How To Create A Blog Content Strategy

Are you writing daily blogs to support your brand, but don’t have a robust blog content strategy? Blogging can be a powerful tool for marketers to not only promote their brand but also to provide valuable information to their audience. However, it’s crucial to recognize that blogging involves more than just creating posts.

It’s a multi-faceted effort that encompasses email marketing, social media, product development, and sales, just to name a few. In today’s digital marketing landscape, having high-quality blogs that enhance your SEO and increase ROI is a must.

A comprehensive blog content strategy is the key to ensuring the success of your blogging efforts. A well-planned approach lays the foundation for building long-term customer loyalty while also amplifying your digital marketing efforts. To stand out from your competitors and drive traffic to your site, it’s essential to create a solid blog content strategy. This article will guide you on how to create an effective plan for your blog content and achieve success in online marketing.

Here are nine steps for crafting the ultimate blog content strategy:

enerate Ideas with Your Teammates

Bringing your team together to generate new blogging ideas can be a valuable approach. Utilize a brainstorming template to collect and display everyone’s suggestions. Research relevant keywords and analyze your competition to ensure a continuous stream of inspiration for your blog content. Focus on creating unique and innovative content that appeals to your target audience.

It’s not always easy to come up with creative ideas, but brainstorming with your team can help bring out new perspectives. It can reveal what your audience is interested in, spark new ideas, and lead to content that you may not have thought of on your own. You can also turn to content aggregators like Feedly or social media for brainstorming inspiration and come up with ideas that have the potential to shake up the digital world.

Establish Your Objectives and Define Clear Goals

Take a moment to determine what you hope to achieve with your blog and clearly define your goals. It’s crucial to align these objectives with your overall content strategy. Some common goals for a blog may include:

• Improving your brand’s search engine ranking
• Re-engaging past customers for repeat business
• Boosting inbound traffic and enhancing brand recognition
• Generating new leads for sales
• Increasing brand awareness
• Driving organic traffic

For instance, if your brand values thought leadership, then it’s essential to produce original and data-driven content. Make sure to formulate SMART goals that are specific, measurable with key performance indicators, attainable, realistic, and have a defined time frame.

Define Your Target Demographic Before you start crafting blog content, it is essential to have a clear understanding of your target audience. This will help you tailor your content to meet their needs and reach them effectively. Here are some things to consider while defining your target demographic:

• Create a reader profile: Gather information about your potential audience’s demographics, psychographics, and behaviors to ensure you publish content that resonates with them.
• Audience’s Preferred Platform: Determine the platforms where your audience spends most of their time, such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or LinkedIn.
• Understanding the Reader’s Journey: Readers are always looking for answers. By understanding their journey and the questions they ask on forums or social media, you can create blog titles that appear in search engine results pages (SERPs) and attract them to your blog.

Adhere to a Content Schedule

Maintaining a consistent content schedule is key to effectively publishing your blog posts. Utilize a content calendar to plan and publish your posts on time without any delays. You can choose to use a manual calendar or opt for advanced calendar tools with added features such as social media sharing and email marketing. The calendar gives you an overview of your content strategy and streamlines your entire editorial process.

A content calendar is ideal for brainstorming and planning your posts, as well as customizing content for different platforms. For example, what works on LinkedIn may not be suitable for Facebook. You can easily schedule multiple pieces to be released at different times on different platforms with just one click. Marketers have reported a 60% increase in their marketing efforts by using content calendars.

Search for Relevant Keywords

Keyword research is a critical aspect of any blog content strategy. Choosing the right keywords requires careful consideration, as it helps your content get discovered by your target audience. Utilize tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Google Analytics to find the most relevant keywords for your blog. Here’s what you need to know about keywords:

• Commercial keywords: These keywords encourage visitors to purchase products or services from your website when they search for them.
• Informative keywords: These keywords engage readers, drive traffic to your blog, and encourage sharing of your content.
• Short-tail vs. long-tail keywords: Short-tail keywords are one or two words, such as “home” or “business intelligence”. Long-tail keywords are more specific and contain multiple words, such as “homes near my area”. It’s important to choose a combination of both, based on the search volume and SEO rankings.

Develop a Budget Plan

When planning your blog budget, keep the expected return on investment (ROI) in mind. Consider the cost of producing your blog content, the timeline for receiving a return on that cost through traffic, leads, email sign-ups, or conversions, and your goals for establishing your brand as a thought-leader in your industry.

Start your 2021 content marketing strategy off on the right foot by creating a budget worksheet that tracks and allocates your total budget. Keep in mind that investing in high-quality content is a beneficial move for your business. The content is the foundation of your content marketing efforts and should be prioritized.

Determine Your Content Creation Approach

When it comes to creating blog content, businesses have to consider whether they should hire external content creators or handle it in-house. This decision depends on several factors, including the internal marketing team’s skillset and availability, budget constraints, and overall goals. B2B companies allocate 29% of their marketing budget to content writing, while B2C companies spend around 26%.

To produce successful blog content, it’s crucial to publish regularly and maintain both quality and quantity. Aim to publish 3-4 times a week, ensuring the pieces are optimized for search engines and engaging enough to attract leads. Whether you choose to hire a team of writers or take on the challenge yourself, investing in quality content is essential for your content marketing efforts.

Promote Your Blog Launch

To ensure the success of your blog, it’s important to create buzz around its launch. Consider the preferred channels of your target audience for promoting your blog. Choose popular platforms with large audiences to maximize brand visibility. You can also complement your blog launch with paid advertising campaigns to boost inorganic search traffic. Consider the following ways to popularize your blog:

• Utilize social media channels
• Partner with micro-influencers
• Repurpose blog content for different platforms
• Leverage email marketing
• Engage on Q&A sites such as Quora
• Foster community engagement and word of mouth.

Track Progress with Metrics

To ensure your blog is on the right track, it’s crucial to track and analyze the metrics. Each blog post should include a call to action that allows you to gather customer information and increase engagement. Here are some key metrics to monitor:

• Pages per Visit
• New Sessions
• Comments
• Traffic Sources
• Social Media Shares and Likes
• Lead Generation and Conversion Rates
• Sales Metrics
• Backlink Velocity

Summing It Up

A well-planned blog content strategy can easily fall short if not executed properly. It’s important to always stay in tune with your audience and analyze your data to ensure success. Continuously monitor your content KPIs and make adjustments to your strategy for optimal results. Today’s top publishers use big data to enhance their content and reach.

The importance of having a solid content strategy for successful blogging cannot be overemphasized. While it may be tempting to publish blog posts on a whim, having a documented strategy will save time and effort in the long run. By following the tips outlined above, you can create a scalable content strategy that has the potential to yield impressive results.