Well, a content strategy ain’t what it used to be.
Over the last few years, the content marketing and SEO game has changed immensely.
New AI tech, changes in algorithms, and a shift in public sentiment have all changed the ways we think about and approach content marketing.
Sure, there are some foundational tactics that are still the same as they’ve always been.
But if you’re relying on the same content strategy you’ve had for years—or worse, you don’t have one at all—then this article is for you.
I’m going to walk you through how to build a content strategy that will move the needle in today’s competitive (and slightly dystopian) digital landscape.
Before we dig in, you should download my Perfect Content Calendar, which you can fill out as you read along. It’s free to use, and something I’ve tweaked and perfected over the decade I’ve been in content marketing—I’ve even made some special updates for 2025 specifically.
You can get your free copy right here:
Part 1: Researching and developing the strategy
It’s not sexy, but the first step of a content strategy is to just think.
Whenever I’m working on a content strategy for a client, the first few hours mostly look like me jotting down random notes, clicking around the internet, and going for pensive walks.
But trust me—the more time you take to think and research before you start building the plan, the better your content strategy will come out in the long run.
So get out a pen and paper, or open up a new document, and start answering these questions:
What should your content strategy physically look like?
What form will your content strategy take, when it’s all said and done?
There is no formula or rule for this; it depends on your personal needs and goals.
If it’s just for you, the content strategy report only needs to include what you need to stay on track—maybe it’s just a single document with notes, or a private spreadsheet, or a handwritten calendar (in pencil, please).
If it’s going to be shared within a work team or with higher ups, it needs to include more context and guidance.
When I create content strategies for businesses, I usually put together a comprehensive slide deck, plus a content calendar and action plan. That way, they can show it to their stakeholders and colleagues, and everyone can be on the same page.
A better question to ask is: Who is going to be looking at this strategy and how are they going to put it to work?
Once you’ve nailed that down, you can decide how to make your strategy presentable, accessible, and shareable to everyone in the loop.
Is your site’s technical SEO up to snuff?
Your technical SEO needs to be on point. This is essential if you want your content to be found, and beyond that, it will make your site more user friendly—something you should want whether or not you are focused on SEO.
When I’m starting a content strategy, I will perform an SEO tech audit as a first course of matter, and provide clients with a list of what needs to be taken care of. I use a color-coded system to show clients what I can take care of for free, what I can take care of for an extra price, and what will require the help of a professional web developer (which I am not).
If you are using a tool like Semrush or Ahrefs, they have built-in tech auditing tools that can be quite helpful. But you still may need the help of a professional (like me wink wink) to interpret the results and take action.
Who are you creating content for and what do they truly care about?
In short, who is your audience?
You might already have this info locked down in your branding. If not, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and do some deep audience research.
You want to know (and document) your audience’s demographics, yes, but more importantly, you want to understand their pain points, objections, and goals.
In an ideal world, you would have customer testimonials, feedback, focus groups, and interviews to provide real-world answers to these questions.
If not, consider spending some of your time implementing some of this research before you continue with the content strategy.
You can also look into competitors (or future competitors) and see what audience data they have on their websites and public profiles.
Finally, there may be studies, white papers, surveys, news interviews, and articles that lend more insights into your audience.
When you’ve got a good idea of who you want to target, ask questions about them like:
- What keeps this person up at night?
- What’s something they wish they could resolve right now?
- What websites and publications do our audience frequent?
- What does this person want to learn to do on their own?
Go deeper than simple demographics, and think about the feelings, emotions, and psychology of your audience.
Gather as much information as you can on all your different audiences and keep it somewhere safe—we’ll be coming back to it often.
What are people searching for when they’re looking for your business/product/service?
Now that you know what your audience’s pain points and challenges are, you can start to think about what they might be typing into search engines and AI tools. This is where we can really gin up some specific ideas for content, so get the calendar ready.
Keyword research may seem like an outdated term, but it applies to both SEO and GSO (generative search optimization – or AI search), both of which use language models to provide answers to search queries, albeit in very different ways.
