list: Send your cornerstone content to your email list to promote it to your existing subscribers.
5. Guest post: Reach out to relevant blogs in your industry and offer to guest post on their site. This is a great way to reach a new audience and promote your cornerstone content.

Remember, promoting your cornerstone content is an ongoing process. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different promotion strategies and track your results to see what works best.

Measuring the Success of Your Cornerstone Content

Measuring the success of your cornerstone content is essential to understanding the impact it’s having on your online reputation and content marketing goals. By tracking metrics like traffic, engagement, and conversions, you can see how your cornerstone content is performing and make data-driven decisions about how to improve it.

Without this, you really are just writing content for the sake of writing content. Don’t do this.

Here are just a few key metrics to track and measure:

1. Traffic: Monitor how much traffic your cornerstone content is receiving. This can give you a sense of how well it’s resonating with your audience.
2. Engagement: Look at metrics like social shares, comments, and time on page to understand how engaged your audience is with your cornerstone content.
3. Conversions: Track how many leads or sales your cornerstone content is generating. This can help you understand how effective it is at driving conversions.
4. Backlinks: Keep track of how many other websites are linking back to your cornerstone content. Backlinks are an important indicator of authority and can help boost your search engine rankings.
5. Time on page: Analyze how much time visitors are spending on your cornerstone content page. A longer time on page can indicate that your content is highly engaging and valuable to your audience.

Use this data to make informed decisions about how to improve your content and continue expanding your online reputation.

So Let’s Review the Main Takeaways

Leveraging your content is an effective way to expand your reputation and build your audience without starting from scratch. By choosing your best content and promoting it effectively, you can establish yourself as an authority in your industry and attract new audiences.

To make the most of your cornerstone content, it’s important to measure its success and update it regularly. By tracking metrics like traffic, engagement, and conversions, you can make data-driven decisions about how to improve your content and continue expanding your online reputation.

Remember, creating and leveraging content is an ongoing process. It requires time, effort, and a commitment to providing value to your audience. But with the right strategy in place, you can turn your existing content into a powerful tool for building your reputation and growing your business.

Do you want to know more about making your existing content work for you? Check out our course, The Beginners Guide to Content Management, which teaches you the A to Z of effective content management.