How To Create a Website Content Strategy: The 2023 Ultimate Guide

The key to a successful website lies not only in its design and functionality, but also in its content strategy. Your content is the backbone of your online presence, attracting and engaging your target audience and facilitating a closer relationship with your brand.

To help you create a winning website content strategy, I'll explore the crucial steps involved, including understanding your audience, planning your content, and tracking and optimizing its performance.

User research

The content strategy process begins where so many creative processes do: first, understand your audience. Conducting user research will help you gain insights into their needs, preferences, and pain points. If you have a product development budget and access to a pool of users, launch surveys and test prototypes using a tool like Maze.

For many businesses, however, this is outside the budget. If that's the case for you, start with readily accessible behavioral insights such as keyword research and your existing website data. If you have little user data accumulated, use a competitive intelligence tool to understand what's working for your competition.

You can also gain audience research insights using a tool like Sparktoro, which aggregates anonymized public social profiles to give you demographic and behavioral insights and critical sources of influence.

User stories

With this research, you'll have a solid foundation for crafting content that resonates with your audience. However, you should go a step further and create user stories. 

User stories help ground your content strategy in your audience's goals, values, or priorities. The format is flexible, but it generally works like this:

As a [type of user], I want [goal] so that [benefit].

Now, let's create an example:

As a health-conscious consumer, I prioritize using organic ingredients in my body care products to ensure they are safe and gentle on my skin.

Content planning

Once you have a solid understanding of your audience, it's time to devise a content plan. An excellent place to start is by defining your unique value proposition (UVP) – the distinct value you offer to your audience. A good UVP translates your research and user stories into a focused theme for developing content.

Here's an example:

Our content provides practical tips and insights for busy professionals to improve their productivity and work-life balance.

When planning your content, you must determine the types of content that best suit your audience's preferences while staying within your budget. Examples include articles, videos, animated gifs, podcasts, and more.

You can use a spreadsheet or Google doc, or if you're like me, keep as much of the planning as possible in your design and development tools. 

I create my content ideas as drafts in Webflow's content management system (CMS), with a target publish date. In Figma, I make a dedicated file for my animated social media posts. I wrap the animated frames in a section and add a target publish date.

Publishing your content

Remember to incorporate your keyword research in your planning process. Optimize your content by strategically placing keywords throughout your website, including page titles, headings, meta descriptions, and body text.

To help Google and other crawlers better understand your page content and make it eligible for rich results, use structured data such as breadcrumbs, product markup, and specify your logo.

Tracking and optimization

Once your content is live, monitor its performance and make data-driven optimizations. Implement web analytics tools like Google Analytics to track key metrics such as page views, bounce rates, and time on page. 

These insights will help you understand which content resonates with your audience and which areas need improvement.

Identify high-performing content and analyze what makes it successful. Is it the topic, the writing style, or the format? Use these insights to replicate success in future content creation. 

Similarly, identify underperforming content and analyze potential reasons for its lack of engagement. Revise and enhance these pieces or consider removing them altogether.

Additionally, if you have the budget, get direct user feedback. Encourage user comments, conduct surveys, and monitor social media mentions to understand how your audience perceives your content and whether it meets their expectations. Adjust your strategy accordingly to deliver the most valuable content possible.

Redesign based on insights

As you accumulate insights from tracking and optimization, you may find opportunities to improve your website's design and structure. Consider the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) elements that could enhance your content's accessibility and engagement.

Simplify navigation to help users quickly find the information they seek. Incorporate strong calls to action (CTAs) to guide visitors towards desired activities, such as subscribing to a newsletter or making a purchase. Optimize your website's loading speed to prevent frustration and improve user experience. Responsive design is also essential, ensuring your content is easily accessible across various devices.

Finally, leverage your insights to refine your content strategy further. Fine-tune your user stories based on your collected data and adapt your content to meet evolving audience needs. Continuously test and iterate your content strategy to stay ahead of the curve and maintain a competitive edge.

Final thoughts

Creating a winning website content strategy requires a deep understanding of your audience, meticulous planning, continuous tracking, and strategic optimization. By putting your audience at the center of your content creation process, you can develop engaging and valuable content that resonates with them.

Combine this with data-driven insights and a commitment to ongoing improvement, and your website will become a powerful tool for attracting, engaging, and delighting your target audience. Start crafting your website content strategy today, and pave the way for online success.