Your content marketing strategy will influence how you reach the audience.

Now is the right time to start a content strategy.

Many businesses are overwhelmed by the decision of where to start.

• What content should you create?
• How often do you use it?
• Where should it be posted?

These questions will be answered today.

Remember that content is a magnet. You can convert people by making content.

You can’t expect people just to stumble across your site without a content marketing strategy.

This post will show you how to create content and then use that knowledge to attract potential customers.

What is Content Marketing Strategy? Why is it important?

Your content marketing strategy is the process of creating, publishing, promoting, and distributing information that is valuable to your audience. Content is simply text, audio or video that solves problems.

Quality is the key ingredient in any content marketing strategy. There is a lot of content floating around the Internet. While some of the content is not useful, there are many great ones.

Your competitors must be better than you. Your content will not be displayed in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Julia McCoy, writing for the Content Marketing Institute, notes that a solid strategy in content marketing can generate three times more leads than paid advertising.

Lead generation This is the most important metric that businesses monitor. You will have more sales opportunities if you have more leads.

Your content marketing strategy is the hook for potential customers. Your offer is the hook. Don’t waste your time trying to get prospects to sign up for your mailing list. Instead, create solid content that will draw them in.

How to tell if you need to develop a content marketing strategy

A content marketing strategy is a great tool for businesses. Consider whether your potential customers have problems or goals. If “yes”, you will need a content marketing strategy.

Let’s suppose you are selling a consumer product. You want it to be bought by more people.

You write articles that are relevant to your target audience, and not advertising. Your goal is to assist them in achieving their goals or solving their problems.

These articles help prospects find your site. They can read and respect your content and keep coming back. Your brand is the first thing they think of when they need a product similar to yours.

You can’t be sure if you don’t have a content marketing plan. A strategy will allow you to create the best content at the right moment.

How Content Marketing Strategies are Important for More Conversions

When consumers are ready, they convert. It’s as simple as that. A content marketing strategy allows you to be present at the moment that a prospect decides to buy.

Strategy is often what separates content marketing winners and those who fail to reach their audience.

You’ll be able to know the following once you have a strategy in place:

• What keywords should you target?
• Your voice in content
• When should you mention your product?
• How to deliver a slam-dunk Call to Action 

Your content should be read by more than just people. You want them to take the next step.

Show them that you are an authority in your field to convince them. Your competitors will offer more content than you. Create a content marketing strategy to reach people when they are most in need.

How to create a content marketing strategy that converts: Step-by-Step Guide

Although you know that you need a content strategy for your marketing, you may not know where to begin.

To ensure that you reach as many people as possible, we have created a step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Research Target Keywords

Many marketers mistakenly believe keywords are 2010-specific. This is not true.

Google searches use keywords, even though they don’t know them. It is important to determine which keywords are most appealing to searchers.

Ubersuggest can be a powerful tool to find keywords you should target. Begin with a keyword and then search for long-tail keywords.

There are many other keyword research tools that you can use to find keywords.

Both competitive and non-competitive keywords can be targeted. To drive targeted traffic to your website, focus on long-tail keywords.

A keyword such as “running shoes” can target many people. When it comes to attracting qualified leads, the keyword “running shoes with bad knees” will limit your audience.

Step 2: Search for related keywords

It is not a good idea to only rely on one keyword. Mixing related keywords will help Google understand what you are writing.

Ubersuggest can help. You can simply type keywords relevant to your topic, and Ubersuggest will suggest keywords that make sense for your audience.

Google must parse a lot of information. You want to do everything you can to help. Google can understand the type of search intent by adding keywords that have similar meanings.

Step 3: Create a Spreadsheet for Each Topic

You can create a master spreadsheet that you can use to serve as a template. This will allow you to copy the master spreadsheet for every piece of content that you create.

Before you start content creation, the spreadsheet should contain the target keyword and related keywords.

You can easily share your ideas with others in your team and get feedback before you publish the content to fit your schedule. If you want to organize your content marketing strategy, don’t skip this step.

Step 4: Sketch the content you’ll create

An outline is a way to organize your thoughts and structure your article in a way that makes it more impactful for SEO as well as for readers. An outline helps you to decide which subtopics you want and keeps you from forgetting any ideas when you begin creating content.

Your spreadsheet should contain the outline. Each subtopic should be labeled with the appropriate heading tag. You could, for example, include links or statistics under each topic.

Step 5: Create a draft of your content

The draft form is where every piece of content begins. Microsoft Office, Google Docs or any other program that you are familiar with can be used to create your drafts. You can also write drafts in WordPress, or any other content management system.

Let your draft sit for at least a day after you have completed it. Then, revise and edit. You can also send it to a trusted editor, who will be able to spot mistakes and point out any other issues.

Step 6: Create a publication and promotion schedule

You decide how often to publish your content. More important than frequency is consistency.

If you post new content every Monday for instance, readers will be able to know when to return and check out your latest offerings. It could be three times per week or every other week.

Be consistent in publishing content. Although it is unlikely that you will be off by more than a few hours, the organization is crucial for the success and sustainability of your content marketing strategy.

