Are you feeling overwhelmed when it comes to creating content briefs? Do you struggle to find a balance between providing enough information and not getting bogged down in the details? If so, you’re not alone.
Writing a content brief can be a daunting task, especially when you’re working on a tight deadline or managing multiple projects.
Reading this post will provide you with tips from the pros on how to conceive a content brief without feeling overwhelmed. We’ll break down the components of a content brief and provide you with a step-by-step guide on how to create one.
It’s understandable that the thought of writing briefs may seem intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Here is help to streamline your process, save time, and ultimately produce high-quality content that resonates with your target audience.
So, let’s begin the journey toward creating a content brief that not only meets your needs but exceeds your expectations.
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A content brief is a document that shows how to write and what to include in a piece of content. It outlines the objectives, and parameters needed, the purpose of the content, the target audience, the key messages, and the outline that needs to be conveyed.
A content brief is the backbone of any content creation process, helping to keep everyone on the same page and ensuring that the crafted content is aligned with the marketing goals and objectives.
An SEO content brief is similar to a content brief but with an added focus on search engine optimization (SEO). An SEO content brief not only indicates the objectives, and outline of the project but also includes specific instructions and guidelines for optimizing the content for search engines. It might include:
Keyword research
On-page optimization
Interlinking strategies
Meta tags
The main difference between a content brief and an SEO content brief is made of the optimization parameters.
Why Are Content Briefs Important?
Creating a content brief is crucial for an effective content creation process. Without a clear plan in place, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds and lose sight of the overall goals and objectives of the project.
A content brief offers the necessary guidance and helps to keep everyone on the same page.
In the context of marketing, a good example of the importance of a content brief can be seen in the creation of a blog post.
Let’s say that a company wants to create a blog post about a new product they are launching. Before they start creating the piece of content, they should develop a content brief that outlines the following:
The target audience for the content (potential customers).
Key messages that need to be conveyed (benefits and features of the product).
Main keyword and semantic terms that should be included in the content (e.g. the name of the product, related search terms, etc.)
The desired outcome of the content (increased awareness and interest in the product, potential sales)
With this content brief in place, the company can then start creating content that is targeted toward their desired audience and optimized for search engines.
By following the guidelines outlined in the content brief, they increase the likelihood that their content will be discovered by search engines and, ultimately, by potential customers.
Advantages of Using Content Briefs
One of the main advantages of using content briefs is that they can prevent the need for rewrites and repetitive revisions. By having a clear plan in place before starting the content creation process, teams can avoid costly mistakes and minimize the need for time-consuming revisions.
This saves time and money and allows teams to focus on more important tasks.
Research conducted by Ziflow found that more than half of the marketing teams review an asset three to five times before it is considered final.
Another advantage of using content briefs is ensuring no critical information and data are missing. When creating content, it’s easy to overlook important details that can make or break the success of the project.
Content briefs help ensure that all necessary information is included and that the content meets the buyer persona’s needs.
In addition, content briefs provide a guideline and a single source of truth for the collaborating team. They serve as a reference document that everyone on the team can refer to when needed.
Consequently, minimizing confusion and misunderstandings, and helping to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal.
Lastly, content briefs provide clear direction. They serve as a blueprint for the project, outlining the goals, audience, tone, and format. And ensure that the content meets the needs of the intended audience and is consistent with the overall marketing strategy.
It also provides a clear way to measure success and obtain approval from stakeholders.
What Are the Components of a Content Brief?
In order to create a comprehensive content brief, there are several key elements that need to be considered. The key components of a content brief are
Topic and working title
Target buyer persona
Primary keyword
Search Intent for that keyword
Secondary keywords and LSis
Content format, and length
Stage of the buyer journey
Content goals and objectives
Content structure and outline
Content tone and style, and instructions for visuals
Resources
Internal links
Call to action (CTA)
Deadlines and milestones
Content brief template
Content brief example
What Are the Steps for Creating a Content Brief?
To create a detailed content brief follow the next steps:
Identify the Target Audience – Overview of the Buyer Persona
The target audience is the group of people that you are creating the content for or your buyer persona. It is defined based on demographics, psychographics, or other factors.
Understanding your target audience is essential to creating effective content that resonates with them.
Example: If the target audience is working moms, the buyer persona may include information such as their age range, occupation, income level, and the challenges they face balancing work and family life. In your brief, you will include a reference as “Mom Mary” and a link to the buyer persona profile.
Execute a Keyword Research – Identify the Primary Keyword and LSIs
The primary keyword is the main keyword that you are targeting with your content. This keyword should be relevant to your target audience’s needs and should be included in the content in a natural and organic way.
LSIs (Latent Semantic Indexing) are related keywords and phrases that are also relevant to the topic of your content. Including LSIs can help to improve the relevance of your content and increase its visibility in search results.
Example: If the content is about time-saving tips for working moms, relevant keywords may include “working mom struggles,” “time management,” and “productivity hacks”. And LSIs for “working mom struggles” could be “working mom dilemma”, “ depressed overwhelmed working mom”, “challenges of working moms”.
Brainstorm Content Topic and SEO Title
The topic of your content should be based on your target audience’s needs and interests and related to your product/service.
Deciding on a relevant, optimized, and eye-catching title is not that easy. Bear in mind that the working title should be attention-grabbing and provide a clear idea of what the content is about.
It is important to keep in mind that the title is often the first thing that people will see, and based on it, they decide if they click on your article or not.
Example: If the target audience is working moms, topics may include time-saving tips, career development, or self-care. Working titles may include “10 Time-Saving Hacks for Busy Working Moms” or “How to Advance Your Career While Juggling Motherhood.”
Determine the Content Format and Length
The format and length of your content can have a significant impact on how it is received by your target audience.
Depending on the topic approached the format may be a listicle, a how-to, a guide, an ebook, etc.
Content length in words is also important. Usually, you want this content to be useful for your audience and rank in search engines. The word count should be in the range of already ranking articles and should cover the topic in depth.
Example: If the goal of the content is to drive conversions, a product comparison guide may be the most effective format of content. The angle of the content may be based on a trending topic or a pain point that the target audience is experiencing.
Establish the Stage of the Buyer Journey for the Piece of Content
The stage of the buyer journey that your target audience is in will influence the type of content that they are looking for.
For example, someone in the awareness stage may be looking for educational content, while someone in the decision stage may be looking for product comparisons. By understanding the stage of the buyer journey, you can create content that is tailored to their needs and more likely to convert.
Define Content Goals and Objectives
The goals and objectives of your content should align with your overall marketing goals.
For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, your content may focus on spreading the word about your product or services or sharing customer success stories.
By aligning your content goals and objectives with your overall marketing goals, you can create a more cohesive and effective content strategy.
Example: If the goal of the content is to generate leads, the objective may be to collect email addresses through a lead magnet.
Indicate the Content Tone and Style
The tone and style of your content should reflect your brand voice and values. This can vary depending on your target audience and the type of content that you are creating.
For example, a piece of content aimed at millennials may have a more casual tone and use humor, while a piece of content aimed at business executives may have a more formal tone and use data-driven insights.
Example: If the target audience is working moms, the tone may be empathetic and understanding
Determine the Search Intent Behind the Main Keyword
Search intent refers to the reason behind a search query. Understanding the search intent behind your target audience’s queries is crucial in creating content that matches their needs.
By understanding the search intent, you can create content that is more relevant to their needs and more likely to be found in search results.
Create the Content Structure and Outline
The structure and outline of your content should be based on the type of content and the goals that you have set. It may include headings, subheadings, bullet points, or other formatting elements.
The provided outline should be logical and easy to follow and should help to guide the reader through the content.
Example: Suppose the goal of the content is to inform the audience about the importance of a healthy lifestyle. In that case, the structure and outline of the content should include subtopics such as nutrition, exercise, stress management, and sleep.
List the Resources
Resources are an essential component of a content brief. It is crucial to specify the resources needed to create the content. Resources include anything that the content writer needs to successfully complete the project.
This can range from research materials, case studies, statistics, images, videos, or any other type of media. Or competitor articles. By specifying the resources, the content creator can plan and allocate sufficient time to organize them and extract the right information.
When creating product pages or other landing pages, or infographics, it’s useful to indicate a design mockup or at least similar examples.
