How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy for Your Blog

There’s no such thing as a perfect marketing strategy. Plans are relative – they might or might not work, it all depends on how well you manage them. Your blog will be successful as long as you’ll put in the effort. Make sure you set the right mind before starting to work on anything else. Remember the reason why you started, and manage your tasks accordingly. Motivation is important, but so is commitment.

You can map out a well-designed marketing plan by following the next steps. Test my advice before you apply it though. Be skeptical about it! If it works for you too, then start using it.

1. Set High Goals

Before starting to work on your plan, set goals to know where you’re headed. Watch out: this process can be really challenging. Sometimes, our goals are not realistic enough. Other times, they’re not challenging enough. Keeping a balance between the two can be tricky, so here are some tips on how to set SMART goals. Make objectives:

• Specific – what exactly do you want to achieve? What is the definition of your goal, and why is that it?
• Meaningful – why is reaching the goal important to you? What’s the benefit you get from it?
• Attainable –be realistic, but don’t underestimate yourself. Set goals that can be attainable on a relatively short period of time.
• Relevant –how will your goal benefit society? How is it relevant to other people?
• Trackable – how are you going to track your goals? What measures will you use?

2. Research the Market

Your blog will expand fast as long as you know what the public wants. Research the popular market trends before starting. I cannot emphasize how important this step is. It’s the foundation of your success. Here are some ideas on how to do it:

• Design surveys – ask your friends, relatives, family, and potential customers what their needs are. Smart questions: “What would you guys like to read about? What are you interested in?”
• Online interviews – set up Skype interviews with people you’re not physically close to. Ask them many questions.
• Choose a sample of the population you’d like to work with and ask for feedback on your ideas
• Analyze already published content – compare and contrast
• Use web resources and online tools.

3. Brainstorm Ideas

Now that you know how the market looks like, start brainstorming. What niches arethe people you’ve interviewed most interested in?

• Understand what your favorite niche requires you to do
• Be aware of how much money you’ll spend on your idea
• Think whether your project must be finished by a certain date
• Write down your thoughts on your business plan – what will certainly work? What could be improved?
• Analyze the next steps you’ll need to take
• Keep asking yourself “Is this the right niche for me?” If you find too many disadvantages, or things that might go wrong, reconsider your idea, and brainstorm again.

4. Target Your Audience

In order to be successful, your idea must meet the needs of your audience. Thus, focus on the needs you want to fulfill. How will you attract customers? What could you possibly offer them in order to subscribe to your blog? Ask yourself:

• Who is my public? Whom am I addressing to?
• What are their desires and needs?
• Where do they search for information?
• What are the benefits that come with buying my product/service?

5. Use SEO Tools

Now that you’ve decided on your blog content, start optimizing. Some hacks:

• Analyze popular search engines such as Yahoo or Google, and find out how they rank pages; how can you get a higher ranking?
• Analyze keywords – which ones have a strong competition? Which ones are rarer, and will therefore bring you good traffic?
• Compare your prospective blog with your competition’s – could you get inspired from them? What could you improve?
• Create meta descriptions, insert key phrases into your text, design meta tags
• Test and see how effective your programs are, and how well they work – how many new customers have you won lately?
• Crucial! Update your content constantly; get external help if needed.

6. Build Quality Content

Building quality content is essential if your goal is attracting more subscribers. Dan Brown, the Web Designer at AustralianEssays, shares his opinion.

“Huge search engines like Google won’t bring your website’s ranking up if you don’t create good content. Even using the best SEO tools available online won’t help. Your blog must be high-quality in order to get you the right number of followers. Be smart about it: play by the rules!”

7. Publish Your Content

Making your content available to the public is important. Before you do that though, make sure your content is proofread properly, and fully edited. Your article must be polished and revised at least three times before it’s published.

Wrapping Up

By respecting the above marketing strategy, your blog will quickly expand. You’ll end up with numerous followers! Make sure your content is good, set high, yet attainable goals, and target your audience properly – the rest will follow!