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Creating a content strategy isn’t rocket science but a single wrong approach can be a grim reaper. You can’t outrank competitors on the top search results without a strong and well-developed content strategy.
Every step of creating a great content strategy is significantly important, requiring a logical and resolute approach to achieve your business objectives.
This blog will showcase result-driven steps to develop a content strategy.
But before we jump right into it, let’s briefly go over what a good content strategy is and why it’s important.
What is Content Strategy?
Content strategy is a complete roadmap demonstrating the goals of a brand — driving traffic, generating leads, consumer engagement, making sales, and how to achieve them efficiently.
Simply put, it’s the plan that covers content topics, content outlines, and general deadlines to publish it on the website (or elsewhere) along with a distribution plan.
This strategy should correspond to your business objectives and align with your target audience’s journey.
Why is Good Content Strategy Important?
The content you put out on the web depicts who you are and what you’re attempting to deliver to your audience. Crafting a content strategy enables you to purposefully create content that aligns with your business objectives and caters to the needs of your target audience.
As per Semrush, their 2023 State of Content Marketing Report has presented that 80% of respondents deem their content marketing highly successful because of their documented content strategy in place.
A well-structured content strategy helps you achieve your milestones smoothly and steadily, and eventually, you start understanding the best type of content your business needs. At the end of the day, you will be able to create the most impactful and valuable content for your targeted audience.
Now that you have a better feel for what a content strategy is and why is important, let’s proceed with the most important aspect of this write-up – how to develop a strong content strategy for your business.
Also read: From Zero to Thousands: How to Boost Your Website’s Organic Traffic Like a Pro.
Develop a Strong Content Strategy
We can stretch this section to any length we want and cover a ton of information around strong content strategy, but really these are 7 steps you need to know! These steps, if executed well, will assist you in building lasting connections with your audience and reaching your business goals.
1- Set Your Goals For Content Strategy
The content you are creating for your business should fulfill a specific purpose. Setting your goal for content strategy is paramount. To get through the process, consider these aspects as if you want to convert users, improve the search engine rankings, generate leads, elevate brand awareness, or something else.
Once you have defined your goals, it becomes easier to select the type of content you will structure in your strategy.
Let’s say, information-loaded blogs aren’t useful to generate leads. However, they are valuable in search engine rankings and attracting users to your website. So if your goal is to generate traffic, you’ll focus on creating more and more blog posts. But if your goal is to drive conversion, you’ll have to rely on some other forms of content.
2- Define Your Audience
Defining and researching your audience and their engagement will assist you in narrowing down your approach to your content strategy. Understand their interests, search about the sites they visit and engage on, the type of content they are more likely to engage with, and the platforms they prefer to share their content on.
Google Demographics and Interests are perfect for identifying the prospects for a given website, while Google Analytics helps discover the content the audience interacts with the most.
3- Research Your Niche and Competition
Understanding your audience is important in recognizing the most effective content and its optimal placement can prove beneficial in the long term.
Successful companies are striving to grab the attention of their targeted audience and so should you. Your competitors are vying to be more prominent in their industry, what’s stopping you from doing the same?
You need to figure out what your competitors are trying to deliver and the strategy they are depending on to achieve it.
Here comes the most indispensable thing: researching your competitor’s content strategy.
You can start by researching the topics relevant to your niche and analyzing top search results. To that end, try finding answers to these questions:
- What content topics they are covering?
- What is the type of content they have on their websites?
- What are the keywords they rank for in SERPs?
- What formatting rules they are implementing?
- Which channels do they prefer to distribute their content?
- Do they have a social media presence?
- Where do they experience the highest level of engagement?
This way you will be able to construct a foolproof and highly compatible content strategy for your business.
4- Develop a Written Roadmap
At this point, you’ve successfully set your business goals, your audience to target, and your market competitors. You hold a strong baseline to finally start working on your content strategy.
It is vital to understand the importance of a documented content strategy for your business or brand. Your content strategy won’t help you reach your business goals if it’s floating in the air.
Did you know, that 63% of the total B2B companies lack a documented content strategy?
If you do not want to be among them, make it a point to record your business content strategy. It will help you stay on track, analyze your progress, and refine your strategies as per requirement. Moreover, it acts as a strong reference for your content team members.
5- Schedule your Content Strategy
Organizing and planning your strategy is a key to effective content management. Utilizing content scheduling tools helps manage and adhere to your publishing timelines effectively.
Tools like Hootsuite, CoSchedule, and MeetEdgar help organize and manage your website’s promo content as well as social media platforms, automating the entire process of posting your content.
Incorporating a content scheduling tool can significantly simplify the procedure, reduce the chance of errors, and improve on-time content publishing.
6- Audit Previous Website Content
Auditing previous website content should also be part of your content strategy. Previously published content on your website demands attention as well.
You can’t let your content get stale if it has the ability to get more consumer attention, clicks, and engagement. Refresh your old content, update the information in it, and deliver something unique and crispy to your audience. Moreover, sporadically refreshing your old content is going to be highly beneficial from an SEO standpoint.
7- Amplify Your Content Strategy
The internet is brimming with content that shouldn’t exist—some of it is plagiarized and some lacking value for the user. Traditional topics, old and tacky headlines, and generic content are gone now, you need to leave them behind to ride the wave.
Come up with something exceptional to prevent your content lost in the pack.
The most appropriate way to amplify your content strategy is by exploring the places your targeted audience prefers to visit and posting your content on those channels to reach them faster.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, crafting an effective content strategy is crucial for achieving business goals and connecting with your audience. To stand out in the crowded online landscape, embrace uniqueness and explore channels preferred by your audience.
Define and set your business goals and audience, research your competitors, analyze their content strategy, craft a written roadmap, schedule your strategy, and amplify it well.
Stay ahead of the game by adapting these well-refined approaches for sustained success in your industry.
You may also read 7 Actionable Content Marketing Strategies for Startups to help you level up your content marketing game in 2024 and beyond.