STEP 2 - PLANNING

The first step in planning our piece of content is to decide what form we want it to take. Some ideas will be stronger if they are represented visually, and could warrant an infographic or video. Other pieces of content may be best suited for plaintext.

For those, a blog post, article, or eBook might be the best form. We can gain a lot of insight by investigating which types of content have already been created around our topic. For example, type our topic idea (or keyword) into Google and see what kind of content comes up on page one. Are there videos? Do the URLs link back to infographics? Do images appear in the SERP? Knowing which types of content already exist around your topic should help inform your decision about what type of content to make.

In addition, during the planning stages you’ll want to make sure you’re doing appropriate keyword research around your topic. When creating web content, you’ll need to select a keyword to target so that you can integrate the keyword appropriately into your content as you write, not after the fact.

The next step is to decide on the scale of your content project. If your content idea is specific and limited, you may only need one blog post, video, or article to properly address the topic.

But if you’re approaching a large topic, especially something central to your business’s value proposition or area of expertise, you may need to create multiple pieces of content around this one idea. Successful content creators will decide exactly what their finished project will look like before they even start writing or creating.

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