A well thought out Content Strategy can have a profound effect on your blog. Think of it as being a Business Plan specifically for your blog. Learn step-by-step how to create one that will help your blog grow exponentially!

The term Content Strategy as it relates to blogging used to have a simple meaning for me… the overall plan/purpose/concept behind a blog. Oh boy was I wrong! Very wrong. I have learned these past few months the power an official, in depth content strategy can have on a blog. Let me explain in more detail.

Over the past couple of months you have seen me write about many things related to Blogging as a Business. I’ve covered everything from the Flagship Strategy to performing a Content Audit on your blog. During this process I started to find out that my blog (this one of course) was lacking some specific direction in certain areas. Things needed to be defined in order for me to move forward.

What is the “voice” of my blog? Who am I targeting? How am I measuring success? What are my calls to action? These questions plus dozens more helped me understand the fact that I needed a REAL Content Strategy. A framework or game plan if you will. Something that could guide me over the next couple of years and help me expand my blog into new heights.

Let me share with you what I created. This can serve as a template for you to help you create your Blog Content Strategy.

Note: most of this stems from principles that I learned while reading Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson. A fantastic book that goes in depth into content strategy. If you want to learn more on this subject I recommend reading it. It’s by far the best book on the subject.

Now onto the Blog Content Strategy Template thing I was talking about…

Blog Content Strategy Template

23 questions that if answered thoroughly, will help you create your unstoppable blog content strategy.

1. What Are We Trying To Achieve With This Content?

What is the overall goal/objective? When all is said and done, what would you like to have accomplished with this blog? This is where you want to specify this. The big dream you have needs to be communicated here because everything else should stem from it.

2. What Do Our Users Want & Need From Our Content?

What is it that you perceive your readers will be needing from you blog? Is it news? Reviews? Transparency in the industry? Humor? Cleverness? You get the point. Try to understand what your readers will be wanting rather than simply what you want to give them.

3. Who Exactly Are We Targeting?

What are the demographics of the people you are dealing with here? This is so critical. No blog appeals to ALL people. Be honest with yourself and find out who you are really writing for. For example t his blog? Male Internet Marketing Geeks under the age of 30 located in the United States (you know who you are).

4. How Will We Measure The Success Of Our Content?

What will you consider as “success” with this new blog project? Is it leads generated? Items purchased from your shopping cart? Reputation built as an expert in your industry? One of the biggest reasons why blog’s fail is because their creators fail to define it’s success!

5. Business Goals

Yes blogging is a business. And because it is a business you need to define your blog business goals. Let me give you an example of one of my blog’s business goals… “Increase lead market share in the Google organic search space. Turn content from being a commodity into a valuable business asset.”

6. Budget

How much money do you plan on investing into this blog each month? Each year? If a blog is going to go from “good to great” it is going to need some sort of financial commitment on your part. It doesn’t have to be a ton of $… but it has to be something. Read my article “If You had $30K to Jump-start Your Blog” to get some ideas/inspiration here.

7. Legitimate Competitors

Simply identify who your legitimate competitors are. CNN.com is not a competitor. Mashable.com is not a competitor. Think more specifically within your niche and with what you are trying to accomplish to properly identify who your enemies are.

8. Project Objectives

Now take the items 1-5 above and identify 5-10 specific objectives that support them. Now that you have identified the big picture this is your opportunity to be a little more specific. Let me give you an example… “Create a content portal that creates a tremendous amount of search engine equity by ranking in the top 3 for thousands of long-tail search phrases.”

9. Key Performance indicators (KPI’s) Or Success Metrics

These are the metrics (typically web analytics metrics) that help you track the success and failure of your blog. These can include:

• Visits
• Page views
• Bounce rate
• % new visits
• # of keywords that sent traffic
• # of natural back links
• Google traffic diversification %
• Click-throughs
• Conversions
• Revenue from conversions

And many many more. Keep it as simple here as you can. Looking at too many metrics can be a bad thing!

10. Assumptions

Every Entrepreneur makes assumptions. What are the assumptions you are making with your blog?  Be honest and “confront the brutal facts” by identifying what your assumptions really are.

11. Identified Risks

What risks are you taking? This could have everything to do with money to reputation to simply your time.

12. Voice and Tone

You want to be as consistent as possible in your voice and tone in blogging. Are you funny and sarcastic? Are you corporate and serious?  Are you a mixture of both? What are you going to sound like to your readers and why?

13. Primary Message and Secondary Messages

Now here is where it gets really fun. What is the primary (main) message of your blog? At the end of the day it all comes down to (blank). Blogs that lack a message lack punch. Master your blog’s message.

14. Calls to Action

Now that you have identified your business goals it’s time to identify some generic calls 2 action that will help you get your readers doing the things you want them to do. This is more important of an exercise than you might think.

15. Category Structure

There’s a small chance you are going to know what all of your categories are going to be for now and for in the future. But planning them out as best you can is important. What are the main 5-10 topics you are going to be covering on your blog?

16. Findability Strategies

What strategies do you have in place that are going to help your blog be found more often by more people. This could include everything from Social Media to creating Infographics to creating video and publishing it on YouTube.

17. Target Keywords

Identify 6-12 keywords/phrases that you want to go after and rank high in Google for. If this is a strategy for a new blog that you are launching I would recommend going for more niche terms first. These keywords should directly reflect your Primary Message #13 and your Category Structure #15.

18. Linking/Conversion Strategy

Answer this question… How and where do you plan on placing calls 2 action within your blog? Are you going to neatly place a banner in your sidebar, or spam the hell out of your visitors with popups? Set your standard now and stick with it. Also when you link to a website outside of yours, should that open in a new window?

19. How Content Happens (workflow)

When it’s just you writing there’s no real reason to have a content workflow. But as soon as you begin to involve other writers, researchers, editors etc. things begin to get complicated. Create your preferred content workflow now and begin to involve other writers and creators as soon as you can. Your blog will grow much much faster!

20. Where Content Comes From (major sources)

Which sources specific within your niche contain valuable information that you could reference to often to get the most out of your research. It could be anything from a Government website to an expert blog.

21. Content Schedule

This is your opportunity to specify how much and how often you will be publishing new blog posts. Is it 1 every day? 1 every other day? etc. Whatever you do create try your best to be consistent with it. Readers love to see consistency in publishing.

22. Content Maintenance

What is your process for keeping your blog posts up-to-date? Nobody likes an outdated blog post. At which point do you delete content because it’s no longer useful? How do you go about updating old content? Who helps you with this process? All of this and more brainstorming can help you create a content maintenance plan. This will help  you ensure that every visitor that comes to your blog has a positive experience.

23. Official Roles

Okay so in the beginning it’s probably only you working on your blog project. But hopefully while creating your new blog strategy you are envisioning a time where you blog has gotten so big, so popular, that you need help from others. I break all of my blog business teams into the following roles:

• Content Strategist = the one with the vision
• Web Editor-in-Chief = the boss
• Web Editor = the moderator
• Web Writer = the creator of content
• SEO Strategist = the nerd who drives organic traffic to the blog

Conclusion and Final Thoughts on Blog Strategy

I would recommend opening up a word doc (open office of course) and begin creating your Blog Content Strategy. Make it official. Share it with anyone who you hire to help you with your blog so they can see your vision and direction. This may seem like a waste of time to you in the beginning because it’s all in your head already. But the idea is to help you put your thoughts and ideas together as one so that you and others can see them.

If you want to take your Blog seriously… creating a Content Strategy and a Game Plan is something you need to do!