Content marketing focuses on creating, sharing, and distributing content online. When done correctly, content marketing can generate more referral traffic, boost website visibility, generate more high-quality leads, and improve conversions.

Success doesn’t happen by chance or overnight. You need to come up with a powerful content marketing strategy to maximize your reach. Content marketing works best when you have a well-defined plan. In the absence of a strategy, content creation may feel directionless and irrelevant.

As a leading SEO company in Northern California, our team at WSI has come up with a list of 7 steps you can take to get started building your business’s content marketing strategy.

Set Your Goals

Take a pause and think about why do you want to create content? Do you want to generate more leads? Do you want to drive more traffic to your website? Or do you want to build brand awareness?

Once you have defined your objectives, set some milestones and goals. Make sure your goals are quantifiable so you can measure the success of your content marketing plan.

Define Your Audience

Clearly define your target audience. Take the time to understand the likes and dislikes of your target audience. Find out what interests and motivates your target audience.

Next, develop a buyer persona based on factors such as age, sex, income, location, and ethnicity. When writing your content, refer to this buyer persona for a view into the reader’s mind and perspective as an audience member.

Do Topic And Keyword Research

Make a list of important, relevant keywords and topics. Fill in topic buckets with keyword phrases that you think are important to rank for in the search engine result pages. Understand how intent affects keyword research. Use keyword research tools to come up with keyword ideas.

Audit Your Existing Content

Run a content audit to find out what type of posts have generated the most interest. Find out what keywords people usually use to find your site.

Once you have audited your existing content, you will be able to determine what type of content will interest your target audience.

Devise Your Strategy

Using the information your research has uncovered, decide which platforms you want to publish your content on. Choose the methods you want to use to promote your content on these platforms. Choose content types.

Some content types to choose from include infographics, blog posts, white papers, and videos. Content marketers usually use a blend of different types of content. Once you have devised your strategy, create a content calendar and assign responsibilities to your content creators.

Create, Publish And Promote Your Content

Create original, shareworthy, and thought-provoking content that solves your target audience’s pain points. Insert keywords into your content naturally. Share your content with anyone who you think might be interested in it on social media sites.

Monitor And Refine

Measure content marketing effectiveness, track sales, form completions, downloads, website traffic, and page views. Compare actual results with expected results and tweak your strategy accordingly.

WSI Smart Marketing is a renowned Northern California SEO Company. Our team of experts can help your business create an impact with content and unleash the power of an effective content marketing strategy. For questions and additional information, give us a call to learn more, at (707) 843-3714.