How to Create a Blog Content Strategy16 min read

Blogging can be one of the most effective and rewarding tactics in your marketing toolkit. When planned and written thoughtfully, blogs can continue to drive people to your website, build affinity with your audience, and offer valuable insight for years to come. But like any part of your marketing strategy, thoughtful strategy and planning are the secrets to blogging success.

What Blogs Can (and Can’t) Do for Your Marketing

Blogs are one of our favorite marketing tactics for a reason. Here’s what well-written and well-planned blog posts can do for you, your website, and your overall marketing efforts.

• Provide your ideal client with answers to some of their most important questions and insight into their most common challenges
• Improve the chances that people find you when searching for your product or services online
• Build trust with your audience, inspiring them to contact you
• Connect people with other resources or products on your website
• Improve your website’s health and functionality
• Appease the Google algorithm

What Blogs Can’t Do for Your Marketing (Usually)

Blogs are a great marketing tool, but they can’t do everything. This isn’t a list of reasons to skip blogging! Think of it as parameters for framing your expectations, because blogs typically can’t help:

• Get you more clients immediately
• Get you more sales immediately
• Immediately make your website show up on page one of Google search results for everything you write about

Blogs are a long-term investment. They take time to mature in the algorithm. If you’re not getting more clients right away, or any of the other goals you’d hoped to achieve right away, it might be time to consider a paid advertising campaign to supplement your blogging.

There will always be exceptions to this rule. And that’s the benefits of working with an agency like DVS: we can make recommendations about how to use blogs to build your marketing strategy and when to break the rules in order to reach your goals.

Five Steps to Build Your Blog Strategy

Ready to get writing? Here’s how to set yourself up for success.

1. Determine Your Goals

Lay out the things you want to accomplish. Do you want your website to show up in Google search? Do you want more website traffic? Do you want to have interesting, helpful things for your ideal customers to read? Do you want to build trust with people who would benefit from your services? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, blogs can help you get there. (If you answered “no,” contact us and we’ll help you create a marketing plan that meets your needs.)

2. Identify Your Audience’s Needs

Think about the questions your customers have most often. What do they struggle with? What are their aspirations? What would help them trust your expertise? Many of the businesses we work with know their customers well, so it’s easy to answer these questions. Take a few moments and make a list of ideas; if you need ideas, talk to your reception or customer service staff—whoever spends the most time talking to people.

3. Write for Your Audience, Answering Their Questions

Now, write about these things! Cover one topic per blog and if you can, include other information that might come up. For example, one of the most common customer questions is about pricing, regardless of industry. You could write a blog about pricing breakdowns and include more details about any financing options you might offer or strategies for making the most of a limited budget. You could also include links to videos demonstrating your products to emphasize their quality.

If you haven’t written many blogs before, don’t worry. Just answer the questions and be yourself! (If you find yourself struggling at this step, DVS is happy to help! Our team of writers can help you come up with ideas; organize them in an editorial calendar; and write, publish, and optimize your articles.)

4. Wait Patiently

Blogs take time to mature in the algorithm—that’s why they’re a good tool for building long-term relationships with the people you want to attract. It just takes time. In fact, it’s not uncommon for some articles to gain traction months after we publish it. Not because it’s a bad article or because it’s irrelevant, it’s just the way the Google algorithm works.

Additionally, the Google algorithm has been notoriously volatile, in 2024 especially. Volatility means changes in how the algorithm processes and prioritizes different aspects of your articles, which can affect how they perform. That’s why we always recommend knowing your audience and writing for them. Providing human, helpful content has been the best way to consistently weather changes as they happen—all while staying true to your brand and your customers.

4. Review Blog Data Regularly

Blogs are supposed to work for you. The best way to see if they’re working is by analyzing the data. If you’re not sure what to look at first, start with:

• The keywords it ranks for
• The number of people who visit the page
• The amount of time people spend on the blog page

If the data reveals that your blogs aren’t performing the way you need them to, you can edit the content to make the blog more effective. This is one of the most truly wonderful advantages of digital marketing—you can review and improve as you go.

Want a Hand Blog Planning? DVS Can Help

If you’ve been thinking about your company’s blog and what you want to write about, I hope this article inspires you. If you’ve been looking for some guidance about creating a more targeted blog strategy, I hope you find it instructive.

If you would rather pay someone else to manage your blog for you, the DVS team is happy to help. We have years of experience building strategies to meet different goals and address different audiences. We can help you create a keyword strategy, assess performance, and come up with innovative ways to meet your goals. And we can plan everything for you in an editorial calendar that lets you see what we’ll write about, when, and why. Our team also enjoys collaborating with experts like you to write articles that reflect your years of experience and expertise. Plus, we never use AI to write articles, ensuring your content will be unique, original, correct, and full of that je ne sais quoi that AI simply can’t provide.

Call DVS for All Your Blog Needs

Content is our bread and butter. If you’d like to get started blogging, please don’t hesitate to give our team a call. Our writers and content strategists can’t wait to meet you, learn more about your goals, and how we can use blogs to help you reach them. Send us a message to get started or give us a call at 616.975.9911. We look forward to hearing from you!