Your content strategy strongly impacts your marketing, your natural referencing and the health of your site. It is a well-known fact among SEOs and marketers that search engines and Internet users are hungry for quality content. However, it is not enough to continuously serve them quality dishes to seduce them and reap the recognition (conversions and better positioning).
This part of our guide answers the question " how to develop and implement an effective content strategy? ". We will talk about the editorial calendar, inbound marketing, content marketing... and the choice of topics to cover when developing a content strategy.and choosing the topics to cover when developing a content strategy.
Contents:
How to develop a content strategy?
The building a content strategy is a multi-step process. The specialists of the content strategy specialists patiently and intelligently ensure that they are followed. The objectives are marketing and SEO.
What are the stages of a content strategy?
Define your Buyers personas: who will read your content?
It is common sense to draw up a profile of the target readers first. It is an axiom of marketing and communication. The very ROI of your content strategy depends on it.
Content aimed at a professional(b2b marketing) differs from that aimed at a large audience (b2c). The difference lies in the style (light or sustained), the semantics (professional or not), the nature of the information developed (general or specific) and the argument (rational or emotional).
Similarly, audiovisual content targeted at geeks will have a different format (3 min TikTok video) than a 40 min video or podcast read in full by a senior citizen.
Just like your overall marketing strategy, your content marketing can be aimed at a variety of targets. Start your editorial strategy by profiling your buyers personas (based on age, gender, lifestyle, etc.) and choose the types of content and distribution channels they prefer.
Set SMART objectives: choose measurable actions
Your content strategy is a powerful lever of your marketing strategy. Therefore, its objectives should reflect your marketing objectives.
We preferred to focus on the notion of a smart objective rather than dealing exhaustively with the objectives of a content strategy.
A smart goal is specific, measurable, realistic, achievable and time-bound.
Some examples of smart objectives of a content strategy :
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- attract 1,000 new visitors/month to your blog pages;
- collect 300 completed forms/month;
- generate 1,000 registrations per month on your merchant site via your YouTube channel;
- convert 500 prospects into mature leads by the end of the third quarter;
- Encourage 100 customers to renew their purchase during the end-of-year promotion (promotional emailing).
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Once you have clearly and intelligently set your marketing objectives (this is the marketer's job), you can allocate smart objectives to your content strategy. And, you can create well-marketed SEO content : thinking about the editorial line and the choice of the type of content will be more judicious.
Smart objectives have the advantage of being monitored and adjusted through KPIs (key performance indicators).
Find the topics for your content strategy
A content strategy is by definition made up of several contents distributed according to a pre-established editorial calendar. The choice of subjects to be covered is not trivial. The key words are consistency, usefulness and complementarity.
So how do you find themes that interest the targeted buyers personas?
Conducting a keyword study
The importance of the " strategic keyword selection". It allows you to detect the needs and problems of users, expressed in the form of queries.
These same queries, scientifically selected with our digital solution SmartKeyworddigital solution, are the ideal topics for your content. Your audience will be effectively interested, because you will solve their problems and answer their own questions.
This way, read, click and conversion rates (and other KPIs) will satisfy SEOs, marketers and sales people.
Benchmark your competitors
Keeping an eye on the competition allows you toenrich your content strategy. By analysing the content published by your direct or indirect competitors on the first page of Google, you can find topicsand relevant keywords that you did not consider when developing your content marketing.
Also, do not neglect the importance of forums dedicated to your favourite topics. Here, subscribers 'intimately' express their concerns and needs. Here you can find ideas for topics and possibly a profitable niche for your products or services.
Optimising your SEO
Quality content that is not visible is a lost investment. Optimizing each publication on a main keyword according to Google's recommendations is a necessity and not a whim of SEOs!
Web content creators must restrain their imagination and adapt their writing to the rules of SEO. Google is a literary critic to be pleased with; no matter what the pure literary ones say!
Our SmartKeyword solution is a powerful SEO tool tool designed to guide you in optimizing your content.
Internal linking is one of the SEO actions to be carried out.
