Introduction
Content is one of the most important aspects of any digital marketing strategy. If you want to grow your brand and increase your company’s reach, it’s crucial that you create compelling, relevant content that resonates with your target audience. But how do you go about creating an effective content strategy? And what should it include? Read on for everything you need to know about developing a successful SEO-focused content strategy:
Goals, audience, and topics.
Once you have a good idea of where your brand is, it’s time to consider the audience. Who are they? What do they want to read? What do they need to know? This is where your goals come into play. If you don’t know what your goal is as a company or blog, then it may be difficult to determine what content will help achieve those goals and how much time should be spent on each piece of content.
Once all these things have been considered and defined in some way (both internally and externally), the next step is deciding on topics.
Unique value proposition.
A value proposition is a statement that clearly spells out what your brand offers and how it stands out from the competition. It should be unique to you and convey the benefits of your product or service, not just what it is.
For example, if you were writing a value proposition for an online magazine, you might write: “The Huffington Post publishes entertainment news that’s fun and easy to read—and it’s all free!” This statement explains what the Huffington Post offers (entertainment news) as well as why people should choose them over other sites (they’re fun and easy to read).
Value propositions are key when creating content because they help define why someone should choose your brand over others in your industry. So before finalizing any content strategy, take some time to think about how you can make yours stand out from others’ offerings by using language that makes clear what makes yours unique—and why people should care.
Competitor research.
The first step in your content strategy is to assess your own brand, and then research your competitors. Find out how they’re doing it and what you can learn from their successes and failures.This should be the start of a long process that continues to grow over time, as you continue to learn more about what works for audiences, what doesn’t work for audiences, and how those things change over time.
Buyer’s journey.
The buyer’s journey is an essential part of the initial content strategy. It helps you understand who your audience is and what they want to learn about.
- Research: How do customers respond to your product? What questions do they have? What are their pain points? The research phase can’t be skipped here. You need to figure out what people look for in a new product or service, so that you can deliver it through your content strategy in an effective way.
- Create: Take all of this information and create a strategic plan with specific goals in mind—the next step is creating high-quality content that aligns with these goals. If possible, test different ideas on an audience before committing fully; if you don’t get positive feedback from them (through surveys or social media), then scrap those plans altogether and start over again!
Format and content type.
Work with your writers to create an editorial calendar. It should include the topics you want to cover, how often you’ll publish new content and how long each piece should be (typically, between 500-1,500 words). Then decide on a format for each piece. You can use blog posts, webinars or e-books as individual pieces of content that support your overall strategy.
Content distribution and promotion
Now that you’ve got your content strategy in place, it’s time to spread the word. You can do this through paid search advertising, SEO and other methods. While some of these things are beyond the scope of a beginner’s guide (Paid Search), we recommend learning more about SEO so that you can understand how it works and how you can use it for your own site.
Conclusion
Now that you understand the basics of content strategy, it’s time to get started. Start by creating a plan for your blog and other social media channels. Then take some time to look at your competitors’ content and find out how it works for them—and what makes theirs better than yours.
