Defining your Digital Content

StrategyContent is king, but it isn’t everything.

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How do you make sense of

content?

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Content creation is not

a strategy.

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Content is not an island.

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content

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Contents:

THE

PROCESS

Keyword research

Competitive analysis

Content inventory

Analysis of need states

Content creation

Promotion

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Step 1- Keyword Research

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Keyword research starts at

home

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Free Tools for Keyword

Research– Webmaster Tools

• search traffic- top queries

– Google Analytics • acquisition- keywords

– Internal Site Search• if enabled

– Google Autocomplete• for variations on a keyword

– Uber Suggest• http://ubersuggest.org/, and others like it

– Google Ad Tool• suggested queries

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Paid Tools for Keyword

Research– SearchMetrics

– Spyfu

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Free and Essential Tool: Excel

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Collect your keyword data across as many

different platforms as possible. The more,

the merrier.

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Step 2: Competitive Analysis

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Who are your competitors?

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Not just industry BUT SERP too.

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Collect competitor analysis

SearchMetrics & SpyFu

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Eliminate branded terms

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Compile data & create a pivot table

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Check for overlap to see what

keywords are popular

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Dump back in to Ad tool for search

volume, then rank those that are

higher priority

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Once you have a sense of overlap

among your competitors, focus on

gaps in your campaigns.

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Weed through competitor keywords

for opportunities that make sense

for you

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Take all that new keyword data and

begin grouping and analyzing.

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Bucket keywords for user intent

Is the keyword:

– Transactional? Buy snack box subscription

– Navigational? Graze or nature box

– Informational? Healthy snack options

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This will yield a list of keywords

with search volume, type of search,

and existing content. This is the the

starting point for your content

strategy.

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Your content spreadsheet:

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Step 3: Content inventory

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Content inventory is all about

figuring out what you need, what

you have, and what your audience

is looking for.

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Crawl your site

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Bucket the types of content you

have on site

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Cross reference against keyword

data

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Make note of pages that support

the keywords you want to target

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Identify gaps & opportunities

Keyword: food gifts for the holidays

Only existing content:

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Step 4: Analysis of need states

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Need state:

A way of understand the topology

of the market, and the driving

needs that determine brand choice

in a particular market.

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Shopper/buyer need states

Awareness

Familiarity

Consideration

Purchase

Loyalty

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Different need states lend

themselves to different content

typesSnacks

Healthy Snack Options

Snack Delivery

Buy Snack Subscription

Snack of the month club

perks

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After identifying pages to be

improved or created, identify what

type of content you are creating to

meet the need state of the keyword

targeted on that page.

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Process:

What is the keyword intent/need state?

What kind of content would support that?

What does that look like?

*Food Gifts*

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For Example:

Familiarity- Healthy Snack Options:

– Articles on healthy sweet and savory snacks

– Video tutorials on preparing healthy snacks

– Food pyramid and nutritional serving illustrations

– Resources for how to meal plan, and incorporate snacks into a day to day menu plan

– Expert nutritionist interviews about snacks, food, and making time to exercise.

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Step 4: Content creation

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Now that you have all that data, try

to forget it at least a little bit, and

think about the user.

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What types of content are most

shared:

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Think beyond the blog post

– Tutorials: illustrated, video, step-by-step, etc.

– Interviews: with experts, customers, etc.

– Resources: lists of related industry vendors,

upcoming events, tools, etc.

– Guides: buying guides, care guides, gift

guides, etc.

– Interactive Pieces: quizzes, guides,

resources, contests, etc.

– Photo Series: behind the scenes, upcoming

work, employee spotlights, etc.

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Video tutorials

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Interviews

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Resources

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Guides

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Interactive pieces

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Photo series

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Think big within your budget

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Step 5: Promotion!

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Outreach is simple.

Remember your user?

Find them and reach out to them as a

person.

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How do you find them?

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Trackur

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BuzzStream:

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Topsy

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For the love of dog, please don’t automate

your outreach programs.

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Don’t discount the possibility of paid

promotion for boosting good content

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Takeaways:

– Give yourself a solid base for any strategy by

really doing your keyword research.

– The more competitive analysis you can do,

the easier finding the gaps in the market and

your own content will be.

– A need state analysis will be the framework

for how you build your content.

– Think beyond the blog post.

– Promote as an individual.

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Questions?