A well-structured content strategy breeds an evergreen value and a long-term edge for your brand.
Contents are customer-centric vehicles for user engagement. In this guide, you’ll master how to build systems, manage and scale your publishing efforts and transform content into a results-driven operation.
Let’s dive in to learn the components of a successful content marketing framework.
Content Audit Discovery
A content audit is a comprehensive scan of the content on a website, including:
- lead generation landing pages
- blog posts
- articles
- white papers
- ebooks
- checklists
- FAQs
- videos
- presentations
- infographics
- and more.
The sole purpose of a content audit is to take inventory of all existing content, assess its quality and performance, and determine what needs to be added, revised, or removed, such as:
- Under-performing content
- Content that is off-brand
- Content requiring SEO enhancements
- Keyword Stuffing
- Outdated content
- Content Gaps
- Overlapping or duplicate content
Before going through a Content Audit, it’s vital to keep the following in mind:
Create an Ideal Customer Profile & Business Persona
According to Forrester, 48% of high-performing organizations provide personas to internal sales teams.
A buyer’s persona authorizes you to craft marketing campaigns that resonate with your target audience. An Ideal Customer Profile is a fundamental constituent of a fruitful content strategy since it defines the remaining components of your content strategy.
Key Considerations
Research your audience
- Demographics
- Pain Points
- Do a Market Research
- Talk to your Customer Service Representatives
Highlight Motivating Factors
- Goals and Objectives
- Thoughts and Opinions
- Check your Analytics
Generate a Customer Journey Map
The ultimate objective of generating a customer journey map is to guarantee that you are crafting a suave customer experience from start to finish.
It lets you view things from your customer’s perspective and craft a tailored buying experience.
Key Considerations
Ensure Coverage Across
Many brands are sticking to the outdated idea that customers pursue a linear trajectory towards purchase. The fact is, customers circle different platforms and are shifting continuously; thus, focusing on addressing this variety of actions is the key to an effective customer journey map.
Provide Relevant Help
At each step of the customer journey, you need specific, effective ways to engage with your audience. You need to be able to speak to relevant pain points, thoroughly answer questions, and help prospects take the next leap in the buying journey.
Benefits of Content Audit Discovery
By taking stock of the available content, businesses can make more informed decisions about where to allocate their resources and more opportunities for new content creation.
During a content refresh, you may:
- Enhance content performance
- Ensure accuracy and quality
- Identify competitive gaps
How to do a Content Audit
- Identify content audit Objectives.
(Google organic rankings, Organic traffic, Brand perception, Engagement, Conversions, social shares, Leads, Sales, etc.) - Determine insights and KPIs
- SEO metrics (Target keyword, Target keyword monthly search volume, Target keyword rank, Backlinks)
- Behavioral metrics (Page views, Scroll rate, Bounce rate, Conversions)
- Quality metrics (Last updated, Word count, Readability, Citations, Spelling and grammar, Google Expertise – Authoritativeness – Trustworthiness)
- Gather Data.
- Make content recommendations.
Content Strategy
After identifying audit results, it’s time to take action based on the collected data.
Keyword/Topic Research
To create a content cluster, you must determine which keywords you want to target.
Once you have your targeted keywords, you can begin creating in-depth content that covers those topics. By grouping your content in this way, you can create a powerful resource for your audience and the search engines.
Content outlining and Creative Design
Once a list of topic ideas has been generated, begin organizing the content into an outline that will help create a cohesive and well-structured final piece.
Check our free templates for high-converting content.
Anchor Link Optimization
Anchor link optimization is the process of improving the visibility and click-through rate of a website’s links by using anchor text relevant to the content on the page.
There are two main types of anchor links:
Generic links are often used on pages with little content, such as landing pages or product pages. On the other hand, branded links are typically used on pages with more content, such as blog posts or articles.
To optimize anchor links, focus on creating content relevant to the keywords you want to rank for.
In addition, you should avoid using too many generic or branded anchors on a single page, as this can come across as spammy to both users and search engines.
Content Planning
73% of B2B marketers use a content calendar while crafting content.
A well-architected content calendar enables the content creation team to systematize goals and meet deadlines. It enables you to have topics planned in advance and a timeline for all the tasks involved.
Why Content Calendars are Essential
Keeps you Organized
There are multiple moving components in content creation, publishing, and distribution. There are usually a lot of platforms, team members, tools, and channels involved. A content calendar keeps everything laid out.
Tracks Status and Responsibilities
All tasks involved are in a central place, along with who is responsible for those tasks. This helps keep team members accountable and ensures that nothing slips through the cracks.
Stimulates collaboration.
By sharing a common document, writers, editors, and designers are all aware of deadlines. They view what content is being created, when it is scheduled to be published, and any relevant comments or notes.
Easier for Updates
It also ensures adequate time for rewrites, edits, or additions. And it encourages more possibilities to repurpose content across different platforms.
Promotes consistency.
Content calendars aid you in being more consistent with your publishing. Without a plan in place, it can be challenging to come up with new content ideas regularly.
Content Distribution
A content distribution strategy aims to get the right content to the right people at the right time. A content distribution strategy generally falls into three categories: paid, owned, or earned.
The best content distribution strategies typically use an amalgamation of all three types of content. For example, you might use paid content to generate interest in your brand, owned content to furnish more information about your product or service, and earned content to build trust and credibility.
Each content distribution channel has strengths and weaknesses, so choosing the right one for your content and your goals are intertwined.
Content Optimization
It is vital to analyze the performance of your content marketing efforts. By measuring engagement, reach, and leads generated, you can fine-tune your content strategy and ensure that your content has the desired effect.
In addition, content monitoring can help you identify which topics resonate with your audience and which are falling flat. Armed with this information, you can acclimate and adjust your content calendar and ensure you’re constantly publishing the most relevant and engaging content possible.
Whether you’re just starting content marketing or doing it for years, content monitoring is essential to any successful content strategy.
Final Thoughts
Content marketing intertwines with all marketing tactics. By developing and following a blueprint, you ensure an uphill trajectory.
If you want a more straightforward method to develop your content strategy framework with your content writing and distribution, leave it to our dedicated experts. We work with you to create a workflow and framework so you don’t have to worry about anything other than sharing your vision and seeing the results roll in.
Set up your call today to start a partnership with us.