Additionally, this helps to avoid unnecessary delays and reduces the risk of missing essential data.
Example: Suppose the content is about the benefits of a plant-based diet. The resources that need to be reviewed may include scientific studies, books, and online articles from authoritative sources on the topic.
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Determine the Call to Action (CTA) That Will Be included in the Content
A call to action (CTA) is another important component of a content brief. The CTA informs the reader of what action they should take after engaging with the content.
For example, a CTA could be encouraging the reader to subscribe to a newsletter, purchase a product or service, or schedule a consultation.
By including a CTA in the content brief, content creators ensure that their content has a clear and specific purpose that aligns with the brand’s overall marketing strategy. Moreover, a well-crafted CTA can help improve conversions.
Example: Suppose the call to action for the content is to sign up for a free trial of a meal planning service. The content should include a link to the trial sign-up page and clear instructions on how to sign up.
Establish the Deadlines
Deadlines are the final essential component of a content brief. A deadline refers to the date and time when the content must be completed and delivered. Including deadlines in a content brief is vital as it helps to keep the project on track and within the specified timeline.
By specifying a deadline, content creators have a clear understanding of when the project should be completed, allowing them to manage their time effectively. Additionally, deadlines ensure that all stakeholders involved in the project are aware of the delivery date, minimizing the risk of delays and missed opportunities.
It is essential to consider each component of a content brief to create effective content. Neglecting any of the essential components can result in content that fails to meet its objectives.
For example, if a CTA is not specified in the brief, the content may lack direction, and the audience may not know what action to take after consuming the content.
Similarly, if resources are not adequately indicated, the content may be incomplete or lacking vital information. Finally, failing to set a deadline for content delivery can lead to delays, missed opportunities, and unhappy clients.
Now, you have heard for sure that content briefs can be generated by AI-driven tools. There are plenty out there. In my experience, none of them delivers great results, but help speed up the process and reduce the time needed for creating a solid content brief.
Key Differences Between a Manual Content Brief and an AI-Generated Content Brief
Manual briefs rely on human input and creativity to develop customized briefs, while AI-generated briefs use algorithms and data analysis to develop a brief based on predetermined criteria.
The manual approach offers greater flexibility and adaptability to changing project needs, while AI-generated briefs may be more rigid and difficult to modify.
Manual briefs allow for more nuanced messaging and tone, while AI-generated briefs rely more heavily on keyword optimization and data analysis.
Even though they are not as highly qualitative as manual briefs, AI-generated briefs can be developed more efficiently and are useful when producing content at scale. Executing them manually requires more time and resources to develop due to the need for human input.
Manual briefs are better suited for complex projects that require human expertise and creativity, while AI-generated briefs may be more suitable for standardized or routine content creation tasks.
Finally
Creating a content brief doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By breaking it down into manageable steps, and focusing on your target audience and marketing goals, you can create a clear and concise brief that will help you achieve your marketing objectives. So go ahead, give it a try, and don’t forget to celebrate your successes along the way!
A direct comparison of content strategy vs. content plan is necessary to clearly understand what is the scope of each of them and how to obtain maximum benefits from using them correctly.
What Is a Content Strategy?
Content strategy refers to the strategic approach and framework employed by businesses in developing and managing their content assets. It involves the careful planning, creation, distribution, and analysis of content to meet specific business goals.
Each content strategy takes into account factors such as target audience, brand positioning, and market research to ensure that the content resonates with the buyer persona and achieves desired outcomes.
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A content plan is a tactical roadmap that outlines the specific actions and steps required to execute a content strategy effectively. It provides a detailed schedule and action plan for content creation, distribution, and promotion. The content plan is the core part of a content strategy.
Typically it includes elements such as a content calendar, content types and formats, distribution channels, and strategies for amplifying content reach. It serves as a blueprint for businesses to implement their content strategy in a structured and organized manner.
Importance of Content Strategy vs Content Plan in Digital Marketing
Content strategy:
Provides clear direction, goals, and guidelines
Identifies target audience and tailors content accordingly
Increases brand awareness, engagement, and conversions
Content plan:
Translates strategy into actionable steps
Streamlines content creation and maintains consistency
Content strategy: Considers overall brand messaging and integration across various channels
Content plan: Focuses on channel-specific details and content distribution tactics
Complementary nature of content strategy and content plan
The content strategy and content plan work hand in hand to achieve overall content objectives.
Content strategy sets the foundation and strategic direction, while the content plan translates strategy into actionable steps.
The content strategy is the foundation on which the content plan is built, guiding decisions on the target audience, content themes, and messaging.
Effective execution of the content strategy is the main task of the content plan, providing structure and organization.
Content strategy and content plan are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, with the strategy driving the plan and the plan implementing the strategy.
The Content Strategy Process
Overview of the content strategy process
Research and analysis
Conduct market research, competitor analysis, and audience insights
Identify content gaps, trends, and opportunities
Goal setting and objective definition
Define specific (SMART) goals aligned with overall business objectives
Identify target audience demographics, behaviors, and preferences
Segment the audience based on relevant criteria
Content ideation and creation
Generate creative ideas for content that resonate with the target audience
Develop high-quality, engaging, and valuable content pieces
Content distribution and promotion
Determine the appropriate channels and platforms for content distribution
Plan and execute content promotion strategies to maximize reach and engagement
Measurement and analysis
Track key metrics and performance indicators to assess the effectiveness of the content strategy
Analyze data to gain insights, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions
Case Study/Example of a Successful Content Strategy Implementation:
Company X, a fashion retailer, executed a content strategy with clear actions and measurable outcomes:
Research and analysis:
Action: Conducted market research and analyzed three direct competitors.
Result: Identified content gaps and emerging trends in the fashion industry.
Goal setting and objective definition:
Goals: Increase brand visibility by 30%, increase organic traffic by 20%, and boost conversion rates by 15% in the next year.
Action: Defined these objectives aligned with overall business goals.
Audience identification and segmentation:
Segments: Fashion enthusiasts and trend-conscious individuals.
Action: Identified and segmented the target audience based on demographics and behaviors.
Content ideation and creation:
Action: Developed a mix of content types, including 50 blog articles, 20 style guides, and 100 social media visuals.
Result: Created engaging and relevant content tailored to the target audience’s preferences.
Content distribution and promotion:
Action: Leveraged social media platforms (Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok), collaborated with influencers, and implemented targeted email marketing campaigns.
Result: Reached the target audience effectively through multiple channels.
Measurement and analysis:
Metrics tracked: Website traffic, social media engagement, and sales data.
Action: Monitored the impact of the content strategy and made adjustments based on insights gathered.
Result: Achieved significant growth in brand visibility, increased organic traffic by 35%, and improved sales conversions by 15%.
The comprehensive content strategy process played a pivotal role in guiding the planning, execution, and measurement of Company X’s content initiatives. Through their strategic approach, they achieved measurable success, including substantial brand visibility growth, increased organic traffic, and improved sales conversions.
The Content Plan Development Process
A step-by-step guide to creating a content plan:
Aligning with content strategy objectives
Ensure that the content plan is in line with the goals and objectives defined in the content strategy.
Reflect the strategic direction and messaging of the overall content strategy.
Defining content themes and topics
Identify key themes and topics that align with the target audience’s interests and needs.
Research industry trends and audience preferences to inform content selection.
Mapping content to target audience personas
Understand the different segments within the target audience.
Create content tailored to each persona, addressing their specific pain points and motivations.
Creating a content calendar
Develop a schedule outlining when content will be created, published, and promoted.
Consider factors such as seasonality, events, and campaign launches.
Selecting appropriate content formats
Determine the most effective formats for delivering the content.
Consider the preferences and behaviors of the target audience.
Choosing relevant distribution channels
Identify the channels where the target audience is most active.
Select platforms that align with the content strategy and optimize content reach.
Planning content promotion and amplification strategies
Define strategies for promoting and amplifying the content through various channels.
Explore partnerships, influencer collaborations, and paid advertising opportunities.
Case Study – Example of a Well-Executed Content Plan:
Company Y, an e-commerce platform, successfully implemented a content plan that resulted in significant improvements in engagement and conversions. Here are the clear actions and numbers involved:
Aligned with content strategy objectives:
Objective: Increase user engagement by 25% and drive sales with a 20% conversion rate boost.
