The 6-Part Blog Content Strategy That Gets Your Blog Seen

I worked with a client a few years ago who hired me to do some short 500-word articles.

She gave me the list and I wrote based on her requirements. That’s what she wanted so I delivered.

But her list had no clear sense of direction. They were topics that interested her and covered what she believed her audience wanted to hear.

You can already guess what happened with that blog. It was a complete bust.

Barely any traffic. No real business results.

That shouldn’t have been the case. As DemandMetric states, “companies with blogs produce an average of 67% more leads monthly than companies that don’t blog.”

She was churning out blog posts because her research showed that she should consistently write them.

But consistently doing the wrong thing leads to poor results. It’s insanity!

““Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.””

— Albert Einstein

My client didn’t have a clear blog content strategy. If you’ve been working on your company blog for a while and have gotten nothing from it, something about your blog content strategy is flawed.

Let’s dive into how you can create a content strategy for your blog.

Table of Contents

What Is A Blog Content Strategy?

A blog content strategy is the compass that guides you on your business blog journey. It provides a detailed process for aligning your business goals with the blogs you create.

Blogs form an important part of a content marketing strategy because they help your brand build the know, like, and trust factors with your target audience. They help you build relationships with your audience that lead to long-term success.

Here’s a great example. Jay Clouse’s Freelancing School ranked on page one of search engines for 120 keyword phrases as of September 19, 2021.

His articles, along with online appearances on platforms such as podcasts, have helped him get roughly 8,000 backlinks and a regular stream of about 46,000 website visitors monthly. This traffic helps him build his email subscriber list and increase course sales.

The only way to reap rewards that are just as good (or even better than) Jay’s is to have a clear blog content strategy. It’s a strategy that focuses on:

What your customers want and need to hear from you
How you can make your content better than your competitor’s
Providing valuable content that helps your brand be seen as a resource

The 6 Parts of a Killer Blog Content Strategy

Two articles I wrote in 2020 have helped my website rank on the first three pages of Google search. There’s a lot that I’ve learned about this search engine ranking process by doing it for my brand and I share some of that knowledge in this article.

This experience helped me develop what I call the six-part blog content strategy. Here’s a breakdown.

Step #1: Analysis

Analysis begins with carefully assessing your content goals. These goals should align with your overarching business goals. It’s often thought that the sole purpose of blog posts is to increase website traffic.

Sure, blog posts do help a lot with attracting more people to your website. But, what do you want those people to do once they have visited your website? How can you get them to complete the actions you want them to take?

Jay Clouse, for instance, included an email subscription form at the end of this blog post. Yes, the blog post is helping the reader learn how to become a freelance writer. But, Jay ultimately wants that person to subscribe to his email list. So, he includes that specific call to action (CTA) in his blog post.

Neil Patel embeds a “Book A Call” CTA in his blog posts. For instance, you see the CTA appear when you scroll one-third of the way down this blog post. He has this CTA in most, if not all, of his blog posts.

Both Jay and Neil know the CTAs to include in their blog posts because they’re clear about their business goals. Therefore, their readers are clear about the actions they should take from these blog posts. Aligning business goals with CTAs is important for a successful blog content strategy.

I must also highlight here though that it’s also important to know the search intent of the blog posts you’ve created. Search intent relates to the purpose of the reader’s search query. It’s important to know your reader’s search intent so that you know the right CTAs to connect with your articles.

There are three types of search intent:

Informational - The reader is only looking for information. For example, the search query “what is a budget” indicates that the person wants to learn more about the definition of a budget. That’s the information the searcher is most interested in seeing.
Navigational - The reader is looking for specific brand content. For example, someone who types “Talia Wolf” is looking specifically for content related to Talia Wolf and her brand.
Transactional - The reader with this search intent is most likely to purchase. Transactional search intent is best associated with paid search/advertising. However, that doesn’t mean that blog posts can’t be structured in a way that attracts readers with this search intent.

Blog content strategy quote by Christine McLean

The next aspect of the analysis stage is assessing the current state of your blog and how it compares with your competitors. I like to view the analysis stage through the lens of a SWOT analysis.

Strengths Of Your Blog Content Strategy

Always begin with a content audit if your website already has blog articles. I’ve created a content audit spreadsheet that you can use. Click here to access it. You will only be able to edit it if you make a copy in your Google Drive account as shown in the image below.

Screenshot 2021-05-08 at 10.19.18 PM.png

Complete this spreadsheet for all your existing blog posts. You’ll then have everything in one place so that you can clearly see:

What’s working
What isn’t working
The amount of content you have for various topics
Any possible changes you can make to improve what exists
Whether your blog is doing a good job of positioning your brand as a thought leader

Another important consideration is how people are finding your blog posts. The screenshot below shows the traffic sources for my blog from January 1 to May 8, 2021.

