You need not to be a ninja thinker to build a good blog content strategy to run your blog.
80% of blogs fail within 6 months because they do not have any pre planned blog content strategy.
In reality having a plan in writing will increase your chances of success. According to research conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, 60 percent of companies that have a written content plan are successful.
Contrast that with only 32% of those who are reliant on talking about the strategy.
Although this research is quite old the more than decade of work has taught me that having a written content strategy is essential to achieve the success of your business.
A written plan increase your chances of success, but it also reduces time. It will not take you hours to work in a poor marketing strategy and writing on irrelevant topics or working with unsuitable influencers.
Are you ready to cut down on time, gain more visitors and increase your blog’s performance? Continue reading! Here are five steps to build a successful blogging strategy.
Five Steps to Craft a Blog Content Strategy
Here’s how you break it down into five simple steps:
A quick tip A well-planned blog content strategy will answer these three questions that are crucial to a successful blog:
- What is the reason we are creating content?
- What kind or type of information do we require?
- What will this content do to assist us in achieving our objectives?
Let’s begin by asking the question: why?.
Step 1: Define Your Goals 🎯
The first thing to begin with is setting specific, precise objectives for the blog. A well-defined goal can aid you in the process of writing content and help you stay focused.
The goal you set is your reason and the more clearly you define it the more likely to stick to it.
To appreciate the significance of having a clear reason you should be focusing on this helpful article on setting goals from Harvard Business Review. It discusses how having specific and measurable goals can increase your performance and inspire you to be consistent.
Here are a few questions to aid you in defining the purpose of your blog. purpose.:
- Are you looking to increase the sales for your online service or product?
- Are you looking to share helpful information or tips within your area of expertise, such as financial planning or photography?
- Are you looking to build an audience for your brand, for example creating loyal readers for your fashion blog?
As an example, suppose you own a blog that focuses on sustainable travel. The primary goal could be to draw people to your eco-friendly travel guides and your second goal might be to develop an email list for your next eco-tourism class.
Be sure that your goals are precise. Instead of telling yourself, “I want more readers,” consider saying something along the lines of “I want to increase blog traffic by 20% in the next three months.” This specific goal will help you determine your content strategy going ahead.
Once you’ve established your objectives The next step is to figure out the kind of content that can help you reach these goals.
Step 2: Perform Some Target Market Research 🔎
Imagine that you’re trying to tune on a radio but you can’t make it work. The station is usually too static, or quiet. A small adjustment can change everything and let the signal through clearly. That’s exactly what targeted market research can do for your blog. It enables your blog’s content so that it resonates with your target audience.
How can you conduct market research with a specific focus?
Begin by asking yourself some key questions:
- What websites do my followers frequent? (Think of social networks, Reddit forum for industry and more.)
- What issues keep them up in the late at night? (Are they having trouble focusing or juggling a second job or are they lacking ideas for their creative projects?)
- What type of content do they read most? (Look at your blog’s statistics or other tools such as BuzzSumo to find out which topics have the highest traction in both your blog and on competitors’.)
An excellent example of how to use market research is the way fitness influencers who are on platforms like Instagram or YouTube create content that is in response to feedback from viewers and the most popular fitness issues. They look at which exercises get the highest response, and then apply this information to develop more relevant, specific content.
For a deeper look at how to know your market’s preferences and needs This article by Neil Patel offers great strategies for doing market research ranging from surveys to analysing the behavior of social media.
Through gaining a deep understanding of your audience’s needs or interests, as well as where they go on the internet, you can design content that is not just a draw for them however, it also helps keep them interested.
When you’ve got a better concept of the audience you’re writing to then the next step is to generate concepts and keywords that you can be targeting. Let’s begin!
Step 3: Come Up with Topic Ideas and Keywords to Target 💡
Let’s talk about keywords for a second:
Keywords are at the heart of any blog’s content strategy. They’re the signs that direct users to your blog via search engines. If you’re looking for constant traffic, you’ll need to conduct some keyword research However, don’t stress–it isn’t necessary to be difficult.
Here’s an easy way to begin:
- Search for relevant terms Search for those keywords that are healthy in their combination of high volume of searches and low competition.
- Create content that is unique Include your selected keywords into your title or headers, as well as in the your article’s body (but be aware that moderate use of keywords – three to five mentions per post, according to length, will suffice).
- Create backlinks Get backlinks for your website by using your targeted keywords for anchor texts. This increases your credibility to search engines.
Don’t be a victim of focusing only on SEO. I talked to a marketing consultant Jared Williams, and here’s what he said:
“SEO is an essential element of content creation However, do not let it dictate your each step. Make sure you are balancing it with your viewers’ desires. Sometimes, the most effective posts result from providing real solutions, not searching for the perfect phrase.”
To demonstrate this, Jared shared a personal example:
“I once wrote a blog on ‘design thinking’ which is a term with a lot of competition. Instead of fighting big brands dominating the SEO area, I concentrated on ways small businesses can implement design thinking in order to improve the customer experience. The article didn’t rank for “design thinking,” however, it did rank for’small businesses’ design thinking strategies and it brought in valuable traffic.”
What’s the lesson? While research on keywords is vital do not forget the value your content provides to readers.
The next step is to generate topics in response to the interests of your readers as well as the key words you’ve discovered and connect those ideas to the goals of your blog’s overall.
Step 4: Create a Blog Content Calendar 📅
The blog calendar can help to keep you organized and ensures that your blog posts are always of high-quality and posted at the right time. The most effective calendars also contain the sharing of social media and marketing email details which makes it easier to handle.
To illustrate the importance of this step to your blogging strategy, I talked to Alex Johnson, a content expert at BlogBuddy. Alex Johnson said:
“A good content calendar gives you a clear view of everything happening and includes your team’s writing process. At BlogBuddy, we use Notion for this. It lets us update things right away, keep track of all our content, and see who is doing what and when it’s due.”
Alex has also said that this setup has helped the team to move from an idea that was simple to get feedback effectively:
“We have a feature called ‘Editor Alert’ where writers can tag their editors if they need help or feedback on their drafts.”
If you’d like to know how their content calendar appears like Here’s an example from Notion:
There are also free applications such as Asana as well as Google Sheets for your calendar.
If you’re seeking something that is more robust with additional options to aid in the growth of your blog look into tools such as ContentCal.
It’s all up to you to decide. For instance, on the blog we write on, we’ve used Asana since the beginning and it’s worked for us.
Step 5: Create Exceptional Content 🤩
After you’ve collected the keywords you’re looking for, set up a content calendar and identified your target potential audience, you can develop your content.
I suggest building because great content isn’t simply written. It’s built.
The most memorable piece of content must be:
- Well-designed Simple, simple and grammatically accurate.
- Researched thoroughly Utilize studies or data and even real-world examples to prove your claims.
- Engaging and visually appealing Use relevant, high-quality images that help you with your writing.
- Simple to read break it down into bullet points, headings as well as bold fonts.
A tip for stunning images you can download quality images for free on Unsplash or design your own graphics with Crello. These tools can be used to make your posts more attractive by adding appealing images that fit the style of your brand.
Conclusion 🧐
It’s tempting to create blog posts on the spot But spending the time to formulate an effective content strategy can save you from countless headaches and set the stage for success. Imagine sharpening your axe prior to cutting down a tree. The preparation is the key to success. When you develop a plan to follow, you’ll become more organized and will enjoy the process more.
Do you have any questions about creating your content strategy? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll be more than happy to assist you!
