If you want to develop a content strategy that works, you’re in the right place.
My niche blog has 234 organic ranking keywords (August 2024), and I only started my content strategy for this website in April 2024 after removing every page and post to start a new niche.
Much of my content is page one SERPs or featured snippets, and my site is still small.
People get hung up on planning a content strategy, but it isn’t difficult to plan and implement an effective one. It’s about producing good quality content that is relevant to your audience. That might include sharing your failures as well as the many successes.
Let’s dig in to see if you’re ready to start and create a content strategy for your business.
What is A Content Strategy?
A Content strategy is a roadmap for creating and publishing content for specific media for a target audience.
A well-crafted content strategy is a bridge between what your audience needs and your business goals. It involves carefully considering the type of content to create, when and where to publish it, and how to measure its impact.
At the heart of your content strategy, the goal is to attract the right audience. You might start to work on your blog with an SEO content strategy.
After that, you might curate the blog content for various social media channels in a different format, such as video content on YouTube, reels or stories on Instagram or bit-sized text on LinkedIn.
Does Every Business Need A Content Strategy?
From the get-go, you can make your job easier with a cohesive content strategy. It helps to manage your thoughts and ideas and plan months ahead instead of a mad panic each week trying to decide what content to create (as many businesses do)
Why Your Business Needs A Content Marketing Strategy
From 2022 to 2023, I wrote two blogs weekly for a start-up company whose website was not indexed on Google. I planned the entire content strategy.
For the first eight months, it went well. The founder left me to do my job, and the site gained 239 ranking keywords within that time. Many posts were on page one SERPs and a surprising DA53!
The website traffic was growing, trending upwards each week. CTR was good, and everything looked fantastic.
Then, the company hired a CMO who micromanaged the tiniest detail. He had no grasp of the importance of SEO and what it could do for the business had we kept going.
He took me off blog writing and assigned me to menial admin tasks.
It’s an understatement to say it was the worst four months of my working life. When I left, the website lost 50% of the organic keywords, and traffic declined.
The CMO criticised me for the drop in statistics, despite that he’d been the one who decided my SEO content skills weren’t needed.
#1: Define Goals for Your Content Strategy
What do you want to achieve with your content strategy? Publishing content for the sake of it is a waste of time. Here are a few possible ideas: –
- Affiliate Marketing
- Get Ranked in SERPs
- Generate organic leads
- Boost brand awareness
- Make sales or appointments
- Gain subscribers to your newsletter
- Qualify for ad revenue with Google AdSense or Mediavine
Once you have established your goals, you can determine if a content strategy will help you achieve those goals and which media to focus on.
Before creating content, it’s essential to determine what stage your audience is at
- BOTF (Bottom of the funnel): Your prospects have become familiar with your content and are ready to decide whether to buy from you. They could be a subscriber to your newsletter list
- MOTF (Middle of the funnel: Your prospects understand their problem and seek solutions. Be aware some may not be ready to buy because they’re exploring free options
- TOTF (Top of the funnel): The TOTF starts your prospect’s journey with your content. It’s your job to create awareness and maybe have a capture page offering a free lead magnet. The goal is to educate your audience and get attention to your products, services or brand.
When creating a content plan, determine a strategy for each sales funnel stage.
#2: Researching Your Audience for A Content Strategy
Time spent researching and understanding your target audience is worth the effort. It will help you plan an effective content strategy.
- Where does your audience hang out?
- What social platforms do they engage with?
- What type of content do they prefer (video, stories, reels, text)?
- Are they business-to-business professionals (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C)?
Be aware that social media platforms change constantly. For example, Facebook shares more video content than it used to, Instagram stories seem to get more sales than reels, and LinkedIn is a mixed bag of content.
Connect your site with Google Console and Analytics. I also recommend Metricool’s social media management tool, which is free for up to 50 posts/monthly.
If you connect to your accounts, the Metricool software gives helpful statistics on your posts and website.
One platform I have found helpful for research is Instagram Threads. For some reason, people actively share their problems and concerns there.
#3: Focus on Creating Niche-Specific Content
There are a bazillion pieces of content online that will never get seen. It doesn’t share value. It’s plagiarised, poorly put together or random content. For example, if you have a blog and your posts aren’t on page one, you might as well not have bothered creating that content.