If you want my full take on GSO and AI search in general, check out my article about how to future-proof your SEO strategy
Using SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs can help us reveal what sorts of terms people are typing into these various search platforms, and thus reveal what kind of language we might want to use in our own content.
If you haven’t used these tools, you can learn some basics from my YouTube channel.
A lot of people find keyword research kind of tedious and boring. Me? I like doing it. It’s like peeking into the minds of thousands of people—maybe that’s creepy, but sue me, I find it fascinating.
It is extremely tedious and time-consuming, however, especially if you’re new to it. So if it’s not your cup of tea or it’s taking up too much of your time, I offer keyword research as a service.
Is your site’s content easily accessible on different devices?
To answer this question, you need to approach your website from a user’s perspective.
Click around. Poke every button. Click every link. Pay attention to the URLs. Do your eyes hurt reading that font? Can the text on that button be improved?
As your doing this exercise, take screenshots and recordings of all the issues you find, as well as examples of what’s working well. Collect these in a folder or on slides, so you can deal with them later.
Now get out your phone and do it all again.
I love doing this part of the strategy, and I find it’s quite helpful for clients to have a fresh set of eyes on their content. When you look at the same website every day as part of your job, it can be hard to see the issues that could be holding back your visibility.
What are your competitors doing (and not doing)?
Now it’s time to look at your competitors, and make a list of what they are doing well and where they are missing the mark. Addressing these gives you an opportunity to shine and distinguish your site from theirs.
Read their top-performing content pieces using your SEO tools. Look for different assets they are using as lead magnets. Check their site performance using PageSpeed Insights. Think about what your goals are, and look for ways they are/are not meeting those same goals. Consider current events, and where you might be able to get a competitive edge.
What do others in the business want?
The best content strategies aren’t siloed inside a marketing team or dictated by the c-suite.
Gather input from a wide variety of people in the business, including the sales team, customer service, HR, development and tech teams, and management.
Ask them what topics come up for them in their day-to-day work, especially when interacting with customers or leads.
Ask them what kinds of content might help them do their job better or make their lives easier.
Ask them where they see gaps in customer knowledge, or what common issues they see coming up again and again.
Write down their answers, because they are likely full of content ideas for your strategy.
What does realistic production look like for you?
The scope of your content strategy will depend on what you can realistically produce in the coming year.
I’ll use myself as a meta-example. I am a team of one, and I use some talented freelance creators to assist me, including the excellent freelance health writer Corinna Santa Anna, who helped with this article.
For me, realistic means I can create:
- 1 – 2 big blog articles like this one per moth
- 2 – 3 LinkedIn posts per week
- 3 – 4 email newsletters per month
And that’s it. If I want to do more than that, I’ll need to scale up.
Maybe you are a freelancer like me, creating your own content strategy. Maybe you have an in-house team of talented designers and writers, who are good with AI prompts.
Whatever the case, think about the types of content you can create, and how many pieces you think you can make per month. A vague goal is fine for now.
Part 2. Filling in the content calendar
Your content calendar is the brain of your overall strategy. It is the operations center, where you take the ideas you gather from all this research and put them into action.
This is where you will document your detailed plan for content creation and promotion. It’s also a handy place to capture your recurring support tasks. For example, weekly tech audits, monthly hunts for decaying content, and quarterly reviews of primary pages for updates.
As we dive into the content calendar, now is the time to grab a copy, open it up and follow along. It’ll make things a whole lot clearer.
On the first tab, we’re going to map out a three-month gameplan, scheduling content creation, promotion, and support tasks for the quarter.
Why only three months? Because things are just too fast paced to look further ahead. Taking this approach builds some agility into your plans.
Mapping out your quarterly strategy
In the Quarterly Content Planner tab of your content calendar map out all your strategic-level tasks and deadlines. List your various campaigns and projects with a short description as the overview.
Put in your campaign tasks
After describing your campaign, identify what needs to get done each week for the next three months for that campaign.
Keep the tasks high level and strategic. For instance, think “2x blog articles” instead of listing the individual blog titles. You’ll describe the blogs in more detail in the tab for the individual month.
