How To Develop A Content Strategy And Plan Your Content?

Content is a critical part of any digital marketing strategy, but it’s not very easy to create great content without a plan. 

A content strategy helps you craft better content, with the right tone and at the right time. That way, your audience will be more engaged with your brand and learn more about what sets you apart from other players in your industry therefore you need to hire the Result Oriented SEO Company.

Content plan vs content strategy

Content planning and strategy are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing.

Content strategy is a long-term plan that sets the direction for your content. It helps you define your audience, content types, and distribution channels.

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If you’re looking to create a new site or blog, this is where you’ll start—by defining what themes or topics will be covered on it (e.g., “horror movies” or “best practices”).

A content plan is more tactical in nature, focusing on how much time needs to be devoted to different aspects of your strategic vision; i.e., how much time do we spend writing stories versus curating articles from other sites?

Who is your target audience?

In order for you to create a content strategy, you need to know who your target audience is and what their needs are.

• Who are you trying to reach? Are they young or old? Male or female? What’s their role in the organization? What are their interests and hobbies? Do they have the same pain points as others in your industry?
• Once you have an idea of who your target audience is, try thinking about what they want out of content marketing by asking these questions: What do they need from us right now? How can we help them solve this problem more quickly than other companies in our industry? If we don’t provide this type of information now, when will it become important enough for someone else’s brand (our competitor) that they start offering it themselves?

What problem does your content solve?

Now that you have an understanding of your audience and their pain points, it’s time to create a content strategy that solves those problems.

First, think about the problem(s) your content will solve.

Is there a specific issue that needs to be resolved? If so, what is it exactly? How does this problem affect your audience? Why do they care about solving this problem? Who is your target audience (and where are they located)? What are the benefits of solving this problem for each of those audiences (and how do they differ)?

How to write a content plan

Content planning is the most important step in planning your content. You will be able to create a strategy and plan for all of your content by taking time to create this plan.

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The purpose of your plan is to guide you through the entire process, from ideation through distribution. By having it clearly laid out, you can measure success with each piece of content that gets published, which helps keep you on track and motivated as you move forward.

Your content plan should include these sections:

• The purpose of your content strategy – Why are you creating this? Who benefits from it? What is its goal?
• What will each piece of content look like – What type(s) of posts are we talking about (blog post, video series, infographic)? How often do we want to publish this type(s) of post (weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly)? Who do we want to target with these posts (newbies vs experts)? Where do they live online (social media platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn)? Is there an existing audience who needs more information in order for them to take action now rather than later because they need more context before making purchasing decisions?”

Determine your content planning process

Determine your content planning process.

The first step in developing a content strategy and plan is to determine your content planning process.

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A solid and effective process will help you make the most of your efforts, so it’s important to choose one that works with your needs and resources. Here are some questions that can help you figure this out:

• What types of content do I need?
• How much time will it take me to create each piece?
• How much time should I spend writing vs editing vs researching?

Brainstorm topic ideas

• Brainstorm topic ideas.
• Using a mind-mapping tool or pen and paper, brainstorm topics you think your target audience will be interested in. You can use the 5 Ws (who, what, when, where and why) to create a story that draws people in. The 3 C’s of content creation: Content, Creativity and Copy also help you keep things fresh by focusing on creating quality material that’s unique to your brand.

Research keywords

The first step in your content strategy is to research keywords. There are many ways of doing that, but the most effective ones include using the Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, and AdWords Keyword Planner.

• The Google Keyword Planner is a free tool where you can get new local keyword ideas based on your existing list of seed keywords, with suggested volumes and estimated costs per click (CPC). It also allows you to compare search volume between two or more queries within certain locations.
• Another great way to learn what people search for online is through Google Trends — it reveals how popular each topic is over time across geographical regions.
• Through its CPC model, AdWords offers suggestions based on an advertiser’s bid keywords which were previously selected by them (or automatically generated) during the ad creation process. In addition to getting suggestions about long tail keywords that might be relevant for their business needs, advertisers also have access through this feature directly to what other advertisers are bidding on. This means they’ll know exactly how much competition there will be when they’re trying something new!