Action: Aligned the content plan with these objectives.
Defined content themes and topics:
Identified themes: Product reviews, buying guides, and user-generated content.
Action: Selected these themes to provide value and encourage interaction.
Mapped content to target audience personas:
Segments: Beginners and experienced users.
Action: Developed tailored content addressing their unique needs.
Created a content calendar:
Action: Established a consistent publishing schedule with three blog posts, two videos, and ten social media posts per week.
Result: Maintained audience engagement and met marketing objectives.
Selected appropriate content formats:
Formats used: Blog posts, videos, and social media visuals.
Action: Utilized this mix to cater to diverse audience preferences.
Chose relevant distribution channels:
Platforms targeted: Social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest) and relevant online communities.
Action: Focused on these platforms to reach the active target audience.
Planned content promotion and amplification strategies:
Strategies implemented: Targeted social media advertising with a budget of $18,000 per month, influencer collaborations, and encouraged user-generated content.
Action: Executed these strategies to amplify reach and engagement.
Through this well-executed content plan, Company Y achieved good results:
Increased engagement by 30% with higher interaction rates on social media platforms.
Boosted sales with a conversion rate increase of 15%.
Maintained a consistent publishing schedule resulting in improved brand visibility.
Utilized diverse content formats to cater to audience preferences effectively.
Targeted active distribution channels for maximum reach.
Amplified reach and engagement through strategic promotion tactics.
Integration and Optimization
Importance of integrating content strategy vs. content plan
Aligns efforts towards a unified vision and objectives.
Ensures consistency in messaging and brand positioning.
Maximizes the effectiveness of content initiatives.
Continuous optimization of content strategy and content plan
Monitoring and analyzing content performance
Regularly track key metrics such as engagement, conversions, and audience feedback.
Evaluate the success of content initiatives based on predefined goals.
Making data-driven adjustments
Identify areas for improvement based on performance data and analytics.
Optimize content elements, such as headlines, visuals, and calls-to-action, to enhance effectiveness.
Staying up-to-date with industry trends and changes
Keep abreast of evolving industry trends, consumer behavior, and platform algorithms.
Adapt content strategy and content plan accordingly to remain relevant and competitive.
The role of content strategy and content plan in achieving business goals
Content strategy sets the overarching direction and goals, providing a roadmap for success.
Content plan outlines the specific actions and tactics required to execute the strategy effectively.
Together, they enable businesses to attract and engage their target audience, build brand authority, drive conversions, and ultimately achieve their desired business outcomes.
The integration of content strategy and content plan ensures synergy and coherence in content efforts, while continuous optimization allows for data-driven improvements and staying ahead of industry trends. Ultimately, the combined role of content strategy and content plan is crucial in aligning content initiatives with business goals, driving growth, and fostering long-term success.
Want more relevant organic traffic? Put in place an SEO content strategy to help you achieve that!
Here is how:
What Is SEO Content Strategy?
SEO content strategy is the core part of a powerful content strategy and practically decides what topics to write about, how to write them, and how to optimize them in order to rank in search engine results pages and attract organic traffic.
It includes all the tactics applied from identifying the content pillar topics and target keywords to creating content briefs and procedures of on-page optimization.
The main purpose of the SEO content strategy is to create content that will help the business reach its goals. And to offer guidelines for doing this in an efficient manner.
Having a documented SEO content marketing strategy in place has several consistent benefits:
Keeps content creation organized and inflow
Prioritizes tasks and allocates resources better
Supports attracting more qualified leads into your sales funnel and ultimately improves the chances of converting more leads to paying customers
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How to Create an Effective Google SEO Content Strategy?
Since Google gathers more than 90% of the search requests, it is pertinent to say that businesses looking to rank organically have to optimize for Google search.
Creating an effective SEO content strategy may be a daunting task but it will ease the operations and execution of content down the line. Thus, it is preferable to craft it from the very beginning, then have to correct and clean up after that.
SEO content strategy is an extension of the content strategy and will be built on its canvas.
Here are the detailed steps of the SEO content strategy:
Consider Each Buyer Persona and Their Buyer Journey
Even if we are discussing the content strategy from an SEO point of view, one cannot discard the fact that first and foremost you create content for your buyer persona. You need to answer its pain points, questions, and interests concerning your offer.
Your buyer personas and their associated buyer journeys were already created and established by your content strategy. As such, now you just have to transfer them to the SEO content strategy and keep them in mind when completing the subsequent steps.
Primarily you should have a clear understanding of what’s your business offer, what its goals are, why would a potential client choose your company instead of the competition, and who’s your target audience.
SEO Content Audit
Unless you are a brand new company or haven’t yet dug into content marketing, you have already published content. And you need to audit it from an SEO perspective and have a clear picture of its quality and performance in the general framework of your content strategy.
A content audit was most probably executed within your content strategy. So, now you have to take the list with the articles and pages of the site and review them taking into consideration the on-page SEO best practices.
You should verify at least the following:
Topic and its importance for the topical authority
Main keyword, LSIs, and PAA questions
Search intent for the main keyword
Content format and length
Content structure
Permalink
Keyword insertion
Images, graphics, and visuals
List all the improvements and updates that are needed and establish their priority in the function of the performance of the page and its importance for the topical authority.
The Output of the Competitor Analysis
Keeping a close eye on the competition can offer your business an edge. It’s a task that should be executed at least quarterly. Hence, the reality is quite different. Research sustains that 40% of B2C content marketers only check out their competitors yearly, if ever.
An SEO content strategy is incomplete without researching in detail what is your direct competition doing. Identify your direct competitors and check their content strategy, see what keywords they rank for, what are their most performant posts, etc.
Getting inspired by your competitors will offer some valuable insights into what is working in your niche in terms of content.
To research your competition you need an SEO and keyword research tool like Ahrefs, Moz, Semrush, or similar. Check for each competitor KPIs like:
Domain authority (DR)
Number of organic keywords
Number of organic keywords in the top 3
Monthly organic traffic
Linking domains
Organic traffic value
Source: Semrush
Competitors analysis can provide you with valuable content ideas, topics that you are missing, backlinks that you are missing, among others.
Metrics Setup
SEO and Marketing managers will be interested in calculating the ROI of SEO activities. And which specific activities bring the most revenue. To be able to determine that, you need to establish and monitor the key performance indicators that are relevant to your business in the next period.
The most used KPIs are:
Organic traffic
Dwelling time
Number of organic keywords
Content pieces published
Backlinks acquired
Number of featured snippets
Subscribers
Leads
Conversions
You should be tracking your metrics at least quarterly if not monthly.
Topical Authority Should Be the Foundation of Your SEO Content Strategy
In SEO, topical authority refers to how many topics and to what extent a site covers relative to a certain topic.
For example, if you have dozens of articles published on the subject of “content strategy” and its subtopics, Google will consider you an authority on that topic. And the more semantically related keywords you cover, the more authority your site gains.
To identify all the subtopics that will help you build authority on a given topic, you have to use Google and/or a keyword research tool. And filter all the related keywords and all the semantically related ones pertinent to your topic and business.
Creating SEO content strategy based on topical authority is a laborious process, but it’s a useful methodology if you want to pop up in SERPs.
Based on Your Product/Services Identify the Key Content Pillars
Knowing what are your services/products, who’s your buyer persona, and what are your content marketing goals you can start searching for keywords and content topics.
Conduct a keyword research and identify keywords that have:
Business potential
Ranking perspective
Organic traffic potential
Start by searching in Google for the term you are most interested in ranking. Use a broad term. After that check the search suggestions, PAA (People Also Ask), and related searches for the first 10-15 pages. Filter just the topics that are relevant to your business.
For example, if you offer content strategy services, you will search for “content strategy”. Additionally, you can do this in a keyword research tool like Ahrefs or SurferSEO. This will be the basis of your SEO content strategy.
Once you have this list with keywords you have to group them into topics clusters. In a tool like SurferSEO, the topics will look like this:
You don’t necessarily need a tool to do this, you can do it manually, but it will save you time.
When you have these clusters defined, prioritize them in the order of their importance for your clients, for your business, and from an SEO KPIs point of view. You also have to consider the difficulty for each keyword, the search volume, and CPC.
