How to Create a Content Strategy that Drives Results

One of the biggest goals of every blog is to drive traffic and engagement. And one of the best kept secrets to drive traffic and engagement is content marketing.

Content marketing is at the bed rock of a constant stream of traffic to your blog and for this reason, you need a content strategy that can drive the kind of traffic you want to have.

Unfortunately, so many bloggers and web masters do not realize this.

Content is at the bed rock of all your goals and to be able to achieve them, you need to have a content strategy. And not just a content strategy but the kind of strategy that can drive the real results you want to achieve.

Steps to create a Content Strategy that drives results

Like I mentioned earlier, to get the right results for your blog or social media platform, you don’t just need a content strategy, you need the kind of strategy that can help you drive results.

The following are steps that can help you to develop this kind of content strategy…

Identify your goals

Creating a content strategy that drives results starts with understanding your goals clearly. So, begin to ask yourself, what exactly do I want to achieve with my blog in this year?

For us at VictorWinners, identifying the goals I want to achieve with my team has really helped a lot. Outlining these clearly has helped us to streamline our expectations and from there, we have intentionally worked towards achieving these outcomes.

Thing is, without a clear outcome you don’t have a concrete idea about the goal you want to achieve and going on this way, you may not actually be able to achieve anything in particular, with your effort.

If you want to build a content strategy that generates results, you need to know the results you want to get and then work towards building on that with your content.

Know your Audience Clearly

Who exactly are you creating the content for? What’s their gender, age, location and what other details do you need to have about them in order to create the content they will love?

Knowing about these details and your audience’s demographics in particular is very important as it helps you to create content that you can use to target them effectively.

Also, create a persona of your ideal audience, and whenever you create content, do that with this avatar in mind. It helps you in creating content that targets this audience specifically.

Understand What your Audience Wants

Find out, what does your audience really want? Does this align with your content goals?

It doesn’t matter how good you are as a blogger or content creator, to create content that really sells, you need to create the kind of content that addresses the needs of your audience.

So, while building your content strategy, instead of creating any kind of content that comes to your mind, you want to build the kind of content that your audience wants.

To get to find this, you need to make some research. Check out, what kind of content is currently popular in your industry? Is there a new twist you can bring to add your voice to that?

If you’re in a niche that allows seasonal content, you can also try to find out, what is trending during the season.

With platforms like Google Trends, search for trending topics and find out how you can create content that resounds with the time.

Again, you want to also check out other successful influencers, websites or blogs in your niche, find out, what are they posting right now and how can you add a new dimension to it?

Create valuable Content

Nothing trumps good content. No matter the kind of content strategy you’ve put in place, if you can’t create great content based on the strategy then you may not get the results you want to get.

If you want to create a lasting effect with your content you need to invest in creating valuable content for your audience. Give them something that’s worthwhile.

Think about it, how would you like your content to be created if you were a reader? In what way would you expect the content to be created so that you can go back to the site again and again?

Think about this and then invest in creating content that stands out. Take out time to research your content both for your audience and also make it visible for the search engines via SEO optimization.

Create Consistency

Beyond creating content or creating a content strategy that works, you also want to create a level of consistency around your content.

Your audience have to be able to read your content as at when due. This is very important. The more consistency you demonstrate with your content, the more credible they perceive you to be.

A lot of new bloggers and social media creators do not operate with a level of consistency that’s suitable for their audience. And most times, this will affect everything including your audience’s perception of you and your own search visibility.

Measure your outcomes

To create an effective content strategy that drives results, you need to be able to measure your outcomes from time to time.

Find out, did your content really achieve the goals you had in mind while creating it? If at all it did not, what can you improve on to make it achieve the set goal?

Edit your strategy from time to time and re-implement all the strategies that have been working for you, where appropriate.

Where you have seen obvious errors or shortcomings, find a way to correct them and see what can work. Then re-apply the part that provided the right results.

In a nutshell, creating a content strategy that drives the right kind of results is very possible but before you even embark on creating that, you have to know the outcomes you want to create and thereafter, put on other things in place that will help you create the outcome with your content strategy.

So, there you have it. Which of these steps have you been using for your content marketing strategy?