Outline content

The first step in creating your content strategy is to outline your content. This should be a detailed, comprehensive list of all the points you want to make in your text, as well as the structure and order of those points. Your outline should also include information about the format and style of your writing.

For example:

• Title (what will appear at the very top)
• Headline (a subheading under a title that describes what’s below it)
• Introduction (an overview of what ideas will be covered)
• Body paragraphs 1 through 3

Draft your article

• Write a simple outline.
• Write a clear headline that grabs the reader’s attention, and make sure it accurately reflects the article’s content.
• Write an introduction that will convince readers to read on to the next section of your article (for example: “This is exactly why you need to …”).
• Write compelling body copy so people will want to continue reading after they’ve clicked through from social media (for example: “In this post, we’ll show you how …”)
• Use strong actionable language in headlines and titles so readers know what they’ll get out of reading your content (for example: “This Is How To Get The Most Out Of Your Content Marketing Strategy”)
• Use lists throughout your articles whenever possible; this helps break up text into manageable chunks for easy digestion by readers’ eyes when scanning quickly through something on their phone or tablet screen!

Use the active voice whenever possible. The active voice makes your writing more direct, powerful and engaging for readers. 

Edit the copy

Once you have your article written, the next step is to edit the copy. This is where you read it out loud and make sure it’s easy for readers to understand. If there are spelling mistakes, this is also where you fix them—and use a word processor if you need its assistance.

Finally, get rid of any awkward sentences or phrases (like “best practice” when “good practice” would be better). And if there are any grammar issues (such as using passive voice), consider rewriting those sections in a more direct way that avoids unnecessary words like “be” verbs and adverbs ending in -ly (e.g., quickly vs. running quickly).

You should also check for consistency throughout the document by looking at each heading level as well as section headers throughout your content plan and making sure they’re all formatted similarly before publishing them online so they look professional!

Once your content is written and edited, the next step is to publish it online where people can find your content. If you’re writing an article or blog post, this means publishing that piece on a website or blog of your own design (or using a free service like WordPress).

Design supporting images

Once you have the right images, you need to design them. Here are some tips:

• For social media, it’s best to use graphics that are square or wide (2100px), so they can be cropped for different sizes. You can use free stock photos from sites such as Pexels or Unsplash, but avoid copyrighted material if possible.
• For blogs and landing pages, you should use images with a width of 1200px or less – the idea is to make sure people see your content rather than just an image that doesn’t tell them anything about what’s inside.
• Images for email newsletters should generally be no larger than 600px in length – depending on how many emails your subscribers receive each week, this may change depending on how much space they need left over after all their other inbox clutter forms up around them. If there isn’t enough room left over by an image being too large then consider removing it entirely instead!

Execute quality control 

After creating your content and publishing it, you can check for spelling, grammar and broken links by reading through the text. You can also use a tool like Grammarly to help you with this task.

Another important aspect of quality control is checking for broken images in your content. If any image is broken then it will be displayed as a blank space or another image instead of the original one. You need to make sure that there are no such spaces or images in your website; otherwise, these will ruin its appearance and lead people away from visiting it again in the future.

Share and distribute your content

Once you’ve developed your content strategy, it’s time to share it with the world. You can use social media, email marketing, or your blog to host and distribute your content. If you’re in B2B industry, you might also want to host a webinar or live video chat with experts on the topic.

You can share these videos on your YouTube channel or embed them into an online course. And if you’re interested in going into business for yourself as a consultant who specializes in this topic (like I did), then consider creating an online course that teaches people how to develop their own content strategies and plans from scratch.

Measure content success

Once you have a content strategy in place, it’s time to measure your success. To do this, you’ll need to keep track of how your content is performing so that you can see what works and what doesn’t. 

The most important metric for measuring the performance of any piece of content (or social media post) is engagement rate—the number of people who engage with your content divided by the total number of people who see it. This will allow you to understand how many readers are engaging with each piece of content and give you insight into what type of posts are working best for your audience.

Conclusion

Content planning is an essential step in creating a successful content strategy. The next step is to optimize it based on how well your audience interacts with it. Therefore you need to hire a Trusted SEO Company like Digital45. We are a reputable SEO company with a high standard of tech-hungry employees. Our SEOs have access to a wealth of web resources both locally and globally.