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This is my year of smart content strategy and content creation. My word for this year is Consistency.

With visibility and consistency comes content creation. And it will help me take my marketing to the next level. And full disclosure, this year with content creation, my main focus is SEO, Facebook and YouTube.

I realized last year was an AMAZING year for my business, but for the majority of the year I did everything for myself. Having a VA towards the end of the year has been a godsend.

Quick Ways To Create Ideas For Content

So with my content strategy, I start with a brain dump and I even have my VA help me with this.  This ONE thing gives me content for a while.

Check out the video:

See how super simple it is to just start brainstorming? Once you get started it usually gets easier.  I'd seriously take 15 – 20 minutes, put on some awesome music and start getting it together.

One thing I did forget to mention in the video is to go in Facebook groups so you can see what questions your ideal client asks.

How To Create A Content Strategy

This is the meat and potatoes folks! Let's talk about how you can create a content strategy.  If this is your year to get consistent, buckle up because you're in for a treat!

Map Out Launches On Your Calendar

So the first thing I think about are launches that I want to accomplish.  Actually the very first thing I do is put any scheduled vacations we have with the family on my calendar so those important dates are documented. With my business, my family comes first and that's a nonnegotiable.

Once vacations (and kids off days) are on the calendar, I add in my launch dates.  In my Q1 I don't have anything launching as I'm focusing on building my list the first three months of the quarter.

Because I'm focused on list building, on my calendar I'm going to put when I want new freebies to go live.

Now that you have your launches on your calendar, you can add in content around your launch.  If you are wanting to create a big launch, I'd suggest to start planning content a few months before your designated date, then start sharing content 45 – 60 days before hand.

You could create teasers and actionable items for your potential clients to take to get them closer to their goals (in regards to your launch topic). Worksheets are great AND you can use them to collect emails and grow your list too.

At this point you can start mapping out webinar or video strategy too.  Are you going to have webinars? How many are you going to have? What are the topics going to be about?

You should be thinking about what your potential clients need and want to hear.  Brainstorm again or ask in a Facebook group to see what your audience is struggling this. This could even help you with modules in your launch/program.

Editorial Calendar Time

Now that you've got the big pieces picked out, you can create an editorial calendar.  I use a simple Google Spreadsheet and have each month on their own tab. It's super easy for me to use and I love knowing who/what I'm going to be writing.

Here's what mine looks like:

Creating an editorial calendar can be easy if you plan properly. Here is a template that I use to manage my content.
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Well that's just what the template looks like.  It's relatively simple and easy to use.  If you want to use it, you can access it HERE.  Make sure you click on “File” and then “Make A Copy” so that you can use and save it to your Google Drive. Or you can download it too.

I like being able to see all the articles I want to create in one place.

And if I don't get to something one month or I need to switch things around, I just copy and paste it onto the next month.

What I'd do is take all the info from your launches and enter it into your editorial calendar first, so you know where you will already have content.

Next, I'd add in any other ideas that are important to you or that are going to be super helpful to your followers and target audience.  Oh, and any holidays that are important to you and can potentially help you with marketing.  I'd add content ideas around those too!

Once you know that you have added in everything you need, you can readjust as necessary. Now you have the “base” for your editorial and content strategy for your blog.

It's that simple 🙂  The most important thing is to just keep it consistent.  For me, my publish dates for my blogs are Mondays and Thursdays 🙂 I'll have 104 pieces of content in a year if I keep my consistency up and it will feel so good!

So this was just a general overview of how I create my content and research content topics.  To me, when I first started thinking about creating a content strategy and trying to come up with topics to write about, it was overwhelming, but now I feel like I never run out of ideas.

I hope this helped you at least spark some ideas on content creation and how to rock your content strategy. How do you create your editorial/content calendar? Do you stick to it? I'd love to hear about it!

Also, I'd love to connect with you on Facebook. Stop by my Business Page and say hi… just click here.

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