If you are creating a blog or want to make a writing portfolio, it is important to develop a content strategy.
Please keep in mind everything that you’ve already learned about creating a strategy. Chances are that you’ve been considering creating one for quite sometime and are now looking for content to help you with your journey.
You are not alone. Thousands of writers each year go through this process. If you have any previous writing experience, it can be extremely useful.
However, if you don’t have any experience, that’s okay too. Hopefully, you’ll find the following information in this blog post helpful.
Content strategy has been an important part of digital publishing since the launch of personal computers in the market. If you have any kind of word processor, you’ll find the information useful.
Again, remember it is alright if you’re starting from the beginning. Creating a blog or a writing portfolio is an ongoing journey with many obstacles, but if you develop a content strategy it can be a good way to always stay on task.
It is important to realize that the only difference between you and the top writers and platforms on the internet is that they have a strategy in place. It can be very difficult to say everything you’d want in your writing without a plan in mind. The proceeding information is here to help you create your plan.
Any writer or business can develop a successful content strategy. You need to identify your audience and inspire them to take action. It is important to remember to not rely on writing skills alone. If you think of yourself as a marketer as well it will give you a holistic perspective that can benefit you along the way.
Creating a content strategy is a unique process. All writers will not have the same strategy. It’s important to realize there is no one solution for a strategy. It may be composed of several different aspects or only contain a few.
Here are a few commonalities that will be present in most strategies in 2022:
Determine Your Mission
What is your goal? What are you trying to achieve? Your mission will be the answer to these questions.
A great way to discover your mission is to observe other writers and businesses. Hopefully, the process of examining as many other missions as possible will help you find your goals.
It is also important to remember that your mission can change over time. You may determine one goal and months later discover that you would rather edit it.
In my experience, I’ve had three domain names, each of them including blogging as a feature. From 2008 to 2022, I’ve changed my mission several times.
My first domain had a website that was a social network. I used a third-party software-as-a-service (SaaS). Most of the users were visual artists. There were some others like musicians and actors. Most used the website to promote images and videos of their art.
The mission of the first domain was to be a platform that artists from all creative disciplines can use to showcase and promote their creations.
My second domain was a news website. It was a place where independent journalist could share breaking news. This became my mission for the website.
My third domain is a combination of the two previous ones. The mission is to report on the arts and entertainment industry as global sector.
Deciding on your mission should be the first step, as everything you create proceeding this will be connected to the original idea.
Discover Your Audience
A great way to learn about your audience is to read comments, observe any user-generated content, and use tracking tools like Google Analytics.
You’ll want to get as much objective data that you can. Record information regarding traffic sources, demographics and technology used by your audience.
Please, keep in mind that audiences can change as well.
You may develop one content strategy that focuses on a particular age group, and as your content strategy changes you may want to create writing for a different demographic.
Once you have a mission and know your audience, the type of writing you need to make will be clearer.
Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is a complex discipline and most writers will not need to know everything about it.
The most important feature of SEO is keyword research.
If you use keyword search tools you’ll be able to see what keywords your competitors are ranking for on Google and other search engines.
Once you have the keywords, incorporating them within your content will drive more traffic to your writing.
There are many free keyword searching tools that can be found on the search engines.
Decide on Monetization
If you’re creating a writing portfolio you may not need to worry about monetization. However, if you’re running your blog as a business, you need to decide if you are going to choose advertising or affiliate marketing.
In some cases it would be effective to use advertising and affiliate marketing. However, when most writers start out, they choose one or the other.
Getting advertising for your blog is a simple process. Most people start out with Google Adsense, a program that will display Google-sponsored ads. In order to use it all you have to do is copy and paste the code. Google will take care of everything else.
Choosing affiliate marketing is a great option as well. You can write about products and services and every time one of your visitors make a purchase you’ll get a commission.
Try out various solutions to see which service your audience responds to most.
Promote Your Writing
Every time you make a new blog post, the search engines will index it.
While it’s great to get organic search traffic, you can also use social media and email marketing to connect your writing with your audience.
Try out all of the social media options.
In my experience, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have been good sources of traffic.
However, video content drives a lot more traffic. Creating videos for YouTube and Tiktok work extremely well.
Making a Schedule
Creating a content calendar can assist in the process of implementing content strategy.
It is always an efficient use of time. The best part about it is that it helps writers remain more productive.
The schedule should outline the days in which you want to publish certain articles.
This is also something that can evolve over time. Depending on the amount of traffic your blog is getting, it may be necessary to ramp up content production and add the new writing to the content calendar.