Screenshot 2021-05-08 at 10.26.36 PM.png

My aim is to get the search traffic higher than all four sources combined. A big part of that requires boosting my referrals (aka backlinks).

Weaknesses Of Your Blog Content Strategy

Your content audit will help you better identify why your content isn’t performing the way it should. For instance, your call-to-action may not be aligned well with the stage of the customer’s journey. That content audit spreadsheet really is a goldmine of information.

Competitor analysis is also important here. You can use an SEO tool like Ubersuggest to analyze your competitor’s website. Look carefully at what your competitor is doing better than you. Also, perform a content gap analysis which I’ll discuss in the next section.

Opportunities IN Your Blog Content Strategy

According to the Search Engine Journal, “a content gap analysis helps identify missed opportunities in your SEO strategy.” Let’s apply this specifically to your blog content strategy.

There are two ways that you can do a content gap analysis for your blog. Both require an SEO tool. Ubersuggest is good for basic analysis, but you can get more robust results from SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush.

Option One

Create a list of the most popular content on your competitor’s website.
Identify articles on the list you haven’t yet written content about.
Look carefully at those articles and pinpoint areas where they fall short.
Identify the keywords your competitor ranks for with that article.
Create a list of articles you could write to fill the gap. You’re using your knowledge and experience to cover the topic from a different angle. Remember to use keywords from step four that are relevant to your brand.

Option Two

Type your competitor’s URL into Ahrefs or SEMRush.
Use the gap analysis feature to identify keywords for which your competitor doesn’t rank. You can learn how to use these features in this article.
Create a list of these keywords and start thinking about how you can strategically use them in your content.

Threats To Your Blog Content Strategy

Your blog is only as good as your website! If your website has a crappy user experience (UX), people won’t want to engage with your blog. Some key UX considerations include:

Website design (mobile and desktop)
Page load speed
Navigation
The cohesiveness of brand messaging throughout

Another critical threat to consider is whether your messaging is confusing your target audience. Your website can’t be saying one thing but your blog is saying another.

Also, the messaging you use to drive traffic to your blog shouldn’t differ from what the blog is discussing. Let’s say you’re a beauty blogger who teaches black women how to transition from permed hair to natural hair. You’ve written a blog about the type of products someone should use, but the Facebook post you created to drive traffic to the blog discusses hair accessories you use to add flair to your outfit.

A woman who clicks on the link to your article from that post is expecting to see more content about hair accessories. Instead, she’s greeted by an article discussing transitioning hair. Do you see the disconnect?

Your messaging must be consistent and relevant!

A content audit is another way to approach the analysis stage of this process. You can use a content audit to identify:

Underperforming content and what you can do to improve it
Content you already have that aligns with your goals and how you can give that content more visibility
New content ideas relevant to your goals

Step #2: Customer Research For A More Effective Bog Content Strategy

Customer research is one of the most overlooked aspects of a blog content strategy. Effective customer research removes what you believe your audience wants to hear and focuses instead on what they actually want to hear.

It’s about getting into your customers’ minds. Talia Wolf, founder of GetUplift, discussed how we can get into our customers’ minds during an interview I had with her earlier this year. You can watch the full interview by clicking the link below.

There are several ways that you could do customer research. I’ll be focusing on three possibilities:

Interviews with existing customers
Surveys
Social listening

Interviews With Existing Customers

Your existing customers were attracted to your brand for a reason. Use detailed interviews to discover it. The number of interview participants depends on the size of your customer base. A good rule of thumb is to interview at least eight to ten of your existing customers. You can learn more about conducting effective customer interviews by watching this video.

These interviews will be ineffective if you’re only asking surface-level questions. Let’s say you start by asking this question - why did you buy from us? Chances are the customer will provide a generic answer.

“Your product cost less.”

“Your product saved me time.”

Okay, that’s great. But why was that important to you? What was happening in your life at that point to make you follow through with a purchase? How has your business/life improved since using this product?

These discussions help you paint a better picture of your customer’s pain points. You can then better tailor the language in your blog posts to speak specifically to those pain points.

Also, you can use these interviews to identify what your customers were searching for when they discovered your brand. Those keywords would form an important part of your keyword research which I’ll describe in the next step.

The interview process doesn’t end with your existing customers though. You should have discussions with your sales team about what’s preventing people from purchasing. These common objections need content! You probably won’t use this content for SEO purposes but your sales team can certainly use them to encourage purchases.

Surveys

Survey options are plentiful. You could use a survey company. Another option could be to include a survey on your website or to send it to your email list.

Be careful about using pop ups on your website for the survey though. Google will penalize you if they obstruct the user experience.

