When you create a blog about any topic or niche, the first thing you’ll need is an abundance of content. You’ll need copy for each page of your blog such as the about page and other pages of the blog. You also need blog posts to keep content and newly updated information flowing through the blog, so that search engines will keep ranking you at the top.

* Study Your Audience – It’s imperative that before you start creating content, you understand who your audience is. Know them down to their income, sex, desires, wants, needs, and more. This is how you’ll know what content to create, as well as how they like to consume it.

* Understand Your Niche – In addition, you need to truly understand your niche so that you can write and educate your audience about it. You’ll need to create content that is engaging, informative, educational and that encourages your audience to interact with them.

* Know What You Want to Promote – It helps to also know what you are trying to accomplish with each blog post. Do you want to promote a product or service? And is it your own or someone else’s? How does this product or service solve problems that your audience has? Can you educate them on the problem as you promote the solution?

* Decide What Forms of Content You’ll Need – Your audience may need beginning information or they may be advanced at your niche; you know them best. Knowing this, you’ll be able to choose the forms of content – whether they are educational, or conversational and interactive, or focused in another way.

* Choose Which Types of Content You Want to Use – You’ll need to use many types of content, such as text, video, images, and more to keep your audience’s interest. Not only that, you need to use the type of content that search engines like, such as video, long-form text posts and more.

* Create an Editorial Calendar – Don’t go forward without a plan of action. Create an editorial calendar to help you keep your content development more organized. You can always add more content as news develops and issues occur, but at least have an outline of the type and forms of content you’ll use for promoting the products and services that you have.

* Find Help – If you’re not sure how to go forward, you can contract with a content strategist, writers, and others to help you get things done. Having a plan and then implementing that plan will ensure your success with creating content for your blog.

* Repeat – Once you set things up and create momentum, keep it going. Blogging is a long-term marketing strategy that you must keep doing to continue your success.

Creating content for your blog needs to be something you do on a regular and ongoing basis. Shoot for three to five times a week at first. Once you become popular, you can slow it down to once a week if you include authoritative long-form content. The thing is to keep your blog at the top of the search results as well as keep your audience engaged, informed, and interacting with you.

When you want to be effective with your content marketing efforts, it’s important to develop a content calendar. A content calendar will help you plan out the content you will need to create. It will help you publish your content at the right time, in order to promote the events, products, services and information that your audience needs.

The point of creating a content calendar is to ensure that you, as well as those with whom you work, can all be on the same page in regards to content creation for your business. This may include content for your blogs, social media accounts and more. Plus, all of the content needs to go together to get the marketing results that you want.

* Identify the Topics You Need to Cover – Before you get started creating a calendar, you need to know what type of topics you need to cover. It’s important to identify a specific niche and then work from there.

* Know Who Your Audience Is – Understanding your audience is one of the most important things you can do. This will help you with content creation, because you will know what your audience needs to know about your niche in order to decide to make a purchase from you.

* Determine What You Already Have in Terms of Content – Check the inventory you already have regarding content. Update anything that needs updating, and practice good internal linking to bring attention to other content to your audience.

* Make a List of the Products and Services You Want to Promote – What are the products and services you want to promote right now? From that list you should be able to create at least five to ten pieces of content for each product or service.

* Know the Objective of Every Piece of Content – When you create any piece of content, you need to know what the ultimate point is. Is it to get newsletter subscribers? Is it to make a sale? Is it to educate before pitching the product or service?

* Note Launch Dates for New Products, Events or Services – Within the calendar, note the launch dates of any new products or services that you plan to promote. This will enable you to work backwards into the calendar to push out content at the right time.

* Make a Spreadsheet with Logical Headings – You’re going to want your spreadsheet to make sense and include logical headings like article title, assigned to, draft due date, objective, promotion, keywords, CTA and so forth. Leave a space for anything you want to track, including social media networks and so on.