Your top priority is the money-generating pages, those need to be first created, fully optimized, and hopefully rank.
Then choose the topics for which you want to be an authority in your niche. And second, those for which you can rank the easiest, meaning the so-called “low-hanging fruits”. Those who need the least resources and have the greatest chance of bringing traffic and leads.
Bear in mind that your expertise and your main purpose should be the core of your content creation strategy.
Next, for each cluster brainstorm a corresponding topic. Each topic should cover and solve a buyer persona’s problem, should have a unique angle if possible, or a different approach from your competition.
Having a strong SEO content marketing strategy based on topical authority in place has a compounding effect. The more content you produce to build authority, you will rank for more keywords and your domain authority will increase and will be able to rank for keywords with higher difficulty.
Pay Attention to Search Intent
When using keywords to produce optimized content, you should also take into consideration the search intent behind that search. Meaning what the user is looking for.
Google’s supreme purpose is to offer its users what they want, in the fastest possible manner. It knows what users expect to find when making a certain query.
For example, when people are looking for “how to make pizza” Google knows they are looking for a recipe. Or when looking at “how to create a GIF”, users expect to find a how-to guide.
By figuring out the search intent you are in a better position to create more relevant content.
Thus, Google will guide you regarding the search intent behind each keyword from your list. Search each keyword on Google and identify
The type of content you need to create – blog post, product page, video, etc.
Content format – how-to, list, recipe, reviews, etc.
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Write Search-Focused and Qualitative Content
The SEO content strategy has the purpose to equip your business with the best chances of attracting relevant organic traffic that will buy your services/products.
As a consequence, you have to produce high-quality content – meaning content that your audience finds useful, solves her problems, and drives her to consider your services.
And also search-focused content – in other words, content that is created for the correct search intent and is optimized via current on-page SEO best practices.
To create optimized and high-quality content you need first to draft content briefs and implement correct on-page SEO procedures.
Draft Content Briefs for Your Writers
If you want to create content smoothly, without many revisions and supplementary rewriting activities, creating detailed briefs is a must.
An SEO content brief includes the necessary instructions for the writer to write a correctly optimized article, with the right structure and keywords. Clear instructions and guidelines to follow. Thus offering the article the best possible chances to rank in SERPs.
In a content brief, the following information should be included:
Title
Summary, search intent, and angle
Target keywords
Target buyer persona and stage of the buyer journey
Tone and voice
Structure of the article (H2 headings)
Resources
NLP words
Lengths of the article in words
Deadline
You can create the briefs manually (still the best way in my view) or use a brief generation tool. There are countless tools out there ready to generate your briefs, but all of them need manual reviewing and corrections.
You can view below a sample content brief generated via SurferSeo.
Define On-Page SEO Best Practices to Be Implemented in Each Piece of Content
On-Page SEO is the foundation of SEO, it’s compulsory if one wants his articles to rank and it’s an SEO task under your control.
On-Page SEO is a must-have, as most businesses already implement it. Implementing current on-page best practices right from the writing phase will spare future efforts of rewriting and optimization.
When Creating Content Consider the E-E-A-T Principles
Google clearly stated that a core part of its metrics revolves around E-E-A-T (Experience – Expertise – Authoritativeness -Trustworthiness). In other words, they are emphasizing the quality of the content delivered to the user.
The content produced should prove that the business has first-hand experience and expertise on the topic to be granted higher chances of ranking.
Each site will be evaluated for a certain topic based on the E-E-A-T template. It is also done for each query and for each result.
Consequently, you have to produce content for your target audience while positioning your business as an authority in your niche. And build trust.
Pay Close Attention to Your Internal Links Architecture
Internal linking structure is important for your users and search engines alike. First, your users should be able to find their way and navigate with ease your site to get the information they need. And second, search engines should be able to crawl your site and find all the published content.
Plus, search engines should be able to identify which are the most important pages for your business, the ones that you want to rank for, and the supporting pages for the latter. In addition, a pertinent anchor text will indicate to Google what keywords you are looking to rank for.
Your site’s internal linking structure is like a map with main roads and secondary streets. All connecting with each other in some way. This internal links architecture is important as the link juice is redirected from performant pages to those needing supplementary support.
Internal links play an important role in SERP ranking.
Perform SEO Content Audits Regularly
To continuously improve your site rankings you have to keep an eye on your most important keywords. Track them with a keyword research tool to help you identify ranking improvement opportunities.
It’s not enough to write and publish qualitative content. You have to perform audits, update it and review it periodically.
There are several reasons to do that. It might happen that your content doesn’t rank or it loses rankings. Or search intent changes. Or content gets outdated.
Search engine algorithm updates are frequent and SERPs are dynamic, they change continuously.
When executing an SEO content audit you have to check on the following:
What is the situation of your traffic? Is It growing, stalling, or decreasing?
Which are the most performing pages? Which drive the most traffic? How about conversions?
Which pages do you need to rank and they actually don’t rank for the right keyword?
What can you do to improve the rankings?
Based on this information you can adjust your future plans. Prioritize performing pages, update those that are less performant following the model of those that bring the most results, etc.
Keep an Eye on Google Algorithm Updates
There is no news that Google updates its algorithm several times a year (core updates). Even if minor updates might not impact your rankings, core updates may at times have a significant impact.
Consequently, you have to keep updated about what future algorithm updates require to maintain the performance of your content and site.
Conclusion
A date-based and successful SEO content strategy is an absolute must if you want to attract organic traffic in a more complicated and crowded environment. Plus, the challenges brought by the newly developed AI technology. Following the above-mentioned steps and keeping yourself updated will help solve future challenges.
The top 5 SEO strategies may be considered the following: High-Quality Content Creation Topical Authority On-Page SEO Off-Page SEO Technical SEO
What is an SEO content plan?
An SEO content plan is a document that clearly defines what content will be created, what keywords will be targeted, guidelines for content creation, and on-page optimization. All these have the purpose of reaching the business goals.
Is SEO a content marketing strategy?
SEO is a core part of a content marketing strategy. SEO doesn’t exist on its own without a content strategy.
What is the key to SEO?
The key to successful SEO is clearly defining your business goals and defining and implementing an SEO content strategy to show you how to reach those goals.
How to integrate SEO into your content?
To integrate SEO into your content, you should put in place an SEO content strategy to define the keywords to rank for, the topics to write about, and the guidelines for on-page SEO optimization.
Is SEO part of content strategy?
Yes, SEO is a core part of the content strategy.
What is the core of content strategy?
The core part of a content strategy is creating content that is considered useful by the buyer persona and is optimized to rank in search engines. Its mission is the help reach the business’s goals.
What are the 3 C’s of SEO?
The 3 C’s of SEO may be considered content, credibility, and conversion.
Can meta description be the same as content?
The meta description is not the same as the content. It is a brief summary of a page and is an HTML element.
An effective website will serve as your digital outlet and online business card. Consequently, you need to know what the best content management systems are.
This is basically the venue that will leverage all your other content marketing channels.
The platform that you use must therefore be flexible enough to keep evolving with the changing times in order for your content to offer solutions at the right time and to the right people.
When it comes to the best CMS there’s no one-size-fits-all, you only need to identify the one that offers all the features that you need to build a successful website.
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What Should You Look For in the Best Content Management Systems of 2023?
All blogging platforms available come with different learning curves.
If you are just starting, as a beginner with zero technical background, you’ll want a straightforward content management system. As you grow with your blog you may want to add more features or customizations to maximize its effectiveness.
Blogging platforms can be classified into two categories:
i. Content Management Systems (CMS)
This is software hosted on a server and requires a connection to a domain name that you have to buy. CMSs offer endless possibilities although they come at a cost. They allow you all the freedom to customize as you please, especially if you know your way around deep technical stuff.
ii. Blog Publishing Services
This is a platform where you sign up to create your blog; meaning you do not need a server. Plus, you use the sub-domain of the hosting platform. Obviously, it is easier to use particularly if you’re not coding savvy and when you want to spend almost zero to set it up.
