Content Strategy in 3 Easy Steps

We all want the same thing; a decent amount of traffic and for our visitors to stay on our pages. But how on earth do you make sure that happens? Conceptually, this is called your ‘Content Strategy’, but if you have never formally thought about your site’s content strategy, it can be hard to know where to start. Here is an easy, internet-friendly, 3 step list to help you get started.

Content Strategy Step 1: Focus Your Website Strategy

What IS the focus of your website? What’s the point? It’s vital to know what the focus of your site is before you start writing content for it. If you cover multiple topics on your site, bring it back into focus.

For example, say you have two businesses. You sell dog health supplements for one of your businesses and fix cars for your other business. Because you are using content to promote yourself as an expert, you have to keep the focus of your site on one business or the other. If you try to offer advice on what supplements to take to help your dog’s itchy skin in one piece of content and then follow it up with a piece of content on how to change the oil in your car, you won’t be seen as an expert by anyone and you’ll likely confuse your audience while you’re at it.

Create a separate website for each business, and keep the focus of the site and its content on that specific business topic.
Concentrate on one niche. Build out each of your businesses from there.

Content Strategy Step 2: Find Your Keywords

After you have narrowed the focus of your site, it is time to select the keywords that you want to use. One approach is to randomly selecting keywords that you think are related to your topic and start using them in your content and on your site. This is like throwing darts in the dark and hoping you hit the board. For a more focused approach, use a keyword tool. Keyword tools pull up information that will help you choose the keywords related to your topics that are actually being used by your target audience in search engines.

One popular keyword tool that is used by many business owners and SEO experts is Google AdWords Keyword Planner. It is simple to use, and it gives you a good insight to the searches being done every month that are related to your business. *Note: One downside is you need a Google AdWords account. If you don’t have one yet, it’s easy to get – like all the other Google products, you can log in with your existing Gmail account or you can sign up for one for free. Just put in your product or service, your website address (if you have it already), and select the category your product or service belongs in. In this example, we are using the health supplements business –

On the next page, Google will provide you with every related keyword to your product and service. The tool also tells you how many times in a month a specific keyword is used and how bad the competition is for a specific keyword. Ideally, you want to use keywords that have a lot of monthly searches and medium to low competition. Here’s what the results look like for ‘health supplements’.

Content Strategy Step 3: Pick Your Audience

Now that you know your topic and keywords, it’s time to start thinking target audience. You should have a clear picture of who will be visiting your site so that you can write the content for them. Any content that is created should be on the same conversation level that you would be on if you had your audience right in front of you. Knowing exactly who you are talking to is going to help you in two ways: with your content strategy and website traffic.

First, if you are creating content for your audience on their level, they are more likely to stay and return to your site. Second, Google has started to turn away from a keyword focus, instead showing a preference for relevance –providing resources to the people doing the searches.

Having just the right mix of keywords and audience-centered content will give you the relevancy that Google is looking for. Eventually, this strategy will help you grow an audience of consistent, happy users and will earn your content a coveted place in the search results.