Content marketing strategy – get started

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the process of creating useable content that your customers, clients and end users get real value out of (eg, learn information) and sharing it on your own channels to increase your credibility and entice new leads and sales.

All good things need a plan but getting started with your SEO content marketing plan can be daunting. Below, you will find some simple steps on how you can get started with your content strategy. 

‘Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.’

How do you decide what topics to focus on and what format to use?

When writing and planning a bunch of SEO content, it can be challenging to know where to start. And what to write. You might want to write about dogs and bowties but how relevant is it to your broader SEO marketing plan? What kinds of topics will draw in more sales and new customers?
Topic focus should be based on your target demographic. And what content appeals to them to engage their interest and convert sales. What do they already consume and what SEO articles and blog posts influence them to purchase?

Keyword research as part of your SEO investigation and strategy is a great place to start when it comes to planning your content topics. By discovering a list of applicable keywords and long tail search terms, you determine which content articles and web copy should be your immediate focus. 

What steps should you take to develop a content writing strategy?

1. Identify: identify goals, objectives and where it sits in your broader marketing strategy and business plan.
2. Audit: audit current channels (such as your website/blog, any editorial you have written, content you have written for your Facebook page or enews etc) and existing content, ascertain internal knowledge (you’d be surprised at the knowledge your team or coworkers have) and other knowledge channels that the business has access to (eg key stakeholders, prominent customers etc)
3. Research phase: competitor, keyword and SEO competitive analysis, social listening and monitoring, customer enquiries and feedback. Don’t forget to determine your target demographics and how to speak directly to them (eg what language do they like?).
4. Create a content calendar and strategy, ie when will you post your content? What dates/important holidays does it coincide with? How far in advance do you need to start writing it?). Then start implementing this editorial calendar!
5. Reporting: monitor, report and analyse the performance of content strategy and implementation of and optimise and tweak regularly. Don’t neglect or resist this step as it’s crucial to tell you exactly what content is working, what you need to write more of and what is just wasting your time. 

How do you track your content writing?

Utilising analytic programs (such as Google Analytics) and other tools to ascertain performance of content, you can report on key metrics and data in accordance to your predetermined KPIs and objectives, which you would assumedly focus around views, increased site traffic, increased social media engagement and metrics and most importantly conversions to sales. 

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