* Track Everything – Within your spreadsheet, leave a space for tracking the results of your content marketing efforts. What you track will be what is successful.

There are some awesome tools that you can use such as Google Drive’s Google Docs to set up the spreadsheet that everyone works from. If you want to take that a step further, you can use something like Kapost.com if you have a high volume of content needs.

Preparing and planning the content for your blog will put you ahead of the rest in a huge way. Believe it or not, many bloggers only blog when the inspiration strikes and have no regular content plan. But, those who are serious and want to create a money-making, high value blog, start with a plan.

Understand Who Your Audience Is

Part of creating a great blog with awesome content is to really know your audience inside and out. You need to know what words make an impact on them. In addition, you need to know all their worries, fears, loves, and interests and how it relates to your products and/or services. The more you can speak their language about your products and services, the more impact your content will have on them.

Know Your Industry

The niche you’re involved in has a past, present and future. It’s important to understand the history of your niche as well as who the movers and shakers are. Knowing about your industry as a whole over just your one small part of it will keep you on the forefront of the industry, which can help you improve the content you create and take you to a whole new level.

What Seasons, News and Events Impact Your Niche?

Knowing in advance about what is coming up, or being aware enough to jump on something that has just happened in the news surrounding your industry are important components in creating an excellent content plan. Whether you blog about events, accomplishments, and happenings in your own life, or about a business industry, doesn’t matter. Keep it relevant by matching it to things your audience cares about.

Consider the Impact of Newsletters, Email and Social Media

Today, your blogging content has to work in concert with newsletters, email and social media content. You cannot plan your blog content without thinking about how you will promote the content. It’s no longer good enough to write it “and they will come” – instead, it’s important to understand how it all works together.

What Main Pages Will Your Blog Have?

Your blog needs to have more than just a blog page. There are important pages that you will need in order to look very professional. Potential pages to choose from may be:

* About page
* Contact page
* Guest posting information
* Advertising information
* Media page
* Services/product page
* Archived posts
* Tools and resources
* Subscribe page
* Start here page
* Privacy policy
* Terms of service
* Disclosures page

Not only are these pages important, but they also provide more real-estate to add in copy that is needed to attract search engine traffic and your audience to reading your blog post. Decide in advance what pages you’ll have so that you can plan the content for each page.

Categories Are Important But Don’t Have Too Many

Once you’ve determined the pages you need outside of the “blog” page, it’s important to determine which categories you’ll have on your blog. Limiting the number of categories for your blog is important. Stick with 9 to 15 categories. The more you can narrow down the subject matter and categories, the more focused your blog posts will be and the easier they will be to find for your readers.

What Type of Content Schedule Will You Choose?

When creating the content plan for your blog, ask yourself how often you plan to post content. This is very important to know as you create an editorial calendar based on the products and services you want to promote. Knowing you plan to post daily requires just slightly more work than posting weekly when you have the plan in front of you and of course, will get better results when it’s focused.

What Are the Major and Minor Keywords That Define Your Niche?

Studying keywords within your niche can help you come up with categories as well as subjects which you want to blog about. The subjects can also help determine what forms the content will appear in. For example, you may want to interview movers and shakers within your niche. These might be better suited for a podcast while a “how to” post might be better if it appears as a video on your blog.

Creating a content plan for your blog is an essential element in having a successful blog. Without a plan of action to move your blog forward, it’s easy to get stuck only blogging when the whim strikes, which is why most blogs do not produce an income or results for the bloggers. Blogging with purpose and focus will make all the difference, and that starts with a content plan.

Throughout all your marketing collateral, your website, newsletter, sales pages, and email newsletters, you will need to have a developed cohesive message or theme. Your content theme will need to explain how your products are different from the competitions’ and how they solve your audience’s problems all in one voice – regardless of the channel.

* Determine the Goals of the Message – When crafting any message, the first thing you need to know is what your goals are for the content. Do you want to inform, engage, get more newsletter signups, or make a sale? Whatever your goal is, it must be something you understand before recording or writing the first word.

