How to Create a Content Strategy in FinTech: Skyscraper Technique + Life Hacks from Serpstat

Content rubrics and formats. Although content for fintech is often presented as dry texts containing statistics and figures and does not arouse the reader's interest in the article, the variety of rubrics and content formats in the field is impressive. As you study your competitors' pages, gather rubrics, topics for a series of materials, and interesting models. And don't limit yourself to articles, here are some examples of formats:

The target audience for the content. When analyzing competitors' materials, also note for whom the content was prepared and how the product is positioned for the audience. That is, what keywords and in what context the competitor uses to describe its benefits. For example, this article is written to summarize Forbes' presentation at IAB NewFronts on Delivering Communities at Scale:

Targeted actions on the page. What is expected of the reader during the study of the content and afterward? What CTAs (calls to action) are in the content: text links, text, and buttons (read, buy, learn more, try, start, subscribe, register, support, download, learn, get, check, continue, follow).

Headings and page structure. The presence of headings and a well-structured article is important not only from the point of view of search engines, but also help the reader to become familiar with the content, not to lose the target action, and find a solution to their problem. Pay attention when analyzing a competitor, what topics and subtopics are disclosed in the article, and how its structure is organized.

Additional resources and tools on the page. What else is in the article that gives added value to the reader? It can be free services, tools, checklists, or calculators.

Presence of internal linking. Look also which articles, videos, or lead magnets the article is linked with. This will help you evaluate the user journey and find additional material for analysis.

Author pages. Examine the author block in the article, note its differences from competitors, and analyze the content of the author page. A good example of an author page was given above, but here I'll just remind you that you can always go to competitors' authors and offer to write an article for you. You can read about how guest posting works in the articles:

Tone of voice. As you examine content, note which Tone of voice the competitor is using. For example, provocative, fun, emotional, rational, or expert tone.

Semantic keywords for which the page is optimized. From the point of view of search engines, every piece of content on your site – an article, a landing page, or a lead magnet – has to respond to some search intent for your content to find its readers. Therefore, when studying your competitors' content, pay attention to the queries for which the article ranks. This way, you can prepare specifications for a copywriter to write a new article or optimize an article already published, if you have such a topic on your site.

Optimization of meta tags and snippets. I suggest completing the analysis of the best competitor pages by studying the meta tags and special elements in the search results. Pay attention to what keywords are used in the title and description, whether there are additional “hooks” of attention, and CTA. For example, in the Fintech field, such phrases that increase CTR are often used:

• Update
• Interview
• % discount
• Large-scale research
• Use case
• New Guide
• Checklist
• ...with examples...
• Video
• We are trusted by ... customers
• with charts and graphs
• visual guide
• No Fees
• Business/content/marketing plan template

Adapting competitor topics to different stages of the user journey. At the stage when the user is not yet familiar with your product, the solution, and they have a problem they want to solve.

For the introduction or familiarization stage, we have to prepare content that solves this problem and responds to the pains and needs of the reader at this stage. These are articles of this type:

• 10 saving tips for the home budget.
• What should everyone know when planning a budget?
• What items of expenditure does everyone forget about?
• The secrets of budget planning from 10 experts.

When analyzing your competitors, pay attention to the target action of the content for this stage of the funnel. What exactly is expected from the reader: switching to another article on the topic, subscribing to the newsletter, or commenting on the article.

Then we move on to the user stage, where they may have heard something about your product or picks up a ready-made solution (review or evaluation stage). Here, the reader expects to see this kind of content:

• Making a personal budget: the top 5 apps.
• How to choose an app for planning expenses.
• 5 differences between products 1 and 2: which is better?
• What is leasing and how does it differ from credit?
• What are the books about finance that are worth reading?

CTAs can be directed to a whitepaper request, registration, etc.

The third stage of our simplified funnel: content that “helps” you make a decision after reading the article (decision stage, conversion). Suitable for warmed-up readers who are already familiar with your product, with a clearly formed need and they are in the process of considering alternatives.

• How to use the product for expense planning?
• Top 10 product features you can’t do without
• Use case: How a member of the target audience did something with the help of a product and achieved results

It’s essential to make sure that every piece of content you create in some way facilitates the site visitor’s tasks and nudges them toward the decision-making stage. The target actions of such content are always “close” to use and purchase. For example, registering, subscribing, etc.

Adapting competitors' ideas to other content formats. For example, a competitor has an article in How-to format, but you can make a pillar page, an interview with experts, a reader survey with research, a newsletter, a post on social networks, an infographic, or a lead magnet. There are many options for repackaging into another format.

For example, a How-to article “Trading Cryptocurrency on Leverage for Beginners” or any content on industry trading can be packaged into an entire academy or series of video tutorials.

Diving deep into the product. In addition to educating readers, content meets a company's business goals, so break down your product into separate parts and cover such components with separate pieces of content. For example, Binance has a section with NFT, backed up by blog articles on the topic:

• 7 reasons to sell your NFT on the Binance NFT Marketplace
• Easy and detailed POAP NFT guide
• All about NFT whitelists and how to get on them in 3 easy steps
• How fractional NFTs are changing the NFT space
• How to sell gaming NFTs and convert the resulting cryptocurrency into fiat

Adaptation. A blog post adapts perfectly into content for social networks and newsletters. If you've created original content for newsletters or social networks, publish it on the blog in article format.

Example. Based on the How-to article “What is NFT and how to build your collection of Internet art?” a series of posts on social networks or newsletters can be made:

• post 1: NFT – the essence and attractiveness for the novice crypto-businessman
• post 2: NFT platform that will help you invest now
• post 3: Where and how to earn a beginner NFT investor?

Repackage into a new format. A blog post can be presented as an infographic, a commentary video, or a podcast on the topic.

Adding use cases can also turn a how-to article into a case study. And if you invite several experts to comment on the topic, you get a roundup.

Conduct a webinar – repackage it into an article and a series of posts for social media. Record of the webinar can be submitted as a lead magnet or in text format in a series of newsletters. Questions and answers from experts on Twitter or Telegram are excellent material for articles.

Repackaging the article “What is NFT and How to Build Your Internet Art Collection?” further into other formats:

• Webinar: Investing in NFT: rules and principles
• Lead magnet: Step-by-step instructions for the novice NFT investor + checklist
• Newsletter: NFT-event: Webinar with crypto-investor, open your first NFT Box

Large formats are divided into smaller ones. For example, for social networks or mailing lists, we create the following series of materials:

• a brief announcement of the article;
• an abstract of the article in the “problem-solution” format;
• a quote from an expert with a comment from the author as an announcement of the article;
• cards with the main ideas from the article;
• a selection of useful materials on the same topic.

Small formats can be combined into larger ones. For example, if you have a series of blog posts on the same topic, combine them into one digest, comment on each article, and link previously published material.

The main thing is to select only relevant material and work out the structure. The same principle can be used to make digests of checklists, instructions, whitepapers, lists of useful tools, case studies, etc. Find a common attribute and generate new content with almost no effort.