With that said, the best blogging platforms in 2023 will include a perfect mix of both categories mentioned above together with the following basic features:
a. Text editing functions – A good platform must offer a wide variety of inbuilt editing options. For instance, it should offer an auto-save function, a preview function, or even a basic grammar editor.
b. Customization – A great platform must offer you themes and templates you can play around with to give your blog the look you desire. Some platforms offer a variety of templates for free while others offer them at a premium rate. Others will allow you to create from zero if you don’t like any of the offered themes. So, what you pick will depend on your needs and your technical know-how.
c. Comments function – an engaging comments section is what helps grow your blog. This feature must therefore be enabled and be as interactive as possible.
d. Scalability – As your blog grows; you want a platform that will handle all the content without slowing it down, so you can keep growing without limiting your potential.
e. SEO tools and features – You obviously want traffic to your blog. Optimizing your content for search is therefore of absolute importance. So, you need a platform with inbuilt optimization tools to help you optimize your content. Some platforms offer you SEO suggestions as you type, this is what you need. Alternatively, if your ideal platform does not offer this tool, you can install third-party tools or plug-ins. If all this is not available, use the SEO best practices skills you have to create your content.
f. User-friendly – When starting, you really need a simple-to-learn and use platform, whether you’re a developer or a rookie. Thus, pick a platform that’s less complicated but gets the work done and gets going.
Other things to consider when picking the best blogging platform include the purpose of your business, your goals, as well as your needs. Your niche is another key element that you want to consider. For instance, if you prefer visual content, then you want to consider platforms that support multi-media content. If you prefer social, then you want to consider a platform that supports social media and so on.
Without further ado, here are some of the best content management systems for 2023 in detail:
The 2023 statistics show that WordPress powers 39.6% of the internet. Launched way back in 2005, this is by far the most flexible content management system that has evolved into a multi-purpose CMS with loads of features and themes. It offers both free and premium services. Basic blog hosting is free while additional features such as extra storage or a custom domain name come at a fee.
The flexibility mentioned above comes to play when you have to configure your blog according to your taste. This includes picking a theme from the hundreds offered, the fonts, the plug-ins, and so on. For a newbie or someone that’s not a developer, this may take quite some time to get done. However, it pays off when you get used to it.
WordPress prides itself on a thriving community that offers quick solutions to any challenges you may experience and offers expert support when that’s what you need. They also take care of all your security issues and accept credit card payments through an available plug-in. It’s therefore a great platform with unlimited potential for growth.
The price starts at $4 monthly for personal plans but there is a free version for non-commercial blogging. The free-for-life plan includes a subdomain, community support, jetpack essential services, and dozens of free themes.
Launched in 2006, Wix was initially meant for building websites, but it has a blogging segment. It’s one of the most popular content management systems because of one simple reason: it’s incredibly easy to use. The easy drag-and-drop tools enable you to add items to your blog or website.
So, for beginners or non-techies, this is one of the best CMS. If you’re a developer, you have the option of starting from scratch and building your customized blog or website.
It has over 500 templates that are categorized into hobbies such as crafts, e-commerce section, and personal section. Another unique feature of Wix is that the blog you create on this platform is supported on mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones. Thus, your readers can easily access your content on the go.
They propose a wide selection of templates and designs, you’re able to add your own captions and links to images, and you’re able to insert videos from either Vimeo or YouTube and it’s also possible to personalize your image galleries.
When it comes to editing, as said above, Wix is great on mobile, so, you can actually update your blog from your mobile device. Isn’t that just great?
You can monetize Wix by adding custom ads via HTML elements, however, on the free plan, branded Wix elements will be shown too. In terms of support, they have a strong customer support system that helps you out whenever you have an issue, via phone or email.
Both premium and free plans allow you to launch a blog from your Wix site. However, if you want to use your own domain name, you’ll be required to sign up for a combo plan for $13 per month. And this will spare you from all the Wix ads.
Pros
· They offer dozens of templates that you can customize.
· They offer built-in stock of free videos and photos.
· They allow you to build your site from scratch or use templates, it’s your choice.
· It’s very easy to set up using the drag-and-drop tools.
Cons
· The free plan is quite limited and shows Wix ads on your site.
· Third-party apps are limited.
· It’s difficult to change a template once you choose.
· The e-commerce tools are only limited to the premium plans and even then; they’re still a little limited.
· In comparison with other content management systems, the features they offer are rather limited.
Wix pricing of the premium plan starts at $8.50 per month, but you can add a custom domain for $4.50 per month.
It’s best for professional bloggers and also for business-centered blogs.
This platform is a community of great writers, journalists, and bloggers among other experts and it continues to grow in popularity, especially because of the few features that make it an easy-to-use platform. For instance, its sign-up process is just like that one of a social media platform. You just create an account and get started there and then.
The first thing that you might notice with this platform is that you can’t have your own domain. Instead, you’ll have a URL like https://medium.com@youraccountname.
Launched in 2012 by Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, Medium is mainly focused on your content rather than your brand. Meaning you can create content about your brand and customize your layout by adding your logo, your headers, or brand colors. In terms of personalizing your account and content that’s about all.
As a publisher, this platform is absolutely free of charge and it will help you reach like-minded people who take your content seriously without being distracted by ads because Medium has no ads.
With that said, readers do pay a subscription fee to be able to get customized top-rated content. They’re charged $50 per year, so when you get many readers applauding your work, you get paid and this money is from the readers themselves.
Medium has a partner program and once you sign up for it, your publications are reviewed by Medium’s editors if your content is stellar, they recommend it to subscribed members and that’s how you get a chance to earn money.
When it comes to editing your content, it offers a pretty clean drag-and-drop easy-to-use tool. Your work and any changes you may make are automatically saved and as you proceed typing, you get to see how your completed post will appear to your readers.
It truly is the minimalist of all blogging platforms when it comes to design, it’s a size that fits every average blogger. They want you to focus on the written words with zero distraction.
Who should best use Medium? Anyone who loves words and has a flair for them. This is the best free blogging platform out there.
Pros
· You have over 60 million word lovers waiting to read your content
· Offers a brilliant typography with a completely professional look
· Business friendly
· Monetization option with the Partner Program
Cons
· Almost no customization, all blogs have the same look
· You can’t link to a Google account to get Analytics.
This old spot is one of the best blogging platforms out there. It’s a free blogging platform simple enough that anyone can use it with ease. If you already have an existing Google account, then you already have a Blogger account that comes with a domain name, if you want your custom domain name, you have this option available.
It offers a wide range of templates that can be personalized. And since it belongs to Google, it integrates very easily with other Google tools such as Google Analytics, Google AdSense which will enable you to monetize your blog by displaying relevant ads on your pages.
Plus, it allows you to edit HTML, and add images and widgets to your blog, something that’s not very popular with other blogging platforms.
With this said, it can be a little limiting as far as basic tools are concerned: it doesn’t allow you to add new features and you’re restricted with few design options. It’s pretty retro. Another limiting factor about Blogger is that it caps the number of characters you can use (does Twitter come to mind? Guess who founded both?)
If for any reason you get stuck and need help, you won’t get much help here. They have no support system. And since Google is known to kill their products, it means your blog will be vulnerable to whatever decisions they wake up to.
Pros
· It’s absolutely free and user friendly
· Does the hosting and maintenance
· Offers templates you can pick from
· Easily integrates with other Google tools and products
· It has a good anti-spam tool
Cons
· Doesn’t offer many blogging tools or designs
· Integration with third-party apps is nil
5. CMS Hub
This is one of the best content management systems in 2023 particularly because of its full integration with HubSpot’s marketing tools, a built-in CRM, and other service tools. It allows you to customize your blog as you wish. If you don’t want to use the built-in themes, you can create your own.
Here you get to use the blog editor coupled with the built-in SEO tools to create optimized content with numerous interactive elements available and gives you the option of previewing your post before publishing. Another unique feature of this platform is that you can create content in different languages in order to reach a global audience. How cool is that?
As this is a commerce-centric platform, it allows you to connect your blog to your social media accounts, and therefore it is very easy to promote your blog through automatic sharing. You can analyze your blog’s performance via built-in analytics and this can go a long way in boosting your performance and results.
HubSpot’s CMS allows you to add comments, edit or simply collaborate in the composer mode with other writers on the same content and see what changes have been made and by whom.
Pros
· Offers multi-lingual options
· Offers built-in SEO tools
· You can integrate all your marketing and sales activities with the CRM tools
· You can keep track of all your interactions with the potential audiences through all touch points like social media, emails, etc.
