6 resources for your blog content strategy

The biggest piece of advice I could ever provide is not to roll all up into blogging without a plan.

And since so many steps can go into building and managing a blog, I’ve brainstormed a few ideas and resources for your blog content strategy! I recommend getting started with reviewing your existing analytics, or choose from the table of contents below:

Content strategy and planning

I use Notion and created a database for my own content strategy and planning for BE3Designs. I use it to outline my newsletter, and blog articles, using this to pull ideas from for social posts.

💡 Tip: Depending on how you prefer visualizing or organizing your information, you could search for a Notion template online, build your own, or use another project management tool like Trello or Miro. All the free versions of these services will suffice for basic needs!

Some of the benefits you’ll find with working within an app like these are:

• Consolidating ideas
• Breaking your ideas out into categories or topics
• Planning series, tying content together
• Writing directly in the app or linking to a document
• Filtering by status type
• Scheduling a publishing calendar

If all of your ideas and planning are living in your mind, you might find it hard to make sense of everything. Even if you just get a good old-fashioned notebook and write it all out by hand, or speak it into an audio recording – the organization and thought process will help, I promise, promise!

Refresh old blog content

Remember that your entire catalog of blog posts are in the running for more content updates.

The same day I wrote this draft, I read a news article that outlined a quote someone at Google made recently about favicons. I recalled that I had a 6-month old blog post about favicons, so I spent some time editing, adding new copy/content, and external links, making it topical again!

(In 2024, that article about favicons was one of my top performing organic posts!)

💡 Tip: You don’t have to stop at reviewing your existing blog posts either. If you’ve been writing a newsletter or engaging on social media, you might have even more material to inspire you.

A lot of my newsletters turn into blog posts out of the sheer amount of information I could share but would simply be too much for an email.

(That meeting could’ve been an email, but this email could’ve been a blog post, y’know?)

Review your website analytics

You can use a combination of Google Analytics tracking and Google Search Console monitoring to get an idea of what your top search queries and page visits are.

💡 Tip: If you aren’t yet tracking your website traffic you can use my tutorial for setting up and connecting Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

This can help show you what information your visitors are already looking for that you can now plan to provide.

This is how I determined that I would not only keep but update an old Facebook article from 2016, when I launched the latest version of my website. This post ended up being responsible for driving 13% of my organic traffic in 2024!

Research your audience

One of the benefits of having a newsletter, subscriber or follower list is being able to directly ask your audience what they want to learn or read more about.

If you don’t have these things or are nervous to come straight out and ask, you have to take research into your own hands. You might not even need to be Carmen Sandiego about it.

Luckily, there are a number of free tools out there that can get you thinking about your blog content strategy:

Answer the Public

When you already have an idea of what your audience searches for, tools like Answer The Public allow you to enter 1-2 words to determine long-tail keywords, and see common questions users ask relating to your topic. 

These ideas could be used directly as headline titles in your blog posts or provide some inspiration on topics to write about in the first place.

SparkToro

Using data from public social media profiles and SERPs, SparkToro allows you to discover affinities amongst your audience. 

You may learn that a majority of your audience listens to the same podcast, frequents the same websites, or asks the same questions. This can be valuable information when you’re choosing what topics to write about, what platforms to spend time on, or what to stay up to date with.

People Also Ask

If you’ve searched a question online, you have likely seen several websites listed before the SERP shows you a list of questions that people also ask.

This is done in an effort to help focus your question, in case the original results weren’t helpful enough. It can also provide some great ideas for topics to blog about!

Take for example, the search term ‘editing services’.

That’s a pretty general keyword. If you searched only that you might see a couple local results if you have your location settings turned on but Google will quickly offer you more detailed questions to streamline your results:

People also ask:

• How much do editing services charge?
• What does an editing service do?
• How much does an editing job cost?
• How much should I charge to edit a 50,000 word book?

If none of your main web pages already focus on these long-tail keywords, this is a great opportunity to put them in place.

Update existing pages

On an existing service page for ‘editing services’, you could create a new section with an H2 headline of ‘How much do editing services charge?’ or ‘How much does an editing job cost?’.

Now, instead of only having the term ‘editing service’ on the page, you have added a frequently asked question (and will need to provide an answer). This helps optimize the page!

Create a blog post

In instances where it doesn’t make sense to update an existing page on your website, or you have the capacity and experience to put together a more in-depth and lengthy piece of content, you’ll want to create a blog post.

Taking the question, ‘What does an editing service do?’ I have my post title. 

While your service page may already outline what you do specifically, you could use this blog post to hone in on specific aspects or phases of the service that you aren’t able to get into on the main page.

Then, by linking internally to and from your existing service or contact pages, you’re providing some base-level optimization to your website.