Your survey shouldn’t be overwhelming. Think about two or three questions relevant to your brand that can help you truly drill down into the customer’s pain point. Here are three possibilities:

What struggle were you facing when you started searching for [insert brand name]?
What did your life/business look like before you began using [insert brand name here]?
How has your life/business improved since you began using [insert brand name here]?

Social Listening

Social listening is another great way to get insights about your customers. There are many ways to view social listening. You could focus on what people are saying about your brand on social media. But that’s not what I want you to focus on here.

I want you to focus on the discussions people are having on social media about topics relevant to your brand. LinkedIn, Quora, and Reddit are good places to find those discussions. I’m active on LinkedIn so let me use that platform as an example.

Content marketing and content marketing are my focus. I could begin my social listening research by looking at posts by some of the leaders in that industry or I could do a hashtag search. For our purposes, I’m going to search for #contentmarketing.

The first post already catches my eyes.

LinkedIn Post Example for Blog Content Strategy

Mick Walker shared a popular post that Hrabren Bankov posted a week ago. He mentioned never making the link between social media and creating scannable content. That presents an opportunity 💡.

I then look at the comments on the original post. Here are a few that stand out to me.

These comments show me that there are some misconceptions that need to be clarified. There also are some important points about user behavior that more people need to realize.

The biggest misconception came from Katy Mrvova’s comment. While her point is valid, she’s assuming that creating scannable text means that it doesn’t add value. That’s far from true!

Educational blog posts should be scannable. Hrabren Bankov appropriately mentioned that his guides have:

Visuals
Bulleted lists
Numbered lists

These are all part of making text scannable.

I could create a blog article about the best way to structure written content online based on my experience and unique perspectives. This post has shown me that:

Some people don’t understand how to create such content on social media
There’s a misconception that scannable content doesn’t add value
The power of a good opener needs to be emphasized
People want to know how to create scroll-stopping content

The next step would be for me to do a competitor gap analysis and create a relevant topic cluster. We’ll discuss topic cluster development in the next section.

This is an example of social listening that can help you identify the topics people care about in your niche. Here’s a recap of the steps:

Find relevant posts either by doing a hashtag search or looking at the posts of a top influencer in your niche.
Look at the comments and identify any misconceptions, insights, and questions asked.
Do a competitor gap analysis and create either a topic cluster or single article that comprehensively covers the topic from your perspective.

Step #3: Topic Cluster Development [With A Content Visibility Plan]

Topic clusters are powerful. They essentially help you create an interconnected web of content on your website.

It’s a content web that helps your website be seen as an authority through comprehensive content, strategic keyword usage, and internal links. Here’s how it works.

Do extensive customer research as described in the previous section of this article. This customer research will help you identify relevant topics for your blog.
Use that research to inform your keyword research. Chima Mmeje explains how to do detailed keyword research without feeling overwhelmed in this article.
Narrow down your list of topics and organize them based on the stages of your buyer’s journey (awareness, interest, and decision).
Your longest article, the pillar page, should focus on the awareness stage of your buyer’s journey and comprehensively cover what that person needs to know. It should be at least 2,000 words in length.
The other articles in your topic cluster should be related to your pillar page and include links to it. The pillar page should also include links to these other articles.

Remember that you should have content for each stage of the buyer’s journey!

Creating a topic cluster helps you comprehensively cover a topic in a way that:

Adds value to your audience
Helps search engines view your website as a valuable resource

But your topic cluster plan will fall flat if you don’t have a content visibility strategy.

How to Develop a Content Visibility Strategy

How are you planning to promote these blog articles? Sure, you did keyword research so that you could write search engine optimized (SEO) blog posts.

But you can’t depend solely on SEO. You must put in some work to promote the content yourself.

Your content visibility strategy should focus on:

Content repurposing
Content distribution
Getting backlinks

Check out this interview I recently did with Ross Simmonds, founder of Foundation Inc. He shared some nuggets of wisdom about content repurposing and distribution. It helps considerably when you carefully consider all the ways you can repurpose and distribute your articles before you publish them!

Getting backlinks though is challenging. These suggestions may make it a tad easier.

Find Websites that Are Linking to Your Competitor

Remember that competitor research you did earlier? You would have identified some of the top blog posts on your competitor’s website. Take things a step further by using your preferred SEO tool to identify the websites that include a link to your competitor’s article.

Reach out to them and explain what makes your piece better than your competitor’s. Also, look for any broken links on their websites and point those links out to them. You can then ask them to include a link to your article.

Some people will be willing to help you out (especially if you point out those broken links they wouldn’t have noticed). Others either won’t respond or won’t respond favorably. That’s why you should send cold emails to all the websites that link back to your competitor’s article.