Optimise your internal linkage
An internal link is a link (URL) that points to one of your contents. A good internal linkage follows very strict Google rules:
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- Linked content must deal with the same or similar themes;
- the internal link must be natural and not superficial (seamlessly integrated into the original content);
- the anchor must not be over-optimised (risk of penalty);
- The purpose of a natural link is to provide more information to the reader of the content.
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In addition, intelligently constructed internal links improve the user experience and reinforce your authority. All these elements are taken into account by search engines to give you a positioning on the first page of responses.
Planning the production of content
Successful natural referencing of your content requires consistency of effort AND patience. SEO objectives are achievable in the medium to long term. Don't be surprised if the most experienced SEO asks you to wait at least six months!
During this period, you must persevere in investing in content creation and enriching your content strategy.
Once Google rewards your SEO efforts with a first page position, you must continue to produce and distribute quality content. Otherwise, your ranking will deteriorate.
However, the rate of production and distribution of your content should not be random. Several criteria come into play when planning a content strategy:
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- your content creation budget (if you outsource it) ;
- aggressive competition;
- the actions of your operational marketing strategy (a promotion requires a mailing ...) ;
- the reactivity of your audience (e.g. the nurturing content of your inbound marketing)
- the evolution of your positioning (readjustment of objectives and actions);
- etc.
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Here is an article that develops in more detail the editorial calendar.
Inbound marketing to educate and convert your prospects
Attract and convert a consom'actor (Internet consumer) is not always an easy feat. On the one hand, competition on the Web is tough, on the other hand, online buyers are more knowledgeable and demanding. The customer/supplier balance is now in their favour.
True to form, marketing strategists have adapted to these new constraints and turned them into opportunities. Among other weapons, they have inventedinbound marketing.
Content strategy and inbound marketing
In short, inbound marketing consists of creating a sales tunnel, attracting Internet users seeking information or products, and transforming them into loyal customers. The lead must go through several stages: interested, hesitant, convinced, mature, final customer, loyal customer.
The objective of an inbound marketing strategy strategy is to follow this evolution and 'push' the potential customer to the next step in the buying process. What better way to achieve conversion than with premium content that meets the needs of each stage?
Content strategy is at the heart of inbound. Specialists talk about nurturing leads with appropriate content. Each stage and/or target profile has its own specific content, in the right format.
The content of nurturing (aimed at a prospect already attracted by SEO content) is created in advance. Their delivery is triggered by a tracked behaviour of the lead (recorded in its history).
For example, a lead who fills in a registration form receives a thank you letter, as well as informational and non-mercantile articles. On another note, a mature lead who abandons a shopping cart receives a content with arguments and/or a comparison: they should be encouraged to click on the "confirm" button.
There are many different scenarios. It is easy to imagine that this becomes unmanageable without the use of a digital solution when the product range is very wide and the audience diverse. Hence, the usefulness of marketing automation.
Adopting marketing automation
Although the name may be intimidating to non-digital marketers, the principle of marketing automation or marketing automation is simple. Again, content strategy is the foundation of marketing automation.
What is marketing automation?
The marketing automation consists of establishing in advance scenarios based on the predictable behaviour of content recipients under the "If/Then" logic. Thus, the trigger for an action is the lead's reaction to a content broadcast.
The content creator receives all the possible reactions in a brief and designs the web content to suit each one. It goes without saying that the machine cannot replace a good content creator and strategist, but it can execute the scenarios perfectly.
Measure the effectiveness of your content strategy
A great advantage of digital marketing is the possibility to monitor performance in real time. The success of your content strategy can be measured at any time through KPIs. Performance KPIs are numerous and range from simple Like or Share to click-through rates, reactivity and conversion.
L'he development of a content strategy is strategic thinking that requires advanced technical skills. Your content must be optimised and copywrite (SEO and marketing content). A content strategy is vital for sales and SEO performance. So be better armed than your competitors by using our SmartKeyword solution.
Further reading
The complete guide on the referencing of e-commerce sites
The 6 key steps to follow to correctly optimize your e-commerce site with a good natural referencing.