List your Heartbeat Tasks
The Quarterly Content Planner tab is a convenient place to list what I call “Heartbeat Tasks.” These are all the content strategy support tasks you need to do in addition to creating and promoting content. They happen weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Seeing them every time you refer to your content calendar keeps them top of mind.
Essential Heartbeat Tasks
Weekly
- Tech audit review
- Fix new tech errors
Monthly
- SEO metrics review
- Hunt for decaying content
Quarterly
- Update any primary pages
- Team strategy review
Once you have your heartbeat tasks mapped out, be sure to block out time on your calendar to complete them.
Each of these can take an hour or more. It depends on how you have your SEO tools set up to capture and report the data, and how comfortable you are with SEO overall. This is another area where partnering with an experienced SEO pro (like me!) can help leverage expert guidance for better results.
I can manage the heartbeat tasks for you, or provide the SEO and content training for your team, so you can manage it in-house going forward.
Let's talk.
Detailing monthly content
For each of the next three months, list the content topics you will work on in that month’s tab. Record all of the relevant details in this one place—-making it easy to find and keep track of.
I’ve made this easy for you by creating columns that should help you capture all the right information.
Scrolling from left to right in a month’s tab you’ll find a place to record everything from notes, to relevant reference links and keywords, to deadlines and its promotion plan.
By the way, if something in my content calendar doesn’t work for you, go ahead and change it. Maybe different categories work better for you. Match the status options to your workflow. Change the drop down lists and headings to what works best for you. It’s your calendar, after all!
Deciding which topics to cover
All the work you’ve done up to this point, gathering data and analyzing it, makes it easier to decide which topics are worth covering.
You’ve identified who you’re creating content for and what they’re looking for. You have a sense of what’s happening in the environment and what your competitors are up to. Now you can take all that information and brainstorm topics that not only meet your target audience where they are, but also make you stand out.
With all of this upfront work, you can create engaging, timely, unique content and avoid the trap of stale, me-too content.
One more place to look for topic ideas
Not every piece of content needs to be completely new. Take a look back for ideas that you can update, rework, or expand. Often just a refresh, with analytics in mind, can extend the life of a well-performing content piece.
Look back at your last 12 months’ of content analytics. Ask yourself what content worked well in terms of traffic and/or conversions. Take a closer look at which content made waves with a lot of comments or shares. See if any of your high-performing content has started losing traffic in recent months. There might be topic ideas hiding there in plain sight.
Whatever topic ideas surface, be sure to capture them in your content calendar.
Mapping out distribution channels—including AI search
In the monthly tabs, there are columns dedicated to the various distribution channels you should be using as part of your content strategy.
Each content piece you create should have its own promotion strategy. You may want to replace or add/remove channels.
Here you will also see a column for “AI Optimization.” This is to mark content pieces that you specifically want to show up in AI search results on ChatGPT and other tools.
For more guidance on how to target those searches, here’s my take on future-proofing your SEO strategy.
Bringing it all together
You’ve done all the research and mapped out the primary tasks and content ideas you want to cover for the next three months.
Now, it’s time to bring all of that research together into the final form you desire for your content strategy.
Maybe you are happy to just use the calendar and a few documents/folders containing your research
Maybe you want to make a showy presentation for your entire company.
Whatever path you take, you should now have all of the information and action points to put together a strategy that will propel you forward.
Your ever-evolving content strategy
Building an effective modern content strategy requires careful planning, consistent execution, and ongoing analysis. By following the roadmap discussed above, asking critical questions throughout the process, and utilizing a comprehensive content calendar, you’ll be well-equipped to create a strategy that drives organic traffic and engages your target audience.
Remember that a content strategy is not a static document but a living plan that should evolve with your business goals, audience needs, and the ever-changing digital landscape. Regularly review and adjust your strategy to ensure it continues to deliver results and supports your overall business objectives.
If, after working your way through this process, you’re looking for some help, contact me. I’d be happy to help.
This article was written as a collaboration between me, Liam, and freelance writer Corinna Santa Ana. You can learn more about Corinna on her LinkedIn.