Pull from existing material

I started my newsletter in February 2024 and learned quickly from my word count tool that I can in fact be, quite wordy. 

Whether it’s my ADHD jumping from thought to thought, or I’m performing an anxiety to make sure I say everything I need to, I got into the habit of opening my blog planner in a new tab whenever I was working on a newsletter draft. Why?

Because I can copy and paste my big ideas from one to the other, and each time a newsletter became too long, I knew there was an opportunity to dig deeper into the topic or message. (My WordPress vs WP Engine article was born this way.)

Even now, within my 2025 blog strategy, I have a task to review all my 2024 newsletters to see if there are any bits and pieces that are worth revisiting and digging in on in a blog article.

The same could be done with social media posts, engagement, or community conversations.

Partner with another blog or copywriter

There may be instances where you’ve uncovered an imperative topic but you don’t have the capacity or expertise to write your post.

Two options to consider for your blog from time to time is to hire a copywriter, or, partner with another individual or organization to share or extend content.

Hire a copywriter for your blog

Some people outsource all of their blog or social media content, but it may not be something that is in your budget right now. That doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of some support.

Last year, I determined two things: that I needed to update a popular but very outdated blog post of mine, and that I wasn’t the best person to write it right now. 

So, I set aside some budget to hire a copywriter to take care of the bulk of the content for me.

It was the smartest thing I could do because:

• it left me available to take on other content or work that I was better suited for,
• I already had the rough outline of the original to provide as source material, 
• it meant that I could continue living my best life without a Facebook account, and 
• most importantly, it updated instructions and screenshots on what is my highest incoming organic traffic post to date.

Hire a consultant for your blog

A copywriter may not be what you need, you might just need some help strategizing, brainstorming, and/or leeching any residual creative energy from those around you!

Firstly, if you don’t have the budget to work with a professional right now, you can still consider looking to your inner circle for ideas:

• Ask those you know if they have ever had any questions about what you do,
• Talk to current or previous clients/customers about problems you helped solve and consider how that was done,
• Look at social media, Reddit, and SERP to see what people in your industry or your audience are talking about,
• Create a survey with questions that will help you learn more about your audience and share the link.

At the end of each of my newsletters I usually ask a question or include a CTA to invite readers to reply back with any feedback or questions they might have. The feedback I’ve received has inspired both blog content ideas and new service offerings!

Sending out a SEO survey resulted in my gaining insights from over a dozen blog owners, their common questions, and concerns – enough data to put together an entire selection of informational and tutorial content that will help support their own efforts.

Sometimes we are just stuck in our own heads.

Did you know that it’s not uncommon for web designers to go through 17 million iterations of their own home page before they decide on something they’ll never fully be set on? Sometimes when it’s our stuff, it’s just harder to figure out.

If you have the budget, connect with a professional who offers something like 1:1 coaching or consulting services, or a networking group or professional organization who provides regular AMA sessions. 

Sitting down and going through what you’ve worked on so far, telling others more about what you do, your goals, and vision, can get you out of your head and start brainstorming more objectively on what you want to write about.

Guest blogging and backlinks

Another great way to strategize your blog content is to consider what topics you could guest post for and what you may want to feature from guests.

One benefit is that someone else is responsible for content creation for your website – freeing your time up, or you could earn a sweet, sweet backlink.

Backlinks are created when one website links to another website. These inbound or incoming links can provide authority which improves your rank.

An organization may approach you for a backlink by requesting you link to their website within some content featured on your website and in return they will place a link to your website on theirs.

💡 Tip: Make sure the content is relatable, ethical, and just overall makes sense. There are still tools in place to measure the strength, trust, and helpfulness backlinks provide to users.

You may also earn a guest blogger who will write content for your site in agreement for you including a link to their website. Or, flip the scenario around and guest post on another website to earn more referrals to yours.

💡 Tip: Do not reuse the same content on both websites, this will be flagged as duplicate content by search engines and only one or neither of the web pages will be indexed.

Resources for your blog content strategy

Let’s recap the six resources I’ve outlined that you should use when outlining your blog strategy:

1. Content strategy and planning shouldn’t be overlooked, use templates if they help
2. You can plan to refresh old, existing blog content within your publishing schedule
3. You can review website analytics and monitoring data to see what your top search queries and web pages are
4. You can research what your audience interests or concerns are
5. You can pull ideas from existing material you’ve created in other mediums
6. You can hire a copywriter, consultant, or partner with a guest blogger

I think “blogging” is intimidating to most people. It immediately feels intense in terms of time, commitment, imagination, and management.

But it feels less so when you’re better prepared, you have a plan of attack, and open your mind to the habit of brainstorming and imagination!