How to create a content plan
What is a content plan for?
According to Impact company's research conducted in 2017 about 89% of B2B and 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing methods and be sure that today the figures are changed to higher. Nonetheless, only 37% (B2B) and 40% (B2C) of them prefer to plan their content; which is less than a half. The vast majority of the content-marketers simply don't understand the importance of planning. They prefer to create the content «on the fly» forgetting about the rational approach which is extremely important in commercial sites management.

Commercial websites and pages should be promoted according to an individually developed marketing system. Which is usually based on the business goals, audience's interests, topics, site's sections, etc.
Such an approach is extremely important for large sites with several business directions. Maintenance of all the topics is required and can't be ignored because of the need to promote certain goods or services. Also, it helps to hold and raise audience interest.
Competitors research
Top by Keyword

Competitors
Such an approach also helps to verify whether a keyword is relevant or not. If the listed sites aren't similar to yours by the subject or goals, the given keyword is irrelevant in your case.

Top pages

Search questions

Audience research
Before you start planning you have to determine all the tasks which your business complete and topics or spheres your audience is interested in. It will help to provide the readers with relevant information.
To reach the highest efficiency of the content, it is better to get acquainted with the audience; study their needs. Before scheduling posts analyse the following aspects:
Content matrix
Sooner or later it happens when you have no idea what to write about. Even if you are an expert in your sphere and perfectly know all the aspects of a certain area of life. Here are two cases when the content matrix is extremely needed:
How to create a content matrix
Blue areas are cells for fixing keywords and topics for further posting. You also can schedule the posts to provide the needed frequency.
Conclusion
Content planning starts with the analysis of its goals, competitors and audience research. After gathering all the needed information you can start dealing with the topics and possible directions.
Use Serpstat tools to do both competitors analysis and topics researches at a time. They show how popular and relevant is a certain keyword, list top websites using a particular word or phrase, etc.
To simplify the content planning process use a matrix. They help to organize your ideas and frequency of posts. With a proper approach, the content plan will save much time and become a basis of successful site management and promotion.
This article is a part of Serpstat's Checklist tool

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