Explore, optimise, analyse & review: optimising content strategy
I have definitely used my fair share of content platforms - Wordpress, Drupal, Wix and Squarespace for content management systems - and most of the social media platforms. Unfortunately I can’t teach you every nuance of all those platforms because:
a) they change all the time
b) I am always learning which platforms and channels work well
This is why content strategy is all about learning through testing. When you’re trying to grow anything, you need to strike a balance between trying new things while still investing the right amount of energy in executing them effectively.
A long term content strategy goal should be to test numerous channels but not so many that you’re just “spraying and praying”.
The OAR technique in content strategy works:
Select 1-3 channels or platforms to start to explore. Base your choices on everything that you know about your audience. If you’re planning to target women aged 22 to 35, head for Instagram and Pinterest. If you want a mostly male business audience, then Twitter or LinkedIn could be your go-to content strategy amplification channels.
Spend a set time - maybe a month or maybe less - working only on those channels. At the end of that period, determine your results. Progress doesn’t necessarily mean incredible performance, but movement in the right direction. For example, if you’re getting a few new backlinks each week from your social posts, or your engagement week over week is actually increasing are all good signs.
Cut channels that don’t seem to have a strategy-audience fit.
Repeat steps 1-3, until you have a base of 2-3 channels that you can count on.
Once you’ve tested a few channels, map out a distribution plan for each article that you launch. Label your channels with tiers:
Ground Zero are the always-on channels that will be your homebase: your website and your email newsletter.
Level One these work uniquely for you, with every piece of content that you publish. For example, maybe you always publish each article to Twitter or a Facebook group.
Level Two channels are those platforms and channels that you only distribute certain topics or test and evolve.
OAR it: Optimise, analyse and review your content channels and platforms. I like to do this once a month and track everything in a spreadsheet. I do it manually because I like doing it that way, but you can get clever technical people to set up automated reporting to take the pain away. Once you’ve found something that works, keep doing that thing. Don’t stop until it stops working. When that happens, be sure to cut it.
Audience is not built overnight
As you’re testing new channels, here are a couple additional tips to keep in mind:
Don’t be paranoid: Don’t worry when you lose a Twitter follower or when your open rate is down for a week. Focus on the big picture of whether a channel seems to be working for you.
Don’t expect to build an audience overnight. And remember to celebrate small wins! Audience numbers are smaller on digital channels than the old blockbuster days of mainstream media.
Always unlock the power of SEO and search engines
Search is one of the most powerful tools in your content strategy toolbox — not just because it has the potential to grow your reach but also because it knows what billions of people care about and gives you those insights, too.
If you focus on the fundamentals of SEO — instead of trying to game it — SEO becomes important at every step of the publishing process.
Search engine optimisation generates evergreen traffic but it takes time. In fact, Google says it can take four months for content to rank, even if you do everything perfectly.
If you’re able to really hit the nail on the head with SEO, an article bringing in 500 pageviews a day equates to nearly one million pageviews over five years.
Using search data can drastically improve your entire writing process. Writers can use Google’s search data to understand what people care about. With social media, people often just want to scroll or be entertained.
Searches tend to have a problem at the heart of them. These searches may not always seem like “problems” at first glance, but pretty much every Google search is indeed a problem. Whether their problem is that they want to learn something new, find directions to their favourite cafe, understand why their laptop won’t turn on, each Google search can be mapped out to a problem.
Many guides over-complicate SEO, but in reality, these are the key things that you need to know:
Understanding user search intent (understanding how people think).
Leveraging the information that Google openly shares (learning what people care about).
Optimising your content (integrating what people want to make an awesome user experience).
Instead of trying to understand every single ranking factor with SEO, instead focus on making content that is:
Credible (high quality, trusted and valuable).
Relevant (to the search query).
Usable (for the searcher or ideal audience).
Search engines tend to measure credibility in terms of back links from other trusted sites.
The key to being relevant is not just keyword researcg, but selecting a target keyword with the right intent across the following types of queries:
Informational
Transactional
Navigational
Product
The key to usability is to create strategic and delightful content that people want to engage with, but here are some actionable tips that you can take advantage of as well:
Update old content: Google regularly checks websites for “freshness,” so if possible, update old content.
Speed up your site: Site speed is indeed another input to the Google algorithm. You can test your site speed and aim for your site to ideally load in two seconds or less.
People often ask which factors are most important for SEO and the answer is credible, relevant, and usable article. There is no way around it.
No matter how good your article might be, if you’re targeting the wrong intent or you don’t have the authority to rank for a highly competitive term, you probably won’t get any traffic.
Similarly, even with great authority and good keywords, if your article doesn’t provide any value to the user, Google may index it but it will quickly de-rank as users click away without scrolling or clicking on the article.