Build Relationships With Other Content Creators

Building relationships with the right people can help considerably when trying to get backlinks. Other content creators who like your content will often be willing to include links to it on their websites.

But remember that a relationship is a two-way street. You shouldn’t expect other content creators to include backlinks to your content and then be unwilling to include backlinks to their content on your website.

You should have quality standards of course. There’s nothing wrong with rejecting a backlink request if you think the content isn’t up to par. But, be willing to include backlinks to the content that does meet your standards.

Step #4: Content Posting

You’ve written all the articles in your topic cluster and created your content visibility plan. That’s amazing! I know it was a lot of work.

The work isn’t over yet though. You now need to post the content in a way that makes it scannable, easy to understand, and inclusive. The term “inclusive” here means that your content should be accessible for people with disabilities.

Did you know that at least 20% of your readers have dyslexia? That’s just one of the many disabilities you should consider when creating content. This article outlines 11 strategies for creating great content for people with disabilities.

You may also like this interview I did with Dr. Samantha-Kaye Johnston, a dyslexia expert. She shared a lot of valuable insights about creating dyslexia-friendly content.

Here are some tips that can help you during the content posting process.

Keep your paragraphs at a maximum of three sentences.
Include audiovisual elements, especially if the article is long.
Use appropriate H2, H3 and H4 headings.
Include ordered and unordered lists where appropriate.
Write a meta description.

Step #5: Content Repurposing and Distribution - Crucial Aspects Of Blog Content Strategy Success

It’s easier to create a content calendar when you have a clear content repurposing and distribution plan. You would have already developed this plan in step three.

I’ve viewed Ross Simmonds’ one month content calendar and believe it’s one of the best out there. You can check it out by clicking here.

A content calendar will help you organize your repurposed content and choose the best channels to distribute it. It also provides you with a realistic posting schedule spread across your social media accounts.

Your content repurposing plan should have helped you identify at least five ways to repurpose each article you create. It’s even possible to find 50 or more ways to repurpose the content. The more you think about it, the more you’ll realize the myriad of possibilities.

Also, your repurposed content should fit into the nature of your content distribution channels. For instance, how you post on Twitter would be different from how you post on LinkedIn. Please don’t use the same post for all your social media platforms!

Finally, constantly evaluate how your repurposed content is performing. Let’s say you consistently create three different posts for LinkedIn: text-only, image and text, video and text. Your audience responds mostly to the image and text variations. Push out more of that type of content!

Let me be clear. I’m not saying you should abandon all other post styles altogether. After all, you’re dealing with a vast audience and people will respond to different things. But place greater emphasis on the type of content your audience prefers.

Step #6: Data Tracking

The final step of this six step blog content strategy process involves evaluating the performance of each blog post. I like to use what I call the P-E-G strategy. P-E-G stands for:

1.Page metrics

The most important page metrics to track are dwell time and bounce rate. Dwell time refers to how long someone spends on your blog post. It’s measured in minutes and seconds. A higher dwell time indicates that readers enjoy the post.

Bounce rate measures what people do after they read your blog post. A bounce rate of 100% means that all readers leave the blog post without visiting any other website pages.

In most instances, you want to reduce the bounce rate as much as possible. This is particularly true if you want the website visitor to convert in another area of your website.

2. Engagement metrics

I group blog engagement metrics into two buckets. The first is on-page engagement metrics which include comments on the post and the number of people who share the post with others.

The second is social media engagement metrics. Remember, you’re repurposing your blog posts for social media. So, you should look at the engagement on these social media posts.

But you aren’t looking at vanity metrics such as likes and other interactions. Instead, you look at the comments, shares, and post saves.

Notice I’ve mentioned comments in both cases. Comments are highly valuable. They help you understand other people’s perspectives on your ideas, knowledge gaps they may have, and other things they may want to learn about.

Additionally, comments are highly valued by search engines and social media sites. They indicate genuine interest in your content. Greater content interest indicates that search engines and social media sites are more likely to show that content to more people.

Post saves and shares also indicate that people find the content valuable. In fact, they find it so valuable that they want to save it for future reference.

3. Goal metrics

Your content must align with your business goals. Pay attention to the goals you had for each blog post and how they align with your overarching business goals. Are your goals being achieved? If not, what can you change to make your goals attainable?

Watch this video to learn more about each type of metric.

You should use the data you’ve tracked to determine whether your goals were achieved. If they weren’t, what could you tweak to increase the chances of better results?

Final Words: The Success Of Your Blog Content Strategy Depends on How Well You Follow These Steps

A blog content strategy is the only solution to lackluster blog performance. It encourages you to think strategically about the articles you write. Furthermore, it helps you write much better content that adds value to your target customer.

What issues are you having with your blog content strategy? Let’s chat in the comments below! I’d love to hear from you.