Creating an effective content strategy in 2024

If you’re hoping to grow your business in 2024, you probably already know that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is imperative. As part of this you will need to develop a content strategy. But what does this involve? And what are the important steps for creating an effective content strategy in 2024?

What are the steps for creating an effective content strategy in 2024?

If your company is developing a content strategy, there are a number of steps you should follow to make sure that your hard work brings the biggest benefits. These steps include:

• Identifying your target audience
• Defining your topic area
• Keyword research
• Evaluating success

Identifying your target audience when creating a content strategy

Knowing who you are aiming your content at is invaluable information. This can allow you to tailor content to the particular interests and requirements of your potential customers and clients, allowing your content to bring the maximum amount of value to your website. You can start by identifying your current audience, and understanding what people who land on your website are looking for. If you are already reaching your key demographic, then you are doing something right. If not, you might need to consider different types of content and different styles of content, to direct a wider range of people to your website.

Defining your topic area for a content strategy

Content strategies are generally more effective if you have a clear and defined topic area. This can help you to stay cohesive across different platforms, for example allowing your social media content to be related to the blog content on your website, and your email newsletter content. To choose the right topic area you should consider:

• Making this broad and specific at the same time- a content area that is too narrow will quickly burn through, while a content area that is too broad might not stay relevant to your company or to your overall content aims. Finding a happy medium is important for the success of your content marketing.
• What do your users want to know?- understanding what your website users want to know, and then creating content to meet this need is an effective way to ensure success. Not only can this help draw in more traffic from the search engine results page, but this can also help to improve user experience on your website.

Keyword research when creating a content strategy

Once you have decided on a topic area it is essential that you research the connected and relevant search terms and phrases. These are the keywords that you want your content to rank highly for. As part of this research you should consider:

• The competitiveness of the search term- the more competitive a search term is, the lower the chances your website will have of reaching the number one spot. However, this usually indicates that there will also be a larger volume of searches. While you will be looking to rank for highly competitive search terms, this isn’t the only factor to consider.
• Content your competitors have produced- the type of content your competitors have produced for the relevant keywords you are all targeting can be important. Find out how they have approached the content, and then shape your content around a different angle or perspective, or even use a different style of content altogether.
• Long tail and short tailed keywords- short tailed keywords tend to only be two or three words and will often pull up the most results. While these will be used as part of your content marketing, you should also consider long tail keywords. These are longer sentences and even questions. Creating balanced content can help improve your content strategy success.

For more information or advice, or for specialist SEO and content marketing support, get in touch with the experts today, here at Pumpkin Web Design. We are Preston’s leading web design and web marketing professionals, and we provide a wide range of website solutions and SEO services across Preston and the North West, from Southport to Wigan, and even Manchester.We work with a wide range of companies and  businesses, in a variety of sectors, so why not get in touch today?