5 Steps to Creating a Great Content Strategy

Creating a great content strategy takes time and patience. There are a number of steps you must take to ensure that your content strategy is great. Different steps will work for different topics but some hold true for all websites. The following article is a concise and information filled guide to help you make sure that your content strategy is a surefire success.

1. Create a set schedule for posting your content

Regular content updates are essential for a great content strategy. There are a number of reasons for this. Regular updates ensure that visitors to your site have something new to read every time they visit. Regular updates also ensure that search engines, content aggregators, and bloggers see your site as current and relevant. Relevancy is important for your content strategy because websites live or die on their value to search engines. Creating a set schedule to post your content is a great way to be consistently ranked in different search results and grow traffic organically at the same time. Set schedules also work wonders with allocating your time. If you post regularly, you can set time aside specifically for this task. Plus, utilizing a set schedule gives you an impetus to post your content on time.

2. Have a diverse array of content

While posting content regularly is important, having different types of content also helps to broaden the appeal of your site and help you reach a large and diverse online audience. While your content should be related to your original theme, it helps to be creative and to try and offer content that your competitors do not have. Sometimes this means targeting readers or visitors in smaller niches with pinpointed content. If your content is aimed towards a very specific niche without any broad appeal your site will not grow. This content strategy may work for some, but a successful content strategy will avoid this pitfall. If you produce and post a great deal of this content you will draw in many more visitors, which will help make your overall content strategy great.

3. Use web tools like Google Analytics to track your content

In order to craft your content strategy to perfection, it is absolutely necessary to track your content after it is posted. This way you will be able to find out what subjects and content pieces are popular and are rewarding you with large numbers of visitors. You can make your content strategy much more efficient by only producing and posting content that people actually want to see. Any content that has no real interest to a reader won’t draw in too many long term views, and it may even get your site penalized by Google for a high bounce rate. Track your content, and weed out the bad content by tracking pageviews and visits.

4. Plan out your content strategy ahead of time

In order to have a coherent and cohesive content strategy, it is essential that you create a long term plan for your content posting. The best content strategies are thought out, and the content within them works together to create something greater than the content alone. If your content strategy is planned out you will be able to better manage your project, and make sure that the site constantly growing. There is some truth to the old adage “If you don’t know where you are going any road will take you there.” Plan out your content strategy ahead of time to maximize and manage growth.

5. Use keyword research effectively

To create a great content strategy, find out what your potential visitors are searching for. The best way to gauge demand is to determine how often certain terms are being searched. You can research how many people search for a potential keyword as well as how many websites a search brings up. Your goal is to find a happy medium between the two search metrics. If you develop content related to what people are already searching for, you will be able to find out demand before creating a product (the content). Do your best to aim your content creation resources towards areas that already have significant consumer demand. If you are able to aim all of your content towards your target demographic, you will have finished creating the most important factor for a successful content strategy. Remember, content is king and having valuable, topical, evergreen content is the best way to create great content. Quality content should always be the center of your strategy.

You can create a great content strategy by using variations on the tips offered in this article. Different websites will be able to use these techniques variably. Some of these steps will be more important than others, depending on the topic of your site. The only one that holds true for all websites is the fact that you must create topical, relevant, quality content in order to be truly successful. Hold content king and you will have a great content strategy.