Your 2021 Guide to Successful SEO Content Marketing Strategy for Business Growth

Content marketing keeps changing as new challenges appear in the industry. These days, just creating content for an ad campaign is not enough. You should have a proper SEO content marketing strategy to grow your business. The audiences have evolved now and so too have the ways we create and share content across different online platforms.

According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2020 Research Report, 87% of the organizations with sophisticated and mature content marketing and 69% of the organizations with documented content marketing strategies are most successful. It means content marketing strategy is associated with the success of an organization.

So, let’s explore:

What is Content Marketing Strategy?

Why is it vital for marketers to have a content marketing strategy?

What are the steps to create a successful content marketing strategy?

  • Write Down Your Goal and Mission
  • Know Your Audience
  • Find Out Content Channels That Work Best for You
  • Figure Out the Type of Content in Demand
  • Explore Different Ways to Brainstorm Ideas
  • Decide the KPIs to Measure Content Marketing Success

What is Content Marketing Strategy?

Content marketing strategy is a documented or well-defined approach that focuses on how to create and distribute valuable, relevant, and engaging content to gain the attention of a target audience and drive profitable customer actions. 

It encompasses every type of content – text, video, audio, image, and downloadable files. And it helps you market who you are as an organization and what value and expertise you bring to your audience and customers.

Why Is It Important for Marketers to Have a Content Marketing Strategy?

Content marketing strategy allows businesses to prepare for generating web traffic and new leads, mostly organically. It shifts your reliance from the paid advertisements to organic sources of website traffic that will continue to bring leads for your business for a long time.

Creating evergreen content is one thing, and marketing that content to get a steady amount of traffic and leads is another thing.

Thus, a well-planned strategy will give you the flexibility to also experiment with other revenue-generating marketing tactics, such as sponsored content and social media advertising. Plus, a proper content marketing strategy will help you reach your target audience more efficiently and cost-effectively.

What Are the Steps to Create a Successful Content Marketing Strategy?

There are so many things to cover on this topic. But, to be precise, we have narrowed down the steps to only six to keep things simple and clear for you.

1. Write Down Your Goal and Mission

The first step is to ask yourself a couple of questions.

  • Why do you want to create content in the first place?
  • What do you want to achieve with a content marketing plan – generate traffic, increase revenue, create brand awareness, increase social media engagement, advance ranking, get more signups, or anything else?

Finding answers to these questions will help you define your goals which will, in turn, help you form the base of your content marketing strategy.

2. Know Your Audience

When it is about content, it doesn’t mean your entire audience base consists of just readers. To know your potential audience, you should conduct persona research. For that, you need to gather data based on demographics, such as age, gender, income, interests, and education level.

Interact with your existing customers to know:

  • How they feel about your services and products
  • What interests them most while buying that product
  • What issues they face when using your offerings
  • What priorities they have while using services like yours
  • Where they come to know about your business or its offerings
  • What feedback they would like to give to your business
  • Where they spend most of the time online – Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube

The best topics for content creation are the ones that help you address your audience’s pain points, challenges, and purchasing behavior.

3. Find out Content Channels that Work Best for You

According to a 2020 B2B Marketing Research Report, the top three content distribution channels used by content marketers are Social Media, Website/Blog, and Email. Nearly all B2B content marketers use LinkedIn for organic content marketing, and many prefer to use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram for content sharing.  

Image Source: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs

Remember that the best content channels vary from one business to another. While some companies may notice more activities on YouTube, many achieve the best results from social media channels. So, use Google Analytics or Buzzsumo to see from where you get the most traffic, and then you should post your content on the networks that bring better results to you.

4. Figure Out the Type of Content in Demand

Most businesses start with blog posting. However, don’t hesitate to produce other types of content pieces, such as:

Vlogs, Podcasts, How-To Articles, Infographics, Social Media Posts, Interviews, Interactive Videos, Ebooks, Webinars, Checklists, Customized Graphics and Memes, and so on

Figure out which types of content pieces are gaining more traffic and work on them more frequently. Besides the type, also analyze the length of content versus engagement.

5. Explore Different Ways to Brainstorm Ideas

It is the idea that can take the whole world by storm. The better your ideas are, the better you will be able to create content. Fortunately, now, you have online idea-generating tools, such as Buzzsumo, Feedly, UberSuggest, Google Suggest, andBlog Ideas Generator to explore trending topics. Find the questions that your customers ask or the things that your customers are completely unaware of but should know.

6. Decide the KPIs to Measure Content Marketing Success

Deciding Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will help you know how close you have reached your goals, and whether the content marketing strategy is successful or not. These KPIs have certain numbers attached to them that allow you to measure and compare your results.

Some of the most commonly used content marketing metrics are Web Traffic, Lead Quality, Sales, Onsite Engagement, Social Media ROI, SEO Success, Recognition, and Authority.

While assessing KPIs, don’t forget to consider the cost of producing and distributing that content, such as content writing, content posting, images, audios, and videos.

Content creation, understanding your audience, and getting results from your content – all takes time, effort, and research. So, have a well-defined content marketing strategy if you visualize the success of your business through content in the coming years.

Vijaya Tyagi

Vijaya Raj Laxmi Tyagi has been an avid content writer for over five years with a keen interest in writing SEO articles and blogs. She also finds great enthusiasm in writing about a vast variety of topics, including gardening, interior designing, health & wellness, and tourism. Her educational background in Computer Science and Engineering has given her an edge to write about technologies that tend to mark a great impression on daily lifestyle and behaviour, while her intrigue towards Mother Nature drives her to discuss green topics.