We've talked before about the importance of having a content strategy for your business. As well as the content itself, the people developing the strategy must think about issues such as mobile usability and Google authorship for your content. There's a lot to think about. That's why we've compiled some of the best resources we can find to help you create a content strategy.
1. Content Strategy Checklist
In
How to Build a Content Marketing Strategy, Moz writer Stephanie Chang covers why you should care about content marketing and provides some excellent examples of companies creating great content. The author shares her content strategy framework which includes researching company's business model and customer base, collecting and analyzing data to create benchmarks, auditing existing content, developing personas, building relationships, creating content and assessing performance. It's a pretty comprehensive checklist which will be useful for anyone looking to start from scratch.
2. Mobile Content Strategy
On the Sitepoint blog, Kerry Butters discusses
Content Strategy for Mobile Web Design. She outlines some considerations when creating a mobile responsive site, and discusses ROI, layout and navigation, calls to action, content display issues, and how content and design work together (something that is
very close to our hearts here at Moveable Online).
3. 13 Step Content Plan
Marketer Heidi Cohen provides a
13 Step Content Marketing Plan which covers goal setting, audience identification, branding, audience needs, storytelling and content formats. She also discusses approaches to building an editorial calendar, making content appealing, optimizing content and budgeting for creating content. Content distribution, promotion and measurement round out her list.
4. Content Goals and Tactics
PR 2020 provides tips on
Creating a Strategic Content Marketing Plan. The author highlights the reality of a constant call for more content as marketing shifts to inbound techniques. That means rethinking the content strategy. This article presents an outline for annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily goals and tactics. It's a useful guide for those in charge of delivering content strategy.
5. A Framework for Content Marketing
You can't discuss content strategy without looking at what the Content Marketing Institute has to offer. As part of an eight part to guide to content marketing, it provides an overview of the issues to consider when creating a
content marketing framework. The article includes identifying the purpose, building the business case and research. It provides lots of examples, case studies and additional useful articles. Don't miss the link at the bottom to 100 content marketing examples.
6. 2014 Content Strategy Guide
Unbounce has an excellent guide to
5 Ways to Create a Better Content Strategy in 2014. It urges content marketers to remember the strategy aspect and not just the content aspect and outlines a five step process for creating more powerful and strategic content. The article provides a guide to sourcing content, choosing themes, integrating content with business goals, creating content that matches audience needs and filling out the content calendar.
7. Content and Usability
Finally, there's a quick start
guide to content strategy from usability.gov. It outlines four key aspects of a successful content strategy, examines the content life-cycle and highlights best practices for making your content meaningful. It's worth reading the references at the end, in particular the Content Strategy Quad by Melissa Rach.
Read these resources and you're sure to get your own content strategy off to a great start.
