Easy Steps to Creating Your Content Marketing Strategy

Jun 30, 2022

If you want to create a dominant online presence, then a great content marketing strategy must be one of the key elements of your internet marketing plans. Having served as an internet strategy consultant for many years, we have seen first-hand the positive impact that great content can have on the success of internet marketing. Without a foundation built on great content, your SEO efforts, your PPC campaigns, and every other element of your marketing efforts will struggle to achieve peak performance.

Let’s take a look at some of the steps an internet strategy consultant uses to create an effective content marketing strategy.

Set Realistic Goals

The first step in almost any new project should always be setting yourself a realistic goal. What is the overall objective you want to achieve with your content marketing? It could be that you are most interested in driving traffic to your website, increasing your brand profile, or maybe you are more interested in making sales. Whatever the goal, you need to have it clear in your mind, and ideally on paper too, as this will help shape the type of content you will produce.

As an internet strategy consultant, we recommend using the S.M.A.R.T. process to set your goals. This stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic or Relevant, Time-Bound. This is going to help you to have a clear picture of your goals, how to track your progress, and a schedule for when you want to achieve them.

Know Your Target Audience

We have discussed target audiences a lot in our previous blog posts and social media content, but it is an important factor in all facets of internet marketing. If you don’t know who your content is supposed to appeal to, then how will you ever get it in front of the right people? When working with clients as their internet strategy consultant, we always have them sit down and think about the type of person most likely to need their product or service. How old are they? Where do they live? What is their median household income? These are all important demographics that play a key role in shaping your target audience. Once you know who you are targeting, you need to get to know them more intimately. Find out where they spend time online so that you can publish to those platforms. Research their most common pain points and problems and shape your content around how you can solve those issues for them!

Identify Your Keywords

Before we rush off and start writing your content, it is important to stop and identify the best keywords to suit your business and your target audience. Even the most well-written content will not get seen if it isn’t rich in the keywords your target audience will search for. Working with an internet strategy consultant is a great way to research keywords and pinpoint the best options to pull in traffic. With the right keywords peppered throughout your content, it will rank highly on the search engine results page. It will also help you to keep your content relevant and insightful.

Decide on the Type of Content to Produce

A great content marketing strategy will use a variety of different types of content that will help keep your audience engaged. As an internet strategy consultant, we recommend several different types of content and media that we have learned are more likely to trigger engagement. Some of these types include:

  • Blog Posts - The top 4 search results for most searches will have around 1000 words! That’s why regular blogging is a great way to boost your website SEO.
  • Videos - 54% of audiences want to see more video content from the brands they follow. It is a versatile and dynamic way to share information.
  • 3D Parallax - Adding some depth to your visual content by adding 3D layers is a great way to draw your audience in and grab their attention.
  • Cinemagraphs - Not quite a video, but not quite a still image! Cinemagraphs are a living image that will stop social media scrollers in their tracks!

Measure Your Results

One step that so many business owners neglect is measuring their results. There is no point in wasting time producing content if it is not engaging your audience. Take the time to analyze the data available from social media insights and Google Analytics and see which content your audience is responding to. If you see a particular video that goes viral, take the time to analyze that in detail. What caught your audience’s attention? Was it the style of the video? The content? What can you do to duplicate that success? Similarly, if something gets little or no engagement, does that suggest your audience is not interested in that particular topic? The more you research your analytics and insights, the better equipped you will be to tailor your content to suit your audience.

These are just a few of the steps required to have an effective content marketing strategy. If it feels a little overwhelming, why not hire an internet strategy consultant to help you through the process.

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To Your Best Online!

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Ingrid Maddox, Internet Marketing & Strategy Consultant. bluedress INTERNET MARKETING®, an Internet Marketing Company headquartered in Knoxville, TN. Internet Marketing Developed, Implemented, and Managed to Full Circle! Organic Internet Search Engine Guru. Turn-Key Internet Optimization Programs Placing You Everywhere and Anywhere You Need to Be Online.

ingrid@bluedressinc.com

865-378-7712