Schedule content promotion. You can make a huge difference in how many people see your new content by posting it on social media or emailing the people mentioned in each article.

Facebook allows you to schedule content ahead of time. To make promotion easier, you can also use tools such as Buffer.

Step 7: Conduct Influencer Outreach

Reach out to people and brands when you mention them in your content. Ask them to share it. Although many people won’t respond, it’s important to keep in touch with them. You will get more shares the more people you contact.

It is also possible to get in touch directly with people who may find your content engaging and have large online followers. Generic content can go viral by using influencers. If you have great content, make sure it is seen by your target audience.

It’s okay to ask for a share. Don’t harass influencers. Be focused on helping and building relationships with influencers. Neil Patel, Crazy Egg’s co-founder, talks about influencer marketing in the video. He also explains the best methods to do it.

Ask influencers to do something for your benefit.

Step 8: Reserve time for internal linking

Internal linking improves the ranking of your content in search engine results pages and keeps people on your page. Website visitors shouldn’t click away from your article after reading it. Instead, you want them to dig deeper into your website.

You will need to create content marketing strategies from scratch. You can go back to older articles to add links to the new content as you create it.

You’ll receive suggestions for internal links if you purchase the premium Yoast plug. This will speed up the process.

High-quality, internal links are essential. Make sure you optimize your anchor text (the words which are linked to the target article). Don’t use empty phrases such as “click here”; instead, include internal links naturally with anchor text that contains relevant keywords.

Checklist: Developing a Content Marketing Strategie

We’ve now covered eight steps to create a content marketing plan. Where do we start? A checklist can make the process more straightforward and efficient.

To get you started, here’s a checklist for content marketing strategies:

• Keyword Research: Create a comprehensive list of keywords that are related to your products or services. This list should be updated regularly to add new keyword ideas so that you don’t run out of content.

• Content goals: What are your content goals? Each piece of content may have its own goal. One goal might be to establish topic authority while another could be to convert leads.

• Content length: How long would you like your articles to be? Long-form content is more popular in search engines because it is considered more comprehensive. If the topic isn’t worth 5,000 words, you can keep the content shorter.

• Style Guide: Make a style guide to ensure that every piece of content is consistent in tone, appearance, voice, and voice. You can include details such as spelling and capitalization for brand terms, the number of images that should be used in each article, and the number of subheadings.

• Pillar Pages: It is possible to create pillar webpages. These pages are high-level content pieces that target your most desirable keywords. Your articles should link to your pillar pages regularly.

• Non-text Content: You might consider creating infographics and videos to complement your text-based content. These pieces can be embedded in articles to make them more interesting.

• Writing and revising: Create a system to create and proofread content that reflects your best work. These tasks can be assigned to any member of your team or outsourced if needed.

• Target Audience: Each piece of content should target a specific segment of your target audience.

• Promotion: Decide how you will promote and market your content. Email marketing, influencer outreach, and other content marketing strategies can be used to promote your content.

This content marketing strategy checklist can be referred to as often as you need to ensure that you are on the right track. Your strategy can be updated to reflect new goals and reach new audiences.

3 High-Converting Content Marketing Strategy Examples

Examples can be a great help if you are just beginning to build your content marketing strategy. These examples can help you envision what your content could look like and give you inspiration for future campaigns.

These are three examples of content marketing strategies to help you get started.

1. Backlinko

Brian Dean from Backlinko resisted almost every type of content marketing. He decided to write long, keyword-rich articles instead of succinct articles.

Although he has only a handful of articles on his blog to date, he receives a lot of traffic. He is also one of the most popular bloggers in the marketing field.

How did he achieve this feat? Email outreach. He spends a lot of time sharing his content through email outreach.

Read about his skyscraper SEO strategy and how it helped him boost his SEO by sheer determination. You don’t need to copy his strategy, but it is a good idea to learn how it works.

2. Zappos

Zappos is one of the most popular companies in the world. The company is a master in content marketing and its blog helps to attract a large audience.

Notice that Zappos does not just publish articles on how to choose the right pair of shoes. The company offers a broad range of topics that appeal to its target audience.

The Zappos blog has tons of information, including tips for travel and local color choices. Even though it seems counterintuitive, the ecommerce brand writes about how to prolong the life of your clothes and shoes.

3. Hubengage

Hubengage helps employees to be motivated and engaged. Hubengage’s blog features articles about how to make employees happy. Hubengage also publishes content about its competitors and use cases.

Hubengage’s content strategy is a great resource. It’s varied and always relevant to its audience. Hubengage also provides a great example of how to include promotional posts in your content marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Content marketing strategies don’t just happen. It takes effort and time to create.

Follow our guide to creating a content marketing strategy and then test your content. Crazy Egg provides user behavior tools to help you understand how your visitors interact with your content and make any necessary adjustments.

You can improve your content marketing strategy by learning more about the performance of your content. To refine landing pages and home pages, or test CTAs in blog posts, run A/B testing.

You can create new tests as your brand changes. This data can be used to inform future content creation decisions.

Your business can grow through content marketing, but only if data-based decisions are made and you learn from other brands. Start by establishing your content marketing engine. Then, take a step back and adjust to improve conversions.