Cons
· It’s still relatively new so some functions may not offer depth, but they’re constantly improving.
This is a website and blog builder created by HostGator. It’s another pretender to the best content management systems top and is pretty easy to use. It has an intuitive drag-and-drop tool and templates that you can use to build your blog, business site, or online store.
Gator provides a one-stop shop for your blogging needs including hosting and is quite flexible in terms of customization of your blog. Their templates are split into sections such as beauty and fashion, business, music and entertainment, consultancy, etc. and this makes it very easy for you when picking the adequate template.
As features, they offer all the basic features required in a CMS plus some extra bonuses. For instance, you can get security certificates, web analytics, a domain name, and social media integration. Concerning the text, you can resize it, and switch colors or fonts easily. You can add images, videos or social media posts easily.
Gator offers great support that’s available 24/7 whether via phone, chat, or email.
Pros
· It’s seamless to set up and use
· It has social media integration
· It’s affordable in comparison to what it offers
· It checks your security, backup as well as performance
· You can easily add the e-commerce functionality
Cons
· They have no free version but they have a money-back guarantee
· They have limited features and extensions
· The premium plan is the only one that offers e-commerce features.
Gator offers 2 different pricing plans, the cheapest starts at $3.84 per month and here you get free hosting and domain among other features that will get you started. The premium starts at $5.99 and offers everything in the cheapest plan plus priority customer support. And the eCommerce plan includes everything for $9.22.
Gator is best for beginners and those that prefer an all-in-one blog hosting solution.
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If you’re a creative, artist or designer then this platform is for you! It offers a wide variety of posh award-winning templates and features that you can use without having to know to code. Plus, it integrates with Unsplash, Getty Images, and Google AMP. It’s strong on image-rich content as you can tell and these templates are fully customizable and mobile-optimized. After you’ve created your blog pages, you can take advantage of the SEO tools to ensure your content is optimized.
Squarespace integrates with social media. Therefore, after publishing your content you can easily share and promote it. They also have built-in analytics tools to enable traffic tracking, what your readers or visitors are searching for and how your content is performing in general. Other features include the ability to receive comments, the RSS feed provision and if your blog is intended for commerce, it has a category for that too. It supports audio files and newsletter sign-up forms.
With all this greatness, this platform is not the easiest to learn especially for beginners. It also may require you to upgrade to the business plan in order to get more editing options.
The SEO is not very straight forward but they have a detailed SEO guide to help you find your way around. You can’t install any additional modules or plugins and has no auto-save feature. Finally, the use of available plugins and themes may require some coding skills and therefore not the easiest for everybody.
Pros
· You get hosting and domain solutions
· Built-in security solutions
· Fantastic professional designs to pick from
· Ecommerce option
· Round the clock customer support
Cons
· A steep learning curve
· Can only use the platform features
· Limited third-party integration
· Limited number of contributors and pages on the personal plan
The pricing ranges between two plans, the personal plan that starts at $16 per month and the business plan that starts at $26 per month. You get unlimited storage and bandwidth on both, but with the business plan, there are extra features for marketing and the ability to create custom designs and an online store.
Squarespace is a great content management system for creative bloggers and professionals. It’s also ideal for business and portfolio blogs.
This platform is a complete content management system and is very popular with enterprise blogs and websites because of its superior performance. You can organize your blog and webpages within this platform and enjoy all the built-in editing features and content creation functions available. However, it doesn’t host, and this means you get hosted elsewhere.
Another aspect of Drupal is that it’s a little more technical and therefore may not be the best platform for beginners, but as a developer, it’s a great place to shine. So, if you are going to use it but have no technical skills then you may be required to invest in a professional developer in order to get started.
Drupal is even more powerful than WordPress and it’s ridiculously secure. This is one of the reasons it’s one of the best blogging platforms. It’s an extremely flexible open-source content management system and ideal for a large and complex blog. It offers some exceptional features and modules compared to other platforms.
It offers a very wide selection of page templates, content types, views, and blocks to help you create and manage your different types of content and this is particularly a much-needed solution for advanced bloggers running an enterprise that needs self-hosted solutions.
Pros
· It’s an excellent platform for building advanced and feature-rich blogs
· You can easily and seamlessly scale up your blog to a website due to its robust architecture
· You get access to a myriad of free features and modules as well as enterprise-level performance and security
· You get a variety of free templates and plugins to customize your blog
· Flexibility on the content type you can create plus an access control built-in system to manage your permissions
· Has a multilingual site support
Cons
· Not easy to use if you don’t have the technical expertise
As for Drupal’ pricing, it’s among the best free content management systems because it’s an open-source kind of platform.
It’s perfect for technical experts or developers, designers, and anyone else willing to learn some new skills.
Joomla! is a content management system that has been around for over a decade and is one of the most popular CMSs on the internet. It has built-in content management features that allow you to do multiple things from one dashboard. For instance, you can manage numerous users, and create custom content types in multiple languages all under the same umbrella.
It has powerful built-in functionality that makes it very easy for you to maintain your blog especially when you update it. Joomla, however, has a steep learning curve and needs a little more time to set it up. Even though it offers a limited number of extensions and themes, they are extra effective. For example, it offers a better drag-and-drop editor and enables star ratings on your content and it automatically publishes posts to your social media sites using these extensions.
Joomla! has a very active community and therefore getting support is an easy matter, whether through tutorials or forums. But it may be hard to find expert support to handle your customization issues.
Pros
· Compared to WordPress, it offers more built-in features
· It has a seamless update process that is super-efficient in giving you an easy maintenance time
· It’s not too difficult to set up
· They have ensured your problems get solutions through their thoroughly detailed support page
Cons
· Has limited extensions and themes.
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This is another best platform for blogging simply because of how straightforward it is to use. It comes with a wide range of easy-to-use tools and features including the popular drag-and-drop option convenient for beginners. It’s a popular platform for blogging, templates, hosting as well as web building and this is one of the reasons most business-oriented users prefer it instead of managing them separately.
Some great functionalities that Weebly offers include the ability to create complex layouts by adding image galleries or forms, additional sub-levels to your navigation buttons, and templates that are optimized for mobile (this saves you the trouble of additional editing for mobile publishing).
So, for the set-up, you can start with the free plan where you can first learn the ropes before getting on the paid plans. If you’re a developer hoping to tweak some things here and there, Weebly doesn’t make this easy at all because they seem focused on people who want to create a quick blog to use and update without doing the extra.
But if you’re creating a hobby or personal blog, you can get on the $6 per month Personal plan that has similar features to the free plan but with the chance to connect your custom domain for a more professional look. The next pricing plan is the Professional plan which goes for $12 per month. It proposes unlimited storage, password-protected pages, and a free domain. It’s a great plan when you want to offer exclusivity to your readers.
But whichever plan you go with, you’ll still be able to build your website and add a blog without coding as everything technical is easily and quickly taken care of by Weebly.
Experts have suggested that if you want to build your blog you should avoid the free and professional plans as they’re least tailored to fit a blogger’s needs.
With this said Weebly’s most highlighted features include detailed analytics on how your blog is performing, a great comments section, an archive, and social bookmarking to help your content go viral. It also enables scheduled publishing and basic SEO solutions.
Pros
· A straightforward drag-and-drop tool
· Mobile apps
· SEO features
· Integrates with Google Analytics
Cons
· Few features are integrated
· Third-party features are limited
· Exporting sites is complex
· Free plan carries Weebly subdomain and branding
Weebly is perfect for beginners as you’ve seen; you don’t need much technical expertise. It’s also great for websites that need blogging abilities and portfolio blogs.
If all you want is a simple yet versatile platform to launch your blog on, then look no further than Ghost. It’s ideal when you’re not into e-commerce. This minimalist blogging platform was founded by a former WordPress developer back in 2013.
Ghost offers neat and smooth editing and publishing without all the muddle of add-ons. It’s an open-source platform made out of JavaScript and may need some coding skills to set it up. Because it’s an open-source platform, you’re free to customize it and give your ideal kind of look and even add a custom code to your blog for ads.
While writing your content it enables you to preview it live and edit it as you go. It has a very simplified user interface that limits you on the number of pre-designed plugins and themes you can use. The self-hosted plan is free but has a steep learning curve and therefore not ideal for everyone. It will require you to download the software to your server and then get your own domain.