* Understand Your Products or Services – Make a product funnel with the products you have so that you understand every stage of the buying cycle for your audience. Also, it will help identify holes in your product funnel that you can fill with other things.

* Study Your Audience – It is easy to think you already know everything you can about your audience because you wanted to work with them and you have already created products and services. But, you would be wrong. Always study your audience so that you can stay ahead of their wants and needs.

* Identify Your Audience’s Pain Points – As you are studying your audience, you will discover various pain points or issues that your audience needs solved. Your products and/or services should solve these issues and take away their pain, and your content should explain how it works.

* Assess Your Competition – It might seem strange to look at your competition when it comes to developing your content theme, but you should. Not to copy what they do, but to get an idea of what type of content they’re using that’s converting. What do they know that you don’t? What do you know that they don’t?

* Define What Makes You Different – As you’re developing your content, you want to keep in mind what differentiates you from the competition. As you think of that, try to weave that story throughout.

* Find Your Voice – One of the first things to consider is what your voice will be. Will you be serious, funny or irreverent? This aspect of defining your content theme is important, and will move you forward and help you establish your brand.

* Brainstorm Your Message – Your overall message defines your value proposition. Your value proposition doesn’t change just because your products change. Your overall goals are still to solve the pain points of your audience with your various products and services. Writing a mission statement can help you identify your whole message.

Knowing what you want to communicate with others, specifically your target audience, will go far in helping you frame your content theme in a cohesive way. You can use this same information for any content that you plan to create for your business, whether you’re creating blog posts, white papers, or information products.

One of the most important things you’re going to do aside from filling your blog with content is to choose the look, design and feel of your blog. You want the theme to match your technology needs as well as impart a specific feeling to your audience that matches the niche you’re trying to represent.

1. Keep It Simple – It can be tempting to get a theme with many bells and whistles but you may not need that. Today, clean lines and simple colors are more popular than busy themes that distract from the main point of your blog. The theme needs to evoke the right feelings in your audience while also providing you with the tools you need to get the job done.

2. Consider Your Industry – You want to avoid having to change a theme too much using PHP or other code. The best theme for you has already been made with your industry in mind. No need to reinvent the wheel. Plus, when you choose a theme that already has your industry as a focus, avoiding messing with the coding of the theme, you can make changes and updates easier.

3. Choose Responsive Themes – Today, it has become imperative that a theme be responsive to the tools your audience will use to access the information. That means the theme needs to be responsive to whatever device anyone who wants your information is using. If they cannot access the blog and read it easily on multiple devices, you’re going to lose a lot of your audience.

4. Read the Fine Print – This is especially true with free themes. But, always read the rules and terms of service of every blog theme that you want to use. There may be limitations, or you may learn that the theme is no longer being supported and updated. You want a current theme that will continue being safe for a long time, and that is legal to use as you see fit.

5. Understand Which Features You Need – Do you want one column or two? Do you need the ability to download PDFs? Do you want to put up a lot of videos? Do you want a discussion board? Do you want a certain color? Ensure that your theme is capable of adding the functionality you want, or already has it to start with. The more features you can have before customization, the better.

6. Know the Purpose of Your Blog – Each blog has a purpose and point of being. When you can identify the point of your blog, it will be easier to determine which features are most important. It will also be more likely that you can identify what will make your audience feel impacted by the look of your blog.

7. Determine Your Budget – While you can get some awesome free themes from the WordPress.org website, consider purchasing a premium theme because you’ll get more support, help, and updates to keep your blog safe. There are premium themes within a wide price range.

8. Check User Ratings – Once you’ve identified several themes that will work in terms of features, colors, feeling, functionality and budget, check the user ratings to ensure that there is nothing that stands out like poor customer service or compatibility issues with plugins you know you want to use.

If you keep all these factors in mind, you’ll have a better chance of picking the perfect theme for your website that conveys the message you want to impart to your audience and works well on the back end too.

