What is your strategy for aligning content ideation with your overall content strategy?

Most creative people are buried with Contant ideas. They’re all around us morning and night. Interestingly enough some of those ideas pop into our heads at 3 AM in the morning. The challenge becomes deciphering, which ones will benefit our readers the most. We all want views, no one strategy fits every post opportunity. For me, I try AB testing sometimes ABC and D. One of the most important things to consider is, we can always take down content that doesn’t resonate and replace it with something else that may do a better job. I don’t care how proficient we like to think we are, we’re constantly learning and growing. We learn from the feedback we receive it’s important to pay attention to that feedback. It’s important to enjoy the journey

Before brainstorming content ideas, define your content goals and target audience. Your goals should guide topic selection. For lead generation, address pain points and offer solutions. For brand awareness, showcase expertise and connect with audience interests and emotions

While defining your content goals: 1. Be realistic in goal setting. Everybody wants to qualify leads from content. Decide based on where your org is in their content marketing journey. If you are just starting out, aim for getting in front of relevant people. 2. Look at the traffic data for your primary keywords. Set goals to rank for some low comp keywords first. Be specific of the search phrases you include in your goals. Instead of aiming to rank for “the best product” aim for “the best product in your location” first.

Simply search for the most specific keyword for your product and look at the competitors that come up. All tools work on fremiums so before you go into the comparing features spiral, get a basic sense of what your competitors are doing. Make it quick. Do not spend a lot of time clicking between pages. Skim the blogs page of competitors first. Your brain will automatically look for common terms in different blogs. Repeat the process, but this time, stop and look at the first blog that catches your eye. You will get a sense of what kind of content style your competitors are using. Once you are done with this, go crazy on tools. Google Keyword Planner People Also Ask Small SEO Tools SemRush Free Ahref Free Are my top pics.

To align your content ideation with your strategy, research your content landscape and competitors. Identify gaps, opportunities, and trends using tools like BuzzSumo, SEMrush, or Ahrefs for content analysis. Spy on competitors with tools like SpyFu, Moz, or SimilarWeb to see what works and what doesn't in their content strategy.

I'm a huge advocate for establishing your content pillars before brainstorming content ideas. Your content pillars are the 3-5 broad thematic areas you want to cover. It's important that they have business value meaning they should tie back the value you provide to your clients. I had a client who was a personal trainer. Her content pillars included Fitness workouts, Diet & nutrition, Physical health issues and Fitness apparel. Why? because these all directly relate to the solutions she provided to her clients.

To generate and validate content ideas, use a framework and tools. A content ideation framework, like PASTOR (Problem, Agitate, Solution, Testimonial, Offer, Response), helps craft compelling ideas. Tools like AnswerThePublic, HubSpot's Blog Ideas Generator, or Portent's Content Idea Generator can generate ideas based on keywords, niche, or audience

After brainstorming content ideas, map them to your buyer's journey and content calendar. This ensures alignment with your content strategy and timely delivery to your audience. The buyer's journey consists of awareness, consideration, and decision stages, and your content should match each. Use a content calendar to schedule and manage content production, assigning ideas to dates, channels, and formats for tracking progress and performance

To align content ideation with your strategy, test and optimize. Measure content results using tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, or ContentStudio to track metrics like traffic, engagement, conversions, and retention. Experiment with content elements using tools like Google Optimize, Crazy Egg, or Hotjar for improvements in headlines, images, calls to action, and layouts. Use data and insights to enhance your content quality and effectiveness.

I have developed a unique cognitive framework for transferring concepts into content through the years. I ideate constantly and triage my best thoughts (topics) into a content hierarchy. Those pieces showing the most potential become my top priority. On LinkedIn, all content I create is interrelated and forms the connective tissue of my business. I encourage my clients and students to develop a deep, vibrant portfolio of original work they can feature on this platform. Whether it is to escalate status, attract influencers, or build community, the purpose of content is to serve the creator's purpose. The ongoing challenge is gauging the tastes and preferences of those on the receiving end. As creators, we can only infer so much.