Tips for Creating a Blog Content Strategy

Content is King

If your business is considering blogging as part of your marketing outreach, one of your first questions is probably, what will we write about? Your second question is, how will we ever find the time? The answer is a blog content strategy. Like a road map showing your destination versus just getting in the car and driving, a content strategy outlines what you should write about, and when. This ensures that your efforts are focused, so you spend less time sitting with writer’s block and more time effectively writing.

The first thing to do when creating this content strategy is to set goals. One goal should be to introduce yourself to new customers by having relevant articles and content when they are searching online. This is where your blog content strategy and SEO strategies go hand-in-hand.

If you are a company with a long or ongoing sales cycle, another goal would be to continually engage your target audience on topics they find interesting and relevant. No need to tell them the entire story in a lengthy blog post that is difficult to write and even more difficult to find time to read. Simply break up your information into smaller topics and post them over time.

This strategy should encompass and balance the following:

• Begin with an analysis of what has previously been working. Questions to ask include: Where do most people visiting your site come from? What are they searching for? What previous blog posts have received the most traffic and comments?

• Another place to look for inspiration is your overall marketing plan, or campaigns running offline during this time period. How can these be supported and further promoted with your blog content?

• Again, good content goes hand-in-hand with a SEO strategy. What are you currently optimizing for, and how do you rank on those key phrases? Can you refine these phrases to something that more people are searching for, or a phrase you will rank higher on? How can these SEO phrases be incorporated into your blog content?

From there, a list of articles to write can be developed. We suggest generating five to seven ideas for each month. Certainly, more timely articles and needs will crop up along the way, and those can always be worked in as well.

We are suggesting planning out no more than three or four months at a time and revisiting/refining this content every quarter. Due to the short time lines online, it is hard to forecast longer than that and still remain current.