“How to Develop a Competitive Content Strategy”

“How to Develop a Competitive Content Strategy”
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Maybe you have heard of just how important content strategy is for your business – or how keeping it up-to-date is relevant for business growth. But, have you ever thought of what sets apart a competitive content strategy from a not-so-competitive one. 

The answer is in the PLANNING. The first step to every successful content strategy is setting your goals. Without planning, you fail. An innovative and strong plan provides value for your target audience. Great content strategies also attract favorable search engine rankings.

If you want to structure a new content strategy or revisit previous ideas, here is a plan you can develop.

Define your Goals

Before starting your content strategy, understand what you want to achieve. Know what you want your target audience to do rather than what you want them to know. It could be that you want your audience to sign up for your newsletters, download an eBook, or subscribe to social media channels. Whatever your reasons, let your expectations have measurable results. Measurable results can be in the form of analytics that make it is easy to know when you meet your goals. With measurable results, you allow for content repurposing if the current strategy fails. 

Develop Keyword Strategies

To develop a successful keyword strategy, research on the preferences of your target audience. Know the questions your audiences may be asking by checking the suggestions offered in the search engines. Understand the unique style, voice, and terms of most audiences.

For this, the Google Keyword Planner can act as a helpful tool. The Keyword Planner displays keywords that describe specific content, products, and services. With just a phrase, product category, or website URL, you can develop responsive keywords for your web pages.

This is how the Keyword Planner works; if you are looking for top keywords, insert your word choice in the search tab. The file returns a variety of search volume data and top market keywords. From your long list of keywords, brainstorm for keywords with high search volumes. Select relevant and top-tier keywords for your content.  

The process may look simple, but if you are just starting, it can be quite confusing. For beginners, here is a step-by-step process you can follow:

  1. Identify the Keywords to use in the Content

After signing up, use the Keyword Planner to search for keywords related to your topic. For best results, narrow down your search to relevant long-tail keywords. For example, if you are writing a health article on diabetes, narrow down your search to a title like “common signs of diabetes.” That way, you can target specific audiences that only need the signs of diabetes. After each search, a variety of keyword suggestions can be viewed. You can then sort your keyword preferences according to location, competition, average monthly searches, and preferred options.

2. Evaluate your Keyword Ideas

With Google Keyword Planner, you can easily see a competitor’s ideas. You might not know it, but, as a business, you may be losing traffic to competitors because of specific keywords. To avoid losing traffic, learn to search for URLs of competitive brands, to predict high bids.

The results from the searches always show how many times your competitors’ keyword has been searched. The competition tab reveals the number of brands ranking for those top keywords. From the results, you can choose both the high bids and low bids and filter keywords relevant to your brand.

3. Select the Keyword to Use

Your focus should be on creating the best keywords for your business. That means, understanding the purpose of each keyword to your content strategy. Great keywords aim to rank you better on Goggle, thus, increasing traffic and helping your business grow. The best selection of keywords is, therefore, those with low competition and a high number of searches.

Revisit your Content

If you have been in business for a while, revisiting your social content strategy can help correct past mistakes. Start by reviewing the results of previous content. If the keywords are struggling to rank, repurpose the content. Repurposing content is when you change the format or the target audience for your content. An example is transforming an old blog post into a podcast. This way, you can attract different audiences and reach a large number of people.

Come up with fresh ideas and set new goals every once in a while. Check your editorial calendar to ensure it is always up-to-date. By reviewing your content regularly, you achieve short-term and long-term progress for the brand. Here is more of what repurposing of content can lead to:

  • An increase in leads and traffic

  • Development of consistent and fresh content

  • Delivery of strong and reliable ideas

  • Ability to target different buyer personas

Select the Type of Content You Want To Create

There are various ways to deliver your brand message. Based on the preferences of your audience, here are a few options:

  • Blog posts: An example is what you are reading now. Blog posts educate and attract new visitors to websites.

  • Infographics: The use of visuals and written data. Visuals make it easy to understand the data, mainly if it contains lots of information.

  • Videos: Videos make it easy to engage and share information on social media platforms. You’re more likely to increase engagement with videos than with written content.

  • EBooks: They are a more in-depth version of blog posts. EBooks are useful for list-building and lead-generation.

  • Social media platforms: An example is Facebook which offers the perfect place to distribute created content. For better success in social media marketing, research the social platforms your clients hang out and then build relationships with social media influencers to reach the target audience.

It takes time to build a successful content strategy. But with discipline and effort, your content strategy could scale your business. It is essential to consistently review your strategy to ensure it is in line with your current business goals. 

If you need help developing a content strategy for your business, contact me at tim@timpic.com for a free consultation.

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