Creating a blog plan seems like developing a complete startup. You have to juggle deadlines, details, writers, and all with the immense pressure of driving results. An adequate blog plan is necessary to rank organically on search engines and get more traffic.
About 67% of marketers report the importance of content marketing for generating leads.
Therefore, you must have a blog plan to consistently create and publish great blog content.
Importance of creating a blog plan
Every digital marketing strategy relies on content planning primarily. About 81% of marketers consider content as a key business strategy.
Having insightful content can help you accomplish your goals.
- Whether you want to get more traffic on the site or need to establish your online presence, high-quality content is necessary to attract, engage, and convert site visitors.
- A blog plan is important for the content marketing strategy of your business. With it, you can better rank your website for keywords.
- A blog plan can plan to create insightful, relevant, and original content to capture your potential audience’s attention.
- Getting qualified leads is essential to sustain and thrive your business. Creating a blog plan consisting of multiple content assets such as whitepapers, checklists, how-to guides, e-books, etc., helps in lead generation.
- You can also plan to create useful, high-quality, relevant blog content to increase conversion.
A blog plan with timeless content is always valuable, relevant, and insightful.
A step-by-step guide on how to create a blog plan
Creating a blog plan is all about deciding the type of content you’ll publish on your site and when. The key role of a blog plan is to prioritize your blog content creation as per marketing strategy and business goals.
Start by understanding your blog’s purpose, target audience, and what they want. Here is how you can plan out content to drive traffic.
Determine your content creation goals.
Setting your blog planning goals is the first step here. Setting goals will help determine whether the blog plan works for you. Whenever it’s about setting goals for blog planning, focus on SMART goals.
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Timely
Without these elements, there is the possibility that your goal will more likely go by the wayside. So, you must set 1 or 2 goals to achieve monthly. For instance:
- I want to grow site traffic by 5% monthly.
- Want to Grow traffic by 15% quarterly.
- Want to grow traffic by 50% yearly?
Always set your goals clearly before planning a blog. Consequently, you will have an easier time determining the best strategy for your content.
Conduct audience research
To create a successful blog plan, you must clearly define your content’s target audience. This practice is particularly important if you are starting and novel to content marketing. Conducting audience and market research can let you create more valuable and relevant blog content.
Understand the pain points of your potential audience. Find as much info as possible about their fears, desires, problems, goals, etc. There are multiple ways that you can consider to get started better. These include:
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- Survey your potential audience to determine what they are struggling with currently.
- Comb through tweets about a topic and see common problems, desires, and roadblocks people have. Use this platform as your customer insight’s goldmine.
- Join forums, Facebook groups, and other social media platforms to determine people’s thoughts about a certain topic.
However, if you’re experienced, revisiting audience parameters through market research is essential to growing your traffic.
Perform competitor research
Your competitors usually have plenty of information when it’s to blog content planning. See what keywords, content format, and topics work best for your competitors. It will more likely work for your business as well.
Start with quick google research and consider top organic results to explore. Examine their blogs and site to know more about their theme and topics.
You should also consider finding the gaps in their content strategy. It will allow you to fill these gaps and attract more traffic.
Develop content topics that can attract your audience
A list of blog topics to cover someday is vital to blog planning. Finding original and new blog topics is always challenging, especially when you plan to post multiple topics every week. Fortunately, you can use topic research tools as an excellent source to find topic ideas.
Then check the search volume of the topic to understand the audience’s interest in the topic. So, once you know the topics, you can create a blog post, an eBook, or a reel per your audience’s interest. You can recycle the information into multiple formats to use on different platforms. Consequently, attracting traffic to your site from different sources will become easier.
Choose an effective content format
Currently, there are a variety of content formats available. Here are some popular content formats that marketers use preferably:
- Textual posts
- Images
- Videos
- Infographics
- Podcasts
Each format has different options. For instance, you can use videos to create how-to’s, interviews, Q&A’s, behind-the-scenes, and more. Using a combination of different formats often benefits more.
However, you should also determine the suitable length of content and where to use it to engage your audience.
Determine an adequate blog posting frequency
Consistency is important to get successful results.
Plan a blog schedule to post your blogs regularly. This practice will help you build momentum to attract more organic traffic. You should consider two main things while determining your blog posting frequency: your resources and your audience’s appetite.
Provide an adequate amount of content to your prospects to nurture deep relationships. If you are still trying to figure it out, check the content strategy of your competitors to determine when to share blogs.
Keep experimenting with your blog posting frequency unless you find the ideal solution.
Final Thoughts
Creating a blog plan that can work to achieve your business goals is an intimidating task. Trying to write content for your website without a plan is like off-roading without GPS or a map. A blog plan can help you to stay organized and focused on maximizing the reach and reviewability of your content.