Content strategy is the plan for what content you'll produce, in what order, with what goals. Without a strategy, you're just publishing articles, many of which won't rank, won't convert, and won't compound.
Who, specifically. Industry, role, company size, maturity level. The more specific, the more useful. "Insurance agency owners with 2-10 producers" is useful. "Small business owners" is not.
10-20 topic areas your audience cares about. Each topic is a cluster of related queries. This comes from keyword research + audience interviews + competitor analysis.
Each topic area gets a pillar page (broad overview) + 5-15 cluster pages (narrow subtopics). Internal linking between them signals topical authority.
Based on intent: guides for informational, comparisons for commercial, product/landing pages for transactional, tools for engagement + links.
Quality bar every piece has to clear. Style guide, fact-checking, examples, visuals.
How much, how often. Better to publish 2 great pieces/month than 8 mediocre ones.
Publishing is 50% of the work. The rest is distribution: social, email, outreach, paid amplification for key pieces.
How you track success: rankings, organic traffic, conversion rates, backlinks, time on page.
For every potential piece, score:
Prioritize pieces that score high on demand + value + fit, medium on difficulty. That's the sweet spot.
Early-stage SEO efforts over-invest in top-funnel (chase volume, cheap competition). Over the long run, bottom-funnel content drives revenue, don't neglect it.
Google's Helpful Content Update demotes sites that publish too much thin content for SEO. If 30% of your library is weak, it pulls the strong 70% down with it. Mature content strategies prune as much as they produce.
Revisit quarterly. Strategies drift.