Content is at the foundation of every digital marketing strategy. It is eventually through content that you make your message through to your audience. Communication, which is essential in marketing, would be impossible without content. There are various content types used for marketing like video, social media, podcasts, emails, and so on. However, the most commonly used by businesses is blogs. Moreover, it is also the most important and most effective sort of content marketing.
However, you can’t just create a blog, update it irregularly sometimes, and expect positive results. Just like any other digital marketing function, it also requires a strategy. And that’s just what we’re going to help you with today. So, read on for a step-by-step guide to develop a blog content strategy.
For content marketing, one can do a number of things. You can make a social media post, create infographics, do video marketing, and so much more. However, blog posting remains the most essential branch of content marketing E-Commerce. It helps a business establish trust, show thought leadership, improve engagement, boost SEO ranking, and so much more. In fact, it is at the base of most of the other content marketing campaigns as well like—email marketing, social media marketing, YoutTube marketing, etc. Hence, you need to make sure that your blog is on fleek.
With the importance of blog established, let’s talk about how to develop an effective blog content strategy.
A Step-By-Step Guide for Developing a Blog Strategy
➊ Know your objectives
Defining objectives is the first and foremost step to develop any digital marketing strategy. This stands true for blogs as well. Starting out vague would lead to vague results only. Therefore, before you sit down to blog, it is important to know your objectives.
There are a number of reasons people blog. It could be for:
- Brand awareness
- Search engine optimization
- Establishing oneself as a thought leader
- Building a community
- Improving links
- Driving web traffic
- Keeping website updated
- Building email marketing list
- Explaining products
There is literally so much more.
And the course of your blog content strategy will be defined by these objectives. Hence, it is important to know your objectives before you begin blogging.
➋ Define goals
After you have cleared your objectives, it’s time to define some goals. For example, consider your objective behind maintaining a blog is to increase brand awareness. In that case, you could set a goal that you want to see an increase of X% in the number of new visitors per month.
Just like that, depending upon your objectives, you should set corresponding goals. However, it is important to make sure that you set realistic goals. It is best advised to keep humble goals when you’re just beginning.
Moreover, your goals shouldn’t be vague. They should be set in relation to time, should be specific, and measurable. Or else, you won’t be able to fulfill your objectives.
➌ Understand your audience
Once you have defined your objectives and goals, it’s time to focus on your audience. Your audience is the ones you are writing for. Therefore, it is important to make sure that you deliver the content of their liking.
For that, you’d need to understand them. And for that, you’d need certain information on them like their demographics, likes, dislikes, preferences, customer behavior, and so on. The point being, you’ll need to research your audience.
There are a number of things you can do to research your audience. You can:
- Conduct relevant qualitative surveys (both-small scale and large-scale)
- Create buyer personas
- Look at what your competitors are posting
- Study the consumer trends in your industry
Doing this will help you understand your target audience better. As a result, you’ll be able to produce content that suits them best.
➍ Solve customer problems
Problem-solving should be at the center of your content marketing strategies. This is especially so for blogs. Consumers come online looking to find answers to their problems. They read blogs to find solutions to these very questions.
Online businesses try to provide solutions to those problems while gradually pitching their product. This is also essential to establish trust. Hence, your content should focus on problem-solving.
For this, consider the strengths of your brand. What customer problems are your products solving? Once you have found answers to these questions, the next would be to brainstorm for content ideas.
➎ Brainstorming for content ideas
Now, we’re just a step away from the writing part. Before you sit to write, you’d need to have some content ideas. You may have an abundance of knowledge in your field. However, maintaining a steady supply of content ideas—which is essential for effective blog management— can be a bit challenging if you don’t have a strategy beforehand. Hence, for this, you should try out the following things:
- Always try to brainstorm with a group
- Write down each and every suggestion
- Create topic lists as long as possible
- Use social media polls
- See what your competitors are doing
- Take ideas from blog comments
These are some of the ways that you can effectively brainstorm for content ideas. And make sure you always have a long list of content ideas ready before you sit to write.
➏ Do a thorough keywords research
Keywords are an important part of blogs. It is what links content marketing with SEO. In order to make sure that your content is read, your content needs to rank high. And for that, it needs to be effectively charged with relevant keywords.
Based on your industry and your target market, there’d be certain keywords that the consumers would use to search for businesses like yours. You need to identify those keywords and use them accordingly. Making a customer persona and researching your customers is also an important aspect of it.
Follow the give steps to when researching keywords:
- Know the different types of keywords
- Identify your seed keywords
- Try discovering new keywords
- Study the competition level of keywords
- Understand keyword metrics
By following these steps, you will be able to conduct meaningful keyword research. This will help your content rank better on search engines and will help drive more web traffic.
➐ Use content marketing tools
Marketing on digital platforms in the present-day is impossible without the right software solutions. This stands the same for content marketing as well. Therefore, ensure to make such tools a part of your blog content strategy. Listed below are some of the best content marketing tools:
- Trello
- BuzzSumo
- Evernote
- Kred
- ClickFunnels
Different tools have different specialities. Therefore, it is best to use a combination of different tools for best results.
Final Word
Blog posting is essential for online businesses. Therefore, it is important to have an effective strategy for blog content. You can easily do that with the list of steps given above. As you’d have noticed, it all comes down to keywords charged quality content that provides great value to customers. And of you are new with all this, don’t worry. There are various content marketing tools can help you with all this. And for best results, you can always sort to digital marketing experts!
We hope this article helped. Still got queries? Tell us in the comments below.
