Last updated on 13th June 2023 at 21:22 by Alex Nicholas
If you find yourself asking this question, then it's likely that you've realised the importance of having a website that provides value to your customers and helps you achieve your business goals. But why do you need a content strategy exactly, and what is a content strategy?
In this article, we'll take a closer look at how you can create good content more strategically, and provide you with a better understanding of the importance of adhering to your new strategy.
What is a Content Strategy?
At its core, a content strategy is simply a plan for how you will create and manage your website's content. It includes what type of content you will create, how often you will publish new content, and who will be responsible for creating and managing it. Your strategy should also consider your website's overall goals, as well as the needs of your target audience. Creating a content strategy may seem like a daunting task, but there are a few key elements that will help make the process easier.
Before you begin creating your content strategy plan, it's important to first understand what content marketing is and how it can help you achieve your business goals. So before we go any further, let's define content marketing.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and engaging content to attract and retain a target audience. The goal of content marketing is to drive profitable customer action by building trust and creating relationships with potential and existing customers.
When used correctly, content marketing can be an extremely effective way of driving website traffic and generating leads. However, it's important to note that not all content is created equal. For your content marketing efforts to be successful, you need to create content that is valuable, relevant, and engaging to your target audience.
The ultimate goal of your content strategy plan is to build a community or “moat” around your brand, while the purpose of your content marketing is to deliver tangible offerings – such as blog posts, ebooks, or whitepapers – that will help you achieve your business goals.
How Can I Write More Strategic Content?
Here are a few tips:
- Write down your website's goals and objectives
- Do some market research to learn more about your target audience
- Decide what types of content you will create
- Make a list of topics you want to cover
- Determine the tone and voice of your content
- Set a schedule for publishing your content
- Decide which distribution channels you will use
- Promote your content regularly
By following these tips, you can write more strategic content that is aligned with your website's goals and objectives and that resonates with your target audience.
Why Do I Need A Content Marketing Strategy?
This is a straightforward case: the web, social media, and mobile technology have revolutionised the world by connecting all of us and allowing for the instantaneous sharing of information.
Traditional marketing strategies are no longer as successful as they used to be. Every day, the internet becomes a more and more crowded place. Website users are becoming more sophisticated and have less patience for intrusive advertising. As the online world has become noisier, website users have become more skilled at ignoring marketing messages that are not relevant to them.
In a nutshell, your content must be amazing. It has to genuinely assist people and cut through the noise and distractions. It cannot be about you. It has to be about what your website visitor wants to know, what their problem is, and how you can help them solve it. Make it a no-brainer for them to hear you out!
What Do I Put in My Website Content Strategy?
Here are a few key elements that should be included in your content strategy plan:
- Your website's goals and objectives
- Your target audience
- The types of content you will create
- The topics you will cover
- The tone and voice of your content
- The frequency of your content publishing
- Your distribution channels
- Your content promotion strategy
How To Be Successful With Content Marketing?
One of the best ways to be successful with content marketing is to start by creating an editorial calendar. This will help you plan and organise your content, as well as keep track of what you have already published. Once you have a general idea of the type of content you want to create, you can then begin creating individual aspects of your content development strategy.
When creating your content development strategy, it's important to keep your target audience in mind. Your content should be relevant to their interests and needs. It should also be engaging, well-written, and visually appealing.
Finally, assess how much early-stage material you generate and how successfully it engages your target audience.
If you're still not convinced you need a content strategy, here are five compelling reasons to get your marketing team together and start a content plan.
#1 Be Ready For New Opportunities
The more successful content marketers seek new content creation possibilities, the more they seem to find new opportunities. They produce material on hot-button news issues as well as blogs about industry trends.
This way, when new opportunities for website traffic and SEO arise, they're ready to take advantage of them. A well-crafted content strategy will help you anticipate these changes and be prepared to publish high-quality content that is relevant to your target audience that will earn backlinks from trusted sources around the web.
To assist with that, a good content strategy should include all of the methods for a marketer to track and identify news and trends to discover new opportunities.
#2 Produce Higher Conversion Rates
The importance of a content strategy in producing content that converts regularly cannot be overstated. That is, if the right standards are not in place, your website visitors will not be compelled to take the desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.
A content strategy can help you determine what type of content will be most effective in achieving your conversion goals.
It also ensures that all of your content is aligned with your brand voice and messaging. This way, your website visitors will know what to expect from your website and be more likely to convert into customers or clients.
#3 To Fulfil Your Business's Potential
All marketing activities should take you one step closer to your objective. However, misguided efforts or shady SEO techniques only result in time, money, and energy loss.
For example, if you're making content for an audience that doesn't fall within your target market, or if you're attempting to produce material for extremely broad topics, you're wasting time and effort. Your resources are stretched too thin, and you're not able to produce the high-quality content that you could be making.
Creating a content strategy enables you to focus your energies on the areas that will fulfil your business's potential by targeting the right audience and website visitors.
#4 Monitor Your Progress
If you don't have a plan, it's impossible to track your progress or determine whether or not your content marketing efforts are successful.
A content strategy allows you to monitor your website's analytics to see whether or not your target audience is engaging with your content. If they're not, you can make necessary adjustments to improve your website's performance.
Moreover, a content strategy allows you to track your ROI and see how your content marketing efforts are impacting your bottom line. This is important information to have when making decisions about your marketing budget.
#5 Improve Your Marketing Collaborations
Accountability is critical for making any measurable progress, regardless of the field. Your marketing team won't know how much content needs to be created, where it should be published, or when it should go live if there's no strategy in place.
A formal content strategy is a call to action for most people. It establishes performance goals for team members, lays out a content production schedule, sets out specific roles and responsibilities, and provides a guide for how the content should look and sound.
When everyone is on the same page, it becomes much easier to work together and collaborate effectively.
There's no room for confusion or ambiguity when you have a content strategy because it provides clear instructions for what needs to be done. As a result, your team can work more efficiently and avoid costly mistakes.
As you can see, there are many good reasons to develop a content strategy. By doing so, you can improve your website's performance, better monitor your progress, be prepared for new opportunities, and produce higher conversion rates.
Summing up
A content strategy is an essential tool for any business that wants to create high-quality content. It helps you set performance goals, establish a production schedule, define roles and responsibilities, and determine the tone and voice of your content.
If you don't have a content strategy, now is the time to develop one, or let a freelance SEO consultant take the helm. Contact us today and we'll help you hit the ground running, and know right where you're headed; for success.