Content strategy for beginners: where to start
What a content strategy is and how to build one in 6 steps: goals, audience, pillars, keywords with pillars and clusters, calendar and metrics.
In 30 seconds
- A content strategy decides what content to create, for whom, why, on which channels and how to measure it.
- You start from your audience's real questions, not from what you want to say: Google rewards «people-first» content and the E-E-A-T criteria.
- For SEO you use the pillar and cluster model: one main page on a broad topic and many articles on specific questions, linked together.
- A few useful, up-to-date pieces beat lots of rushed articles.
A content strategy is the plan that decides what content to create (articles, videos, posts, guides, newsletters), for whom, with what goal, on which channels and how to measure whether it works. It stops you publishing at random: every piece answers a real question from your audience and moves the site or brand closer to a goal, such as more visits from Google or more customers.
What content strategy is
Writing articles is easy. Writing the right articles, the ones people search for and that help the site grow, takes a plan. American consultant Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for the Web (2009), describes it as planning for the creation, publication and governance of useful, usable content.
| Content strategy | Content marketing | Editorial calendar | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | The overall plan | Creating and distributing content | The publishing schedule |
| Question | What, for whom, why? | How do we attract the audience? | When and who? |
| Time frame | 6-12 months | Ongoing | 1-3 months |
What a content strategy is for
A content strategy answers four questions:
- Who are we writing for?
- What do we talk about (and what not)?
- Why: which goal do we want to reach?
- How do we know if it works?
Without these answers you end up publishing disconnected articles that bring neither visits nor customers.
How to build a content strategy in 6 steps
1. The goal
A measurable goal with a deadline: “2,000 visits a month from the blog within 6 months”, “50 newsletter sign-ups a month”. Before starting, run a content audit: a list of existing content with visits and results, to decide what to update, merge or remove.
2. The audience
Describe your readers: what they already know, what they’re missing, what problems they have. For the fictional shop Five Leaf: people who drink tea every day but aren’t experts and want to understand what they buy.
3. Themes (pillars)
Choose 3-5 big themes, always the same. For Five Leaf: making tea, choosing tea, herbal teas and times of day, origins and producers.
4. Keywords
For each theme, find the questions people ask Google, with volume and intent. How to do it is explained in how to choose keywords. Organise them in groups: a main article (pillar) on a broad topic and some supporting articles (clusters) on specific questions, linked together.
5. The calendar
Decide pace and order: the most useful articles first, and seasonal ones ahead of time (hot-tea guides before autumn, gift guides before November). How to build a social media calendar is explained in social media content calendar.
6. Metrics
For each piece of content, choose what to watch, based on the goal:
| Goal | KPI | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Getting found | Impressions, clicks, average position | Google Search Console |
| Getting read | Engagement time, scroll | Google Analytics 4 |
| Generating leads | Sign-ups, downloads | Google Analytics 4, newsletter tool |
| Selling | Clicks to products, purchases | Google Analytics 4, with UTM links |
Check after a few months, because SEO isn’t immediate: a new article can take weeks or months to find its position.
An example
| Theme | Main article | Supporting articles |
|---|---|---|
| Making tea | How to make green tea | Water temperature; How long to steep; Why green tea tastes bitter |
| Choosing tea | Types of tea: the guide | Green or black tea?; What is Sencha; Matcha for beginners |
Each supporting article links to the main one and vice versa: for Google it’s a sign the site knows the topic well.
What Google wants: helpful content and E-E-A-T
Google asks for people-first content, not content made for search engines. In its search quality rater guidelines it uses the E-E-A-T criteria, adding the first E in December 2022:
- Experience: has the writer actually tried what they’re talking about?
- Expertise: do they know the subject?
- Authoritativeness: is the site a reference for that topic?
- Trustworthiness: is the information correct, with clear sources and author? It’s the most important point.
In practice: real examples, numbers, cited sources, a named author, up-to-date information.
The most common mistakes
- Writing about what interests the company rather than the readers.
- Publishing a lot at the start and then disappearing.
- Never updating old articles: updating one often pays off more than writing a new one.
- Making health claims in articles about tea and herbal teas: in the European Union, for food, only authorised claims can be used.
- Copying competitors’ article structure without adding anything new.
To choose the right words, read how to choose keywords and search intent.
Sources
- Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content (Google Search Central)
- Our latest update to the quality rater guidelines: E-A-T gets an extra E (Google Search Central Blog, December 2022)
- Kristina Halvorson, Content Strategy for the Web, New Riders, 2009
A tea shop wants to start a blog. What's the first step?
Correct! First you understand who you're talking to and what they want to know; then you choose topics, keywords and pace.
Not quite. Publishing a lot without knowing who for leads to articles nobody searches for; the company history means little to people who don't know you yet.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between content strategy and content marketing?
Content strategy is the plan: goals, audience, themes, rules, metrics. Content marketing is the activity of creating and distributing useful content to attract and keep an audience. The strategy guides the content marketing.
What's the difference between a content strategy and an editorial calendar?
The strategy says what and why (audience, goals, themes). The editorial calendar says when and who (dates, formats, authors).
How many articles a month do I need?
As many as you can do well and keep up to date. For a small site, two careful articles a month is a great start.
What is a pillar page?
It's a broad, complete page on a topic (for example «Types of tea: the guide») that links to many more specific articles, the clusters. Together they show Google and readers that the site covers that topic well.
Can I use AI to write content?
Google says quality matters, not how content is produced: using automation to create lots of pages just to manipulate rankings is against its policies. AI-assisted text should be checked, enriched with real experience and fact-checked.
Topics:SEOContent