The basic plan offered at $29 a month includes a blog, a CDN, SSL encryption, and about 50k page views monthly. The Standard plan costs $79 per month and includes up to half a million page views monthly, extra resources, and priority support. The highest is the Business plan which costs $199 per month. For this, it will allow a million page views per month, almost zero downtime, and a subdirectory.
The limiting factors of Ghost include the difficulty in installation and the fact that you require web hosting to run a blog.
Pros
· It’s blog-centric
· Has a neat and de-congested intuitive UI
· Extremely fast since is written in JavaScript
· The hosted version requires zero setup
· Live preview of your posts
· SEO and social media powered
· Mobile page functionality
Cons
· Customizing the apps is no walk in the park
· The UI is too simplified therefore you’re limited in options
· Limited themes to play around with
· Requires expert knowledge if you’re to install it yourself.
Ghost is one of the best CMSs for serious publishers and bloggers requiring complex technical solutions or a budding online presence.
With an excellent easy-to-use UI for both expert and beginner bloggers, it’s no wonder Typepad has made it to this list of the best platforms for blogging. It comes with great flexibility including the possibility of publishing from email, mobile, or your web browser. It has a Theme Builder that enables you to create custom designs as well as an option for creating your own templates or theme modification with a customized CSS even though the Theme Builder is not too intuitive.
These designs are divided into layouts and themes, so you must first pick a template that will be configured to various layouts, and the number of these layouts is going to depend on the chosen template. The available templates are meager and repetitive. The widgets are also limited but can be acquired through a third party.
It’s integrated with Google Analytics with its own affiliate plan. Typepad is fully hosted and provides a rich variety of themes and plugins to pick from to personalize your blog.
One of Typepad’s highlights concerns the management tools. Its dashboard for instance has a sidebar with links to its key features including the robust statistics tracker that gives you a breakdown of your blog referrals and views to help better target your audience. It includes tools for comments moderation allowing comments block with certain words or phrases, etc. Another great thing is the built-in SEO tools that are pretty easy to use.
Its downside is that they do all the blog hosting and therefore you can’t be hosted elsewhere. As an expert, you may also not be able to make any edits as it’s centered on bloggers that may not have these skills.
Typepad offers several plans depending on user requirements.
It starts with the Plus Plan which costs $8.95 per month, allowing for unlimited storage, design templates, personal support, and domain mapping. The next plan is the Unlimited Plan goes for $14.95 per month – it offers you everything in the Plus Plan, a bonus customizable design, and the possibility to have unlimited blogs. The next tier has the Premium Plan at the cost of $29.95 per month and includes what’s offered on the other two plans plus around-the-clock support. The last plan is the Enterprise Plan which goes for $49.95 per month. You also get a free 14-day trial with all the plans.
Pros
· Has social media integration
· Supports live video and audio podcasts
· A versatile dashboard
· Integrates with Google
· Has monetization features
Cons
· Only 14-day trial, no free plan.
· Limited the number of blogs you can publish
· Limited widgets.
Typepad is best for professional bloggers, influencers, and large enterprises.
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This is one of the best free blogging platforms because it’s a hybrid micro-blogging platform that carries all the social networking qualities including follow, re-blog, reply, etc. Here you get to publish brief posts that may contain audio, images or videos, links, slideshows, or texts that are not as long as the regular old-fashioned blog posts but longer than Twitter’s 140 characters.
On this platform, users can republish your posts on their Tumble blog or even share them on Twitter. Publishing your content on Tumblr is quick and easy and absolutely free even though there are some paid templates offered. You don’t require bandwidth or storage limits when publishing, and you get a custom domain. The themes provided can be tweaked and customized and you have access to HTML codes that you can use to make any changes that you want.
This flexibility to customize is what makes Tumblr such a great place for those who like to express their creativity and stand out. For businesses, this is excellent because you will have your own domain, and in case you already have another registered domain, Tumblr can still host your site.
Some great publishing features offered are the ability to publish from your email, through texts or audio from your phone, post scheduling, bookmarks, and the ability to keep some posts or the entire blog private.
You can have guests publishing on your Tumble blog and have the possibility to view and approve before publishing. This collaboration makes working with partners or friends in the same industry quite easy and is best if you’re keen on engaging and fostering an online community.
Tumblr uses various functions to enable SEO and therefore doesn’t need much extra work on your part. It also doesn’t clutter your page with ads or logos because the user interface is clean and straightforward. Tumblr enables the use of third-party apps to add the extra functionality that you’re looking for.
This platform integrates seamlessly with social media such as Twitter and Facebook and allows publishing through these platforms as well. You can also keep track of your analytics related to any subscriptions you may get through your blog’s RSS feed, using Feedburner.
There are also a few things that can get you frustrated when using Tumblr: for instance, there’s a limit to the number of posts you can queue up, only 50 per day. You also can’t upload videos over 100MB and your audio tracks have to be in MP4 format. To add to this, if you violate any of their community guidelines they automatically suspend your account.
But overall, Tumblr remains one of the best free blogging platforms and continues to be a favorite of many because it’s an ideal platform for publishing multi-media content and allows great engagement with your followers.
Pros
· It’s free with a subdomain and allows you to connect to your custom domain name
· Extremely easy to set up and use
· Offers excellent social media integration
· A great place for quick blogs with rich media formats
Cons
· Limits on some features and has no room for expansion
This is a free site and is best suited for microbloggers.
Overall Takeaway
This list indicates what the best content management systems in 2023 can offer you, and depending on your blogging needs, they all offer amazing features that leave you spoilt for choice. For instance, if you’re looking for a flexible platform then you have WordPress if you’re creative and want a platform that helps you leverage on that then you have Squarespace.
If you have skills and a flair for words then Medium is your place of choice. If speed is your desire then get on board with the JavaScript-based Ghost. And if you don’t want to spend your money then there are many best free blogging platforms such as Tumblr. Whatever you want, one of these content management systems will offer you the solutions you need.
FAQs
How to choose the best CMS?
To choose the best CMS for you, you need first to establish some selection criteria. Such criteria may be cost, customizability, familiarity with the platform, flexibility, etc.
What is the most used content management system?
The most used content management system is WordPress, by about 40% of website owners.
What are the 3 different types of CMS?
The 3 types of CMS are open-source content management systems, custom content management systems, and commercial content management systems.
Which is the easiest CMS to use?
The easiest CMS to use is the one that you are most familiar with. Ones could say that WordPress is the easiest to use, as it’s the most popular and is the basis for a plethora of themes.
Which content management system is best?
The best content management system is the one that suits best your needs at a certain moment. There is no one-fits-all answer. It was a time when I considered Squarespace to be great, but things changed and now WordPress with a Divi Builder is my best option.
With over 756 million users in more than 200 countries, LinkedIn has outgrown itself as a website for job seekers and evolved into a social media platform that helps business professionals connect, grow their businesses, and even sell! It’s one of the most powerful platforms for business-to-business (B2B) marketers to advertise on and for small businesses to expand their reach. Thus, choosing the most appropriate LinkedIn marketing strategy for small businesses is relevant for the excellent spending of their limited resources.
LinkedIn marketing has become a growing source for businesses and brands to publish and share high-quality authoritative content.
With this expansive reach, you can make your content visible to users anywhere. But managing to fully leverage the resources of LinkedIn marketing for B2B requires a strategy. You need to approach LinkedIn business as a piece of multi-channel strategy with objectives and allocate appropriate resources while putting an emphasis on quality to be able to secure a significant advantage on this platform.
So, to be able to leverage all these benefits, here are the strategies that you must use:
LinkedIn Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses That Work
1. Create an Outstanding Business Profile
You must create a great first impression that’s going to drive traffic and reinforce your credibility. If you don’t have an account already, create one. If you have one, complete it fully. If you only have a personal account, then get to the next level and create a company profile. Here are a few main guidelines.
Profiles with great photos generate more views and matches and eventually better results. Use neutral backgrounds and soft lighting. Don’t use selfies or pictures where you’re in a group of people. While choosing outfits, consider background colors and pick the ones that match both your personality and your target roles. Keep it professional yet appealing enough for viewers to want to meet you.
b. Sound Approachable but Not Desperate
You may desperately be looking for a client or employment, but showing that you’re actively seeking these opportunities may not be a good thing. Human psychology always seeks to find what is in demand, so present yourself as someone or a brand that people want. It sounds like a cheat but it’s really about winning, and showing your value, not your needs.
