Three tips to make a content strategy work

Maximise the effect of your writing

Mar. 25, 2021 - Willem L. Middelkoop

When you write for your blog or for your company's website, there are things you can consider to maximise the discoverability, longevity and impact of your writing. Leverage the energy you put in into your words. Today I share with you three of my lessons learned while writing for this website.

What is a content strategy?

Simply put, a content strategy is how you create, publish and manage content; written or in other media. Write for your website, blog, favourite soccer club or company. You do this to spread your message, reaching as many people as possible, connecting you with new people, fans or potential customers.

Write specific

Consider people looking for your content, how will they find you? People search using Google or DuckDuckGo. They enter their search phrase, for instance "how to cook potatoes". You should try to specifically match their search phrase by writing a specific, actionable answer to their search. The more specific the topic, the less competition you have. For example, instead of simply "potatoes", which includes the farming, distribution, growing, you focus on "how to cook potatoes". You better write three shorter (specific) articles than one generic overarching longread.

Write timeless

Use your imagination to travel through time! How can you make your writing interesting for your future self? The internet never forgets, something you must remember when writing for the web. Let your words work longer by making them timeless. Forgo the fad of the day and focus on the underlying principle instead. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Write to help people for a lifetime!

Write with impact

You are the voice inside people's head when they read your content! Speak to them instead of creating noise about yourself or your company. Directly address your reader to maximise the impact of your message. Provide an actionable message directed at your reader. Instead of "we can help to do X Y or Z", you should use: "you can do X Y or Z by contacting us". You increase the chance for action with a clear and direct message.

Tools

Direct your energy to the right words without being distracted, these tools can help you:

Finding the right words: Search your topic, see what suggestions the search engine gives you when entering your keywords. Try different words and phrases. Know that the search engine's suggestions are driven by other people's queries: this can help you find the right words for your content!
Focus on writing: Before you can become the voice in other peoples' minds (when they read your text), you must create silence in order to hear yourself. It's just you, your thoughts and your words. Consider an app like iA Writer to help you do this.

Examples

You may find some inspiration in the following examples. While I am still honing my writing skills, I do an humble attempt to practice what I preach:

Discoverability: In this article, I write about a very specific niche topic: designing your own watch. It has little competition and therefore it is effective at attracting the attention of a specific audience.
Timeless: Instead of focussing on the launch of my latest product, I write about the underlying principle in the article about creating products on a platform. I used Duplo bricks to illustrate the abstract concepts.
Impact: In this article about saving photos from a crashed computer I described what I did, but I directed the text to the reader. Instead of "I did this and that" I write "You can do this or that"

Conclusion

Written words are powerful, especially if you arrange them well to deliver your message. Pay attention to discoverability, timelessness and impact.

But most of all, write! Now! Don't wait for a magical moment or a long desired spark of inspiration. You have everything you need to start writing: you, your words and your thoughts!