Content marketing is all marketing is today, but, without a proper strategy, all that content is just stuff. A successful content marketing kick starts with a good content strategy, and we are here to help guide your way into creating one with 7 easy steps.
First, What Is a Content Strategy?
A content strategy is just a good term to describe making a long-term plan to reach a larger audience. This process includes all the tiny bits from planning and creating content to its distribution and improving activity. Almost 95% of marketers plan with a profound content marketing strategy.
It’s not just the great content that wins, it is the best-promoted content that will help you gain. Whatever your goal might be, from raising awareness of your brand and increasing revenue to giving rise to leads, initiating a profound content strategy can definitely prove to be your way to steer clear of any hiccups in reaching your goal.
7 Easy Steps to Create a Killer Content Strategy
The real work is not just learning how to create a content strategy, it also lies in implementing it in your content. Here are 7 easy steps to create a killer content strategy
1. Mark Your Bull’s Eye
All your content is rocketed toward a specific target. Setting a specific goal can drive you onto the right path, and get you to your destination. Your goals should not be too out of reach. Make sure you take one step at a time and set a specific and attainable goal that is time specific. Being clear on what you want to achieve can help you outline your content strategy better.
2. Assimilate Your Audience
No matter what strategy you choose, without directing them toward the right audience, it might all be for nothing. An uninterested user may find no meaning in your content. Before drafting content, study your audience and understand their needs and likes inside and out. Here are some questions you can ask before creating content:
- What keywords does your audience search for?
- What pain points do they have?
- What type of content do they like engaging with?
- Which social media sites do they use most?
- How do they research before buying any products?
Ultimately, these questions can provide you with valuable information to understand your audience.
3. Choose Content Pillars
Content pillars are your towers of strength from which all your ideas should originate. All your brilliant ideas should be brainstormed and organized under these content pillars. They keep you centered on creating content that lines up with your final goals.
Keep your content pillars broad, so topic clusters can be classified under each one. Creating pillar pages, although they might be longer than conventional blog posts, can give your webpage a boost in the SERP results.
4. Tune Brand Voice
Every brand has a voice. Some whisper. Some roar. To make yours roar, you must set your own guidelines around the language and tone that you want to use. Your brand voice does not just represent your brand but you and your personality as well. It is through this voice that you make connections with your audience and fetch traffic.
Ask yourself if you want your blog to have a friendly conversation, or be strictly informational. Based on this conclusion, stock up your writing notes with relevant phrases and words that also refer to the subject matter of your content. Avoid outdated terms and cliches to keep your article in trend with your rapidly evolving audience.
5. Strengthen Your SEO Strategy
Not ranking on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) means you are basically invisible to your audience. The keywords that your target user is searching for should drive you to your page. For this, optimizing your content is part of a good content strategy.
Choose the right type of content. With so much variety ranging from videos, case studies, and infographics, to how-to guides and social media content, settle on which one suits your brand the best. Follow the E-E-A-T rule which stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness in your content.
Keeping your URL short and sweet, including primary and secondary keywords, including links to authoritative articles, and interlinking your own articles are some of the elementary rules for SEO optimization if we were to name a few.
6. Churn Out a Content Calendar
For your content strategy to be well executed, keeping a calendar to keep you on track and give a wake-up call every now and then is best. This calendar will push you into putting your content to good use within the timeframe you had set.
Do not bombard your audience with articles. Instead, release them at regular intervals, so they also can engage well without getting weary. Your calendar should contain everything from the research made from keywords, and formats, to topics.
7. Measure the Effectiveness of Content
After putting your content strategy to work, your duty doesn’t come to a stop. After content creation, it is time to promote your content through the different social media your prospective audience frequents.
There is no content strategy without a measurement strategy. Design key metrics for your content strategy, so that you can determine its success rate of it. Some key metrics you must consider are the traffic on your website, the amount of action that takes place, and SERP ratings. Keeping track of your progress can give you transparency on how far you have come, and the areas that need concentration.
Drawing up a content strategy may seem pretty time-consuming at the beginning. But do not get unnerved and create a content strategy that you commit yourself to. All tools are great, but content marketing success lies with the wizard, not the wand. Make your content charm your reader that it was written especially for them. As your understanding gathers steam, keep developing your content strategy.
FAQs
Why do I need a content strategy?
A sketched-out content strategy drives more traffic toward your website. Apart from making yourself more effective, you know which direction you are moving and how to navigate yourself to your ultimate destination. To succeed, blindly following your strategy won’t cut it. You have to experiment and see what’s working for you. A killer content strategy can assist you in publishing quality content and supporting your larger goals.
How do you analyze competitors?
You can delve into your competitor’s websites by keeping a few questions in mind. They include recognizing how much traffic your competitors get, what sources are responsible for driving the traffic, what are keywords accountable for their rankings, what website they are linking on their page, and if they are experiencing any gaps in their content strategy.
How do you promote your content?
There are so many different ways for you to promote content. The most powerful weapon is the social media sites where you can promote clips of your article. The next best tool is email outreach where you can reach out to websites with similar content. Featuring paid ads on your website also helps. You can also take it a step further, and republish your article on platforms, like Quora or Linkedin.
To Sum Up
Banners may have 99 problems, but a click ain’t one. With content marketing ruling the world, our job does not stop with just creating content, but to create change along with it. With our 7 easy steps to create a content strategy, we hope you find a better path towards the change you wish for.
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