Thus, use a first-person description of yourself and sound like someone clients or hiring managers would like to meet.
c. Use Keywords Skillfully and Make the Profile Readable
Your profile description must include the necessary keywords that match your target roles, use them artfully, and don’t overstuff them. Make your paragraphs short and easily digestible considering the fact that your viewers will use different screens or devices.
d. Highlight Your Accomplishments
You want the target audience to know the highlights of your business. Include anything that constitutes such information without seeming like you’re bragging. Just put it out in a way to show that you deliver great results.
e. Proofread and Proofread
Have you ever seen a renowned company with a typo in the title description and you cringed on their behalf? Yes, it’s easy even for the mighty to fail even by a punctuation error. But it’s more than just punctuation, the descriptions must be relevant to your activity.
Finally, avoid multiple entries and delete any irrelevant information from your company’s profile, such as social media accounts that are no longer in use.
Source: linkedin.com
Here is a step by step guide on how to create your LinkedIn business profile and page.
2. LinkedIn Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses: Define Your Audience and Goals
The second LinkedIn marketing strategy is identifying your goals and your audience. Peter Drucker said if you can’t measure it then you can’t improve it. What exactly do you want to achieve on LinkedIn and how do these goals tie in with your career, personal brand, or business?
So, the impetus is upon you to have a clear understanding of this in order to know the tactics, type of content, and manner in which you will pursue your LinkedIn marketing goals. Write down your objectives, specify how you can achieve them then track your progress.
With goals in place, the next thing is to identify who you want to appeal to be able to make relevant connections. Know their challenges and how you can help solve them. This is the only way you can create content that will resonate with them.
3. LinkedIn Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses: Create Helpful and Original Content
As you may know, LinkedIn is the social media for pros and experts, so you need to bring your A-game to play. One major purpose of being on LinkedIn is to establish your credibility and build your authority to boost your brand.
Creating valuable and relevant content is one sure way of accomplishing this while having in mind the goal and target audience identified above. So, in other words, your subject matter should resonate with your brand as well as your target network. It must address their pain points and other common challenges with a viable solution for them.
With this said, it’s always recommended that you also share relevant quality content created by other people, not just your own unique work time. Research has in fact found that you should try and strike a 40% balance in sharing other similar content on your LinkedIn page.
To make sure your LinkedIn content marketing stays in perspective, here are a few questions you can think about before creating your content:
Does it add value?
Does it help me portray myself as a thought leader?
Is it clear?
Does it solve their pain points?
Finally, it’s very important to be consistent with your content uploads. Create a schedule that you can stick to, without being very “spammy” or “salesy”.
4. Leverage on LinkedIn Groups
You could boost your LinkedIn business page by joining or creating your own group. This is a great way to build a buzz around your brand. LinkedIn has made it quite simple to do this, under the “interests” button on your homepage, click on groups then create a group, and finally proceed to fill it out.
With this done, you can get the word out to your target audience especially the thought leaders and influencers if possible. They work as great catalysts for your growth and over time you can build a sizeable community that will give leverage to your business.
Groups are a great place to have relevant conversations and this is a good way to keep your page active and engaged. Alternatively, you could discover new groups in your niche and request to follow them.
Groups help build new connections and create a nice environment to discuss relevant issues, share new ideas, or just learn new stuff. Here are a few more benefits of creating groups:
You become a thought leader especially if you back it up with stellar content.
It boosts connectivity especially when you bring like-minded people together
You develop personal networks so you can send weekly messages/updates.
5. Use LinkedIn’s Native Advertising to Sponsor Your Best Content
LinkedIn has a number of advertising options for marketers and one of the most popular options is LinkedIn Sponsored Content. This one allows you to distribute your content to professionals outside your visitors and followers.
For example, if you have content that has gained high engagement rates you can amplify the reach even further using this native advertising option. It’s interactive so this means likes, comments, and shares are there to help boost ad virality and engagement.
Another option is Direct Sponsored Content which is still a sponsored ad but does not appear on your company’s page because it’s created directly under the campaign manager. It’s specifically designed this way to be able to A/B test, personalize and improve your ads for optimal performance without cluttering your page.
It’s important to note that content here doesn’t only mean text format, rather it includes images, links, and videos too, so this content may appear on multiple locations including the newsfeed, the notifications page as well as the InMail, and the connections page. LinkedIn, in fact, favors native videos over links to external videos, this means you should upload your video file directly to the platform as opposed to just sharing a link to a video hosted elsewhere like let’s say YouTube.
Thus, you see you are spoilt with choices on how you may want to sponsor your best content. For best results, here are a few best practices for LinkedIn Advertising:
Know your target
Promote your best-performing content
Optimize your sponsored content
Have an effective bidding strategy
Link your ads to a post-click landing page
A/B test your campaigns
6. Promote Beyond LinkedIn
Yes, this is about LinkedIn marketing, but you still need to integrate your strategy beyond LinkedIn to gain substantial growth over time. LinkedIn allows several cross-promotion strategies to allow for this growth.
You can link your company’s page in your marketing communications, blogs, and email signatures as well. Another very simple way to cross-promote is to allow your readers to share your content at any point while they’re browsing through your website.
By adding a LinkedIn follow button on your landing page or through use of social media sharing buttons, you can gain greater outreach to a wider audience beyond your page.
7. Top LinkedIn Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses: Optimize for Search Engine Ranking
The world today is hyper-connected and the business world is highly competitive, so it’s crucial for any brand or business to reach its message to its target audience, and this is why SEO is very important. When done right and in combination with other marketing strategies, SEO can help your content get good rankings.
First page Google SERPs receive up to 95% of all web traffic, the lucky thing is that your LinkedIn page is already designed to be SEO friendly and all that’s left for you is to tailor your content to suit your audience to enhance your business’s chances of building referrals, generate leads and build traffic.
Use of relevant keywords, linking your company page to your website or blog, and sharing content, all lead to better SEO optimization.
8. Keep Up with LinkedIn Analytics and Changes
It’s easier to get through to people when you know what resonates with them. It’s even easier and better when you can segment them according to different needs and LinkedIn has made this easy through use of their LinkedIn Company Page analytics along with analytics for publishing on LinkedIn.
Both of these will help you with optimizing and monitoring your page. You can also leverage the LinkedIn Campaign Manager to track your campaign performance as well as conversions.
You can also take advantage of the LinkedIn Marketing Blog to keep up to date with any new changes and developments as they offer a curated selection specifically made to help you tweak your LinkedIn marketing.
Pro Tips on How to Boost Your LinkedIn Traffic
With millions of blogs producing more content than ever, the “if you build they’ll come” strategy no longer works and therefore you have to work a little bit smarter for your content and brand as a whole to cut through all the noise and arrive in front of your target audience.
These next pro tips will guide you on cutting through all the noise.
Content is king, create insatiable content that will keep them coming back for more.
Be active and consistent with your posts but don’t be spammy
Engage your audience and don’t fail to respond to their questions
Use rich media, i.e. video and images.
Create and share high-quality infographics in your niche
Engage influencers in your niche
Reach out to people who view your profile, they’re already interested, right?
Advertise and advertise.
LinkedIn Marketing Best Practices for Small Businesses
Create a strong and convincing LinkedIn landing page that’s streamlined with relevant information and that easily pushes forward the call to action.
Remember LinkedIn is the social media for pros and decision makers so be more about informing, offering solutions, educating, and more subtle about sales.
Always offer your audience only relevant content and address them directly, don’t be ambiguous with your offering.
Always present yourself as a brand to show professionalism and to create awareness. Include your company name in your offering too.
Including some rich media in your content, videos, and images will definitely get more clicks.
Conclusion
LinkedIn is so much more than just a digital resume, it’s the best free tool where execs and pros hang out. It’s a great platform where you can build useful connections with fellow professionals in your niche.
Thus, instead of letting your company’s profile collect dust, make use of the above LinkedIn marketing strategies to build intentional business connections. With the statistics shown above to prove its effectiveness, you only need to follow the strategies and all the tips and best practices and you’ll be on your way to a new business level.
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