Three simple steps on how to create a content marketing strategy and manage it

The content marketing strategy consists of several nuances and subtleties that you must follow in order to gain a devoted audience. Given that Google recommends writing articles “for people” and not for search robots, we recommend creating a content plan that caters to both.

 

Why does Google warn us about this and what conclusions can be made?

Competition in the search engine optimization market and content marketing was, until very recently, in decline due to the fact that authors spammed key queries in articles and loaded search networks with useless information, information that has even harmed people’s health.

 

Google decided to deal with such fraud and released recent updates to their ranking algorithms, one of them being Hummingbird.

Definition of content marketing strategy

A blog’s content strategy is a step-by-step, structured instruction dictating how an author should organize their online content. An effective strategy consists of:

 

1. Time and order of publication
2. Themes of articles
3. Text content
4. Media content
5. Key queries used in the article
6. Relinking plan

The strategy should be step-by-step not only in the order of publication but also in the order of disclosing the topic. It is impossible and no reason to include all the information about a particular concept that you describe in one article: start the publication with the main thing and smoothly move on to the secondary one.

Source: https://www.semrush.com/blog/content-marketing-strategy-guide/

Also, keep in mind that content marketing can be different, and as a well-known marketing specialist Brian Dean explains, there are several types of content marketing strategies:

Source: https://www.semrush.com/blog/content-marketing-strategy-guide/

• Blogging
• Video
• Podcasting
• Infographics
• Email
• Visual content
• Ebooks
• Lead magnets
• White papers
• Checklists
• Courses
• Webinars

And more.

Read the latest content marketing strategy guide for the 2020th.

You can and should use several approaches at once, but here we are going to discuss how to formulate a content plan for a website blog and how to create awesome articles that your audience will be eager to read.

The content that is written on the basis of your own experience, research, and observations will be the most valuable. You must create articles that will make the reader trust you and place you as an authority in your industry.

 

This work is very time-consuming and requires great persistence, but we urge you to write the content yourself or entrust this task to a person whose abilities you are sure of.

Do not trust low-skilled copywriters who do not have a medical education or do not work in your industry. If you don’t have time to write content for the blog yourself, then a good, qualified copywriter will be a suitable option, but it will be an expensive one.

If you’re a specialist in the medical field or maintain a personal blog about healthcare, then the following steps will be useful for you when developing a content plan.

 

First of all, research your target market and list all of the services you provide, what conditions you treat, and frequently address the questions you get from your patients.

Now, imagine for a moment that you’re a dentist. Get this list and divide fields into categories – group them between each other such as:

1. Questions & Answers (patients’ questions and your in-depth answers)
2. Useful tips (tips on how to avoid or get rid of any disease)
3. News (clinic/practice news)
4. Treatments (articles about the treatments you provide)
5. Diseases (articles about the diseases you treat)

In the future, if possible, and depending on your medical specialization, you can divide these areas into subcategories and continue grouping blog articles into narrower topics.

This can be a zero-step – consider it what you need to start with. Let’s move on to the first step.

Weigh your possibilities and decide how often articles will be published.

To do this, just look at the blogs of the websites of the leading clinics and select publication periods of 1/2 per month or more. This doesn’t mean that if your competitor publishes articles every day, then you must do the same thing – quality first above all else.

What and how much should I write?

More doesn’t always mean better – adhere to this principle and do not plan to write something that is not useful or does not make sense.

To get started, find an interesting topic that you would like to talk about. Suppose you are a plastic surgeon and you want to talk about mammoplasty. In this case, you should break the blog into topics, such as:

1. What is mammoplasty?
2. Types of mammoplasty: breast augmentation and reduction
3. Advantages and disadvantages of mammoplasty
4. Indications and contraindications to mammoplasty
5. Preparation for mammoplasty: what should you know before surgery?
6. Postoperative Instructions: proper care

It seems easy, right?

Regarding the size and content of the articles, if you feel that you can’t write an article with more than 500 words for the topic, don’t write it. Write what you know, and keep the middle ground and don’t chase the quantity.

1. Enter the name of your topic in Google search and look through several results.
2. Copy the text of the articles from the first five websites that you saw on the results page and paste it into any application that counts the number of characters/words in the text; for example, in Microsoft Word.
3. Find the article with the least number of characters/words in the list – this will be your minimum. The article with the most characters does not necessarily become your maximum: carefully read all open articles and think about what the author might have missed – what has changed in the niche and what concepts should be expanded on.

Now you can determine not only the average size of each article but also what to fill it with.

If you’ve decided what you write for a person and not for Google, then the keywords will be in the text by themselves. If you would like to attract as much traffic as possible, you need to collect key queries and include them in the text in order to increase the visibility of the article in search engines. To do this, you can probably use Semrush or find other free solutions – there are plenty to be found on the Internet.

Key queries must be inserted during or after writing articles. Include them in the article’s meta tags, such as “title”, “description”, and one key request for every 400-800 characters of the article.

As for media content, do not use images from articles of your competitors or from Google searches – they are not unique, and even if the readers like them, they will not like search engine robots. In addition, such images may be protected by copyright.

 

To search for images, use popular stock photo resources, such as Shutterstock, or take a photo yourself – the second will be the best solution.

The images should be thematic and correspond to the paragraph. Will deeply insert the image of cats in an article on breast augmentation, isn’t it? 🙂

 

Don’t add too many or too few images. They shouldn’t annoy the reader or interfere with readability.

In content marketing, as well as in your medical practice, you must always be aware of all updates and new discoveries. That’s why we urge you to never stop improving your content and monitoring your competitors via Google SERP.

You will not only be able to keep your patients and readers well informed, but Google’s search robots will see that you care about the quality of your content, which means you will improve your website as a whole.

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To summarize all of the above, the plan can be reduced into the following list of actions:

1. Decide who you are and what you do
2. Conduct a competitor study and create a content plan
3. Find your competitors’ flaws and transform them into your advantages
4. Update content and keep your finger on the pulse of the market

Despite the fact that this article is prepared for beginning bloggers and content marketers, we hope that you have found something useful to help you with your work.