Finding/Building Content Strategy

[seointern]

I'm looking for two things: 1. Some top notch  articles on building out a content strategy for a blog (coupon blog is more relevant). 2. Tools that can help to determine target keywords to focus on (Most I've seen are where the keywords start with me, are their any that will help to predict which keywords are relevant for our blog & that would be great to target).

Any feedback/discussion on either is greatly appreciated!

[StreamlineMetrics]

I'm going to answer your second question first. I am a HUGE fan of www.longtailpro.com to come up with keyword ideas. You simply enter in 4 or 5 base keywords and it automatically generates thousands of other relevant keywords using the Google AdWords keyword tool. The best thing about LTP is that it also determines organic search volume and competitiveness as well as the SEOmoz API to determine keyword difficulty so you can uncover keywords with decent search volume and low competition to instantly rank well and start getting traffic from. I've praised LTP many times before in this forum but I feel like it still hasn't really caught on in the mainstream SEO community, probably because I think the webpage looks kinda spammy. But I promise it's legit so it's certainly worth checking out.

I also want to recommend checking out http://www.hittail.com/ which analyzes your current organic traffic and uncovers long tail keywords that you could rank higher for if you create more content to target a particular keyword.

Here are some content strategy resources I have found useful

http://overit.com/blog/content-strategy

http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/the-content-marketing-manifesto (the above article also links to this)

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2010/07/31/blog-content-strategy-101/

http://thecouponproject.com/2011/02/blogging-series-five-ideas-for-hooking-your-readers.html

[EGOL]

In my opinion, a content strategy should be based upon.....

1. what people in your topic area are searching for

2. what you think those people should know (beyond what they are looking for)

3. your ability to produce content for topics that overlap 1 and 2

4. what content is fun for you to create

5. what content is going to advance your business goals or make money

If nobody is searching for the stuff in your topic area then you might need a new project.  If lots of people are searching but the content is hard to monetize then you might need a new project (unless you are doing this as a hobby).

The best situation when you have a convergence of 1, 3, 4 and 5.

[seointern]

Yes, I understand that approach, but that's basically sitting down with a blank piece of paper in front of me & guessing on that data.

What I'm looking for are more of a written out approach & how to get to your conclusions, but have valuable data in front of me (either my own from our analytics, or another tool that can help to guide us where opportunities lie). I'd like to have some information in front of me that helps me to better determine all 5 steps that you map out above. Does that make sense?

[ScriptiLabs]

There are a ton of great resources with in the SEOmoz blog: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/category/content-and-blogging

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-increase-the-odds-of-your-content-going-viral-whiteboard-friday

[seointern]

Excellent thanks for the articles & tools. The Long Tail Pro does look a little spammy, it appears the owner hangs out with the 'Biz Opp' crowd which always scares me a bit.

I'll dig through the articles & see what I can find...thanks!

[EGOL]

Determine the basic core knowledge needed for success in your topic area.

Decide where you have writable expertise.

Do some keyword research to see what people are asking about.

Write where you can produce best-on-the-web content that will be valuable to visitors.

For me there is so many possible topics to write about I spend my time between...  A) basic core knowledge needed in the topic area... and B) what is fun to write

"B" gets most of my time because I am more productive doing work that is fun.

[seointern]

Ok, I think I've got a good outline of what needs to be done. I guess I left out one thing in my question, is that I'm not going to be the one putting together the content. Do you have any suggestions on how to hire or train someone a good content author? Or any good services that I should look into?