Finding people who are good at content marketing can sometimes be difficult. You can take several approaches such as looking for “content marketers” on Google or on professionally-oriented social media like LinkedIn. Follow these tips to better understand that sometimes the title is less important than the results of the work.

1. Know What Type of Content You Need – No writer or marketer can be an expert in everything. Therefore, it’s imperative that you understand exactly what type of writing you need before you begin trying to market any content that has been created.

2. Understand Who Your Audience Is – Knowing the audience is important because that helps you to identify the type of content that you need. It is essential to have a clear understanding of your audience and the various segments involved in order to create and market excellent content that gets results.

3. Look for Subject Matter Experts – If you can find subject matter experts to be on your team, even if they’re not the writers, you can use their knowledge to develop excellent content. Most college courses for example are created by a team consisting of a technical writer and a subject matter expert.

4. Find Industry Experts – Use the resources at your fingertips to find industry experts that might be willing to help develop your content strategy and work with your writing team. Without an expert, your content may often be inaccurate or just “keyword” articles that are written for search engines instead of people.

5. Be Willing to Pay a Fair Rate – If you truly want to hire trained content marketing professionals who have experience as well as even college degrees, then you must be willing to pay them a professional and fair rate for the work they will do at the quality level you expect. When it comes to content marketing, you most certainly get what you pay for.

6. Ask Colleagues for Recommendations – Usually, the people you work with and around know people who are expert content marketers that you can trust. Ask for recommendations from these groups. If you’re a member of an industry forum, that’s a great place to ask.

7. Search on LinkedIn – You can find a lot of people who are experts with recommendations right on LinkedIn by doing a search. You may need to join groups and communicate that way at first, unless you can find someone to introduce you.

8. Search Twitter for Experts – Twitter is an excellent way to find experts on any subject using the keywords that are common in your industry as well as “content marketing.” However, you’re going to get better results by hiring a good technical writer, a copywriter, and subject matter experts.

Working with content marketing experts requires you and them to have knowledge and skill in the industry that you want to market and not just general content marketing and writing skills. Only people on the inside are going to know what will work best for your particular audience.

Today, marketing really is all about online content. It doesn’t matter what type of business you have, marketing online is going to be more lucrative than marketing offline.

Most people don’t run to the phone book anymore when looking for a business. Instead, they look for a business online. And then in addition to that, they ask their friends online, and do a lot of research online before making their purchasing choices. Whether you have an online business or an offline business, this advice will increase your sales exponentially.

Build Your Credibility

The first step toward developing a content marketing mindset involves using the online world to build up your credibility. Use your blog, release white papers, and participate in social media and more to ensure that your reputation is well represented online. Perfect every social media profile and don’t start an account unless you are willing to keep it up to date at least weekly.

Seek Out Thought Leadership

Getting to know thought leaders in your industry can actually rub off on you and make you into a though leader – eventually. Find and follow thought leaders in your industry, comment on their blogs, offer donated original content, review their products, and ask them to review theirs. Interview them on a podcast. Do what you need to do in order to become part of their circle.

Understand Your Business

As you are building credibility and hobnobbing with thought leaders, study your niche and your business. You need to know everything there is to know, inside and out. That way when someone asks you a question you’re ready with a good answer and “sound bite” that can be used, makes sense and is true representation of what you do and what you stand for. Plus, you’ll have more to say (blog) if you know more.

Become a Strategic Publisher

Learning to think like a publisher is essential today in the online marketing world. Developing a publication calendar will go far in helping you know what information you’re going to share with your audience over time. If you take the time to develop a calendar, you can match product launches with the content. Doing without a publication calendar is a huge mistake. Planning in advance from day one will ensure that everything you do has a purpose.