Of course, not every blog post can get to page one SERPs or featured snippets, but that should be the goal.
Every piece of content you create should be like a mini business. It must have a specific job to do.
Before creating content, ask the following questions:
- Is it evergreen content?
- How will it help my audience?
- What job do I want this content to do?
- How does it compare to what’s already online?
- Can I create more value than my competitors?
- Do I want the content to educate, inform or entertain?
#4: Measure The Results of Your Content Strategy
I use Google Console statistics daily to assess what content ranks in SERPs and what people click on. Once you have enough traffic, it creates an interesting overview of your audience’s needs and interests.
If you have a post outperforming others, create more of that, but be prepared to adapt as trends change.
Measure metrics in Google Analytics, such as the following: –
- Audience Consumption: How long do they spend on a page, page views, bounce rate, etc
- Social Sharing: What content resonates with your audience that makes them share?
- Where Did Your Audience Come From?: Direct, organic, social media
Dig deep into Google Analytics to get a clear overview of what your audience enjoys and how they found your content.
If you have a sales funnel, you can monitor statistics there, too.
#5: Listen to Customer Feedback to Improve Your Content Strategy
It’s essential to focus on the human aspects to develop your content strategy and not only study data and statistics.
Ask customers for feedback, and you may discover missing elements in your content strategy you could improve. If you have customer-facing staff, encourage them to ask for feedback, too.
#6: Maximise Your Content Strategy
Once you have an effective content strategy and see results, the next step is to amplify your efforts.
For example, several of my blog posts performed much better than others, and I soon observed a popular theme. Subsequently, I began writing more on that subject.
I observed what was and wasn’t working on social media channels and switched my content strategy to reflect the results. For example, I changed my approach on TikTok and noticed more people saving my video content.
If your audience likes your content, give them more.
#7: Curate Content as part of Your Strategy
Creating content is time-consuming, and it can soon become a daunting task.
During the first few months, be prepared to adapt your content strategy to improve results.
Content curation is a massive time saver. Here is how I approach the task: –
- I create video content for TikTok
- I curate to Instagram: That said, IG has poor reach for me, so I am assessing results and testing IG stories
- I write blog posts
- I curate blog posts to video content (I’m just starting that in preparation for a YouTube channel)
- I curate blog posts for Pinterest pins
If this workflow seems like a lot, you could try the Repurposing platform to make the task quicker and easier. I have written a review of Repurposing, which you might find helpful.
Conclusion
I hope you understand that developing a content strategy isn’t difficult. That said, for most, implementing a content strategy is the challenging part.
Understand that you might make mistakes and encounter mental or tangible roadblocks (such as Pinterest suspending my first account, which threw me for a loop).
If you stick with it, you will refine your content strategy and build a tried and trusted recipe you can count on to bring positive results.
The most crucial step is in the planning and research.
Avoid publishing content on any platform for the sake of it or because it’s too time-consuming or you can’t be bothered to plan. You’d be better off not publishing anything than doing a half-assed job.
Another consideration is the ROI on social media platforms. If your audience isn’t there or your content isn’t talking to them, it’s time to review your content strategy and adapt it.
Yes, there may be a period of trial and error, but in time, you’ll better understand what to publish and where.
Content Strategy FAQs
What Is A Content Strategy?
A content strategy is planning, creating and publishing content consistently to your blog, website, or social media channels, including on-page SEO, blog content, videos, reels, stories or text posts.
What Is A Content Strategy Framework?
A content strategy framework clearly outlines how you will create content, such as a keyword strategy, pillar post and content clusters. It will include when, where and how often you will publish
Why Is A Content Strategy Important?
There are several reasons why a content strategy is essential: –
- Your content must be good if you want to rank in Google SERPs. That includes keywords and semantics, readability and potential for conversion
- Creating content without a plan is painful, and you may procrastinate without a content strategy
What’s The First Step For Creating A Content Strategy?
The first step to develop a content strategy is to determine your goals. What do you want the content strategy to do? Get leads, sales, and subscribers, or build a brand?
Once you decide on your goals, mapping out a content strategy becomes easier.