How to create a blog strategy in 5 easy steps

Too many people approach blogging in a reactive way. They pick a topic based on what’s in their inbox. They publish when they find a moment. What they’re lacking is a clear strategy. 

Blogging can be a powerful tool for your business, businesses with blogs generate an average of 67% more leads than those without, but only when it’s used properly, that all starts with a strategy. Your strategy doesn’t have to be overly complicated but it does need to exist. Without it, you’re shooting in the dark and that’s never going to be a winning tactic.

What is a blog strategy and why do you need it?

A blog strategy is a road map of what your blogging goals are and how you’re going to achieve them. It might include what promotions or services you’ll be focused on, the tools you’ll use, the frequency you’ll be publishing or the topic areas you’re going to focus on. 

This strategy becomes the backbone of your blogging efforts - making sure that you’re always working towards your business goals and that your blogs are pulling their weight. 

Step 1: Define your goals

What do you want to achieve from blogging? For some it might be reputational for others it might be linked to sales or lead generation. Whatever your goal is you need to be clear on it as it’ll direct your topics and your CTAs. 

Now take it a step further, instead of keeping it top level add in some specifics. How are you going to measure if you’ve achieved it? Will you be tracking views? Clicks? Leads? Shares? 

There are so many ways that you can measure success so you need to choose the one that’s most appropriate for your goal.

Step 2: Identify your topics

A successful blog builds authority in a specific field or industry, to do that you need to be selective about the topics you’re going to write about. That starts with keyword research. 

Keyword research identifies what topics your audience are searching for, what interests them and what search terms you might appear for in Google. As with any strategy you need some flexibility to be able to react to new developments or jump on hot topics, but through some solid keyword research you can begin to build out content clusters - that is different takes, questions or opinions around one topic. 

Creating content around a common theme also helps with your internal linking, boosting your SEO, increasing your dwell time and enhancing your blogs. 

Step 3: Timelines and responsibilities

A strategy is nothing without the methods of bringing it to life. When it comes to blogging it’s all about who is doing what, when and how. 

You need to be clear on where the responsibility lies in writing, editing, publishing and sharing your blogs. For smaller companies, or solopreneurs this is quite an easy step! When there are larger marketing teams it becomes slightly more complicated. 

Alongside the responsibilities you need to be clear about timings. If you’re looking for blogs for SEO purposes then it’s important to stick to a regular posting schedule. Consistency is what wins when it comes to blogging so whether you decide monthly because that’s all you can resource, or weekly because you’ve got lots to say - that’s fine as long as you can stick to it for 6 months plus. 

Step 4: Flesh out a calendar

Now you’ve got your topics, your posting schedule and who’s doing what, you can start to build out a calendar. Put your blogging schedule on there and map out any events that might impact it - office closures, Christmas, annual leave, big promotional events, key campaigns. Being realistic is what will put you in the strongest position to succeed.

Put all of those dates in whatever project planning, time management or to-do list you use to make sure the dates are always front and centre. Often blogging is the first thing to go out the window when you get busy, embedding the dates in your diary will help avoid that.

Step 5: Get started

You can have the best strategy in the world, but if you don’t get started it’s worthless. Daunting as it is, the last step is to put pen to paper, or cursor to screen and get started. 

Take the plunge, get writing, hit publish, share your blogs far and wide. Getting started is often the hardest part of consistent, successful blogging. So achieve this step and you’re ahead of the curve.

A blog strategy doesn’t have to take long to put together but if you want blogs to be an established part of your marketing strategy then you need to spend time on it. 

If strategy sounds too formal then think of it like guidelines to keep your blog on track. Because with a clear idea of what you’re writing about, when you’ll be doing it and who will be doing it - you’ll soon find yourself the owner of a successful blog. 

Or, if that sounds like something you simply don’t have time for, then get in touch and I’ll whip your blog into shape.