Develop Your Own Online Space

In the old days of marketing, content marketing consisted of sending out duplicate articles to article directories. But, today content marketing consist of filling out your own online real estate with content before you even think about donating to any other sites. The more relevant, useful and enlightening content that you can put on your own online real estate, the better for SEO, and the better for your audience.

Remember You Are in Control

Sometimes, as a business owner it can be hard to remember who is in control. But, if you can accept that you’re in control of your own business and your own destiny, you’ll have a better chance of successfully developing and following through on your ideas, as well as meeting your goals.

Build Your Lists

One way to remain in control is to always be building your lists. Your email lists are the difference between success and failure when it comes to online marketing. Set up sign-ups for your newsletter or lists on your content and on your websites in ways that your audience cannot refuse. Plus, provide value by using the lists appropriately to build relationships and provide information.

Build Communities

One way to build relationships is to build online communities through your content marketing. Using your content, lists, and social media networks to build a community is an essential component of content marketing today. Because just producing the content isn’t enough; you have to push it out to your audience, too.

Finally, accepting that content marketing is an essential element of marketing today for all types of businesses will help you to get on board with the right marketing plan that will move your business forward.

Knowing how to scale content, or get the most out of your content, is an important idea that all small business owners need to understand. There is only so much time in the day, and only so much information that can be out there at any one time. If you don’t learn how to scale the content that you spend a lot of time, money and resources on, you’ll come up short.

Curate Compelling Content

Researching and finding content that your audience will find valuable outside of your own content is an important component of becoming a thought leader and getting your name into the discussion. Plan in advance to find the right content that relates to the information that you’ve created for the day, week or month. Share your thoughts on the content that you share, and link to the original source.

Use a Lot of Original Content

It is important to use at least as much original content as you do curated content. To craft content that speaks to your audience you need to always research your audience. Remember that while an audience may not change, e.g. “Housewives with children under 2 who stay at home,” their ideas change through the generations. You wouldn’t create content for the wife and mother who stays home with her young children today that has any relationship to content that you may have created back in 1960.

Craft Engaging Social Media Content

Remember that each social network has its own personality and values. You need to make sure the content you share on the social media matches this personality. You can edit and change it to make it fit. Share older evergreen content when it relates to a discussion on social media as an answer. Also, don’t be afraid to share everything more than once on the same social media. The people who are online right now may not be online later.

Repurpose Your Content Well

When you repurpose content, do not copy and paste into new formats. Truly change the personality of the content by using it as research and making it practically new for the different format. You don’t want it to look cookie cutter; you want it to look and feel new. All content should be housed on your website, so by making it new you avoid issues of duplicate content, and maintain the originality of the piece. Cross-link to all your content as needed to tie it in.

Tell Your Story

The best way to improve brand awareness is to find ways to tell your story. You’ll generate more leads and make more conversions by getting close to your audience, and letting them get to know who you are, why you are who you are, and what you stand for. Craft a compelling story that puts your audience front and center.

Plan in Advance

You know the saying that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. When it comes to content, nothing could be truer. You need to decide how much content you want to create, what formats the content will take, and how much curated content you want to add. In addition, you need to put it all in writing in the form of a publication calendar so that you can visually see how it all ties in with your product funnel.

Promote Everything

Whether it’s curated content, content you’ve created in its original form, or repurposed content, it’s important to share it all. Promotion is at the heart of your success. Promote via social media, pay per click, email marketing and affiliates. The more ways you can find to promote the content that you want your audience to see, the better conversions you’ll see.

Get Help

All of this seems like a lot of work, and it is. But, you can do it by getting help. You can outsource to individuals and manage everything yourself, or you can hire a company or a content manager or content strategist to help you with the process. You can be as hands on or off as you want as long as the content that is created and promoted fits your brand.

Your audience wants a continuous flow of information, and they want it in different forms and from different resources. You can offer them the best of all worlds by giving them the content you believe is valuable that other people create, and by providing them with your original content in many different forms for their use. Putting all that together in a cohesive form needs to be planned in advance to make it work seamlessly.