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How to Build a Content Writing Strategy for Your Blog
Award-winning writer Kathy Widenhouse has helped hundreds of nonprofits and writers produce successful content , with 750K+ views for her writing tutorials. She is the author of 9 books. See more of Kathy’s content here.
Updated 5.14.25
When you start a blog, you may not even think about a content writing strategy. You’re too busy choosing a domain, enrolling with a web host, and picking a template. Then, you’re gung ho about your first post.
Up it goes, live, and you can’t wait for the world to read your masterpiece. Friends and family log on and read and comment. But then … crickets. Or confusion. What do you write about next?
If your blog is truly a weblog — an online journal of your journey through cancer or raising an autistic child or single living in a city — then you needn’t worry about a content writing strategy. You’re simply recording your personal experiences. Your goal is less about gaining a following and more about processing your experiences in words.
But if you want more visitors to your blog, you need a different approach. A strategic one.
Build a content writing strategy with keywords
A healthy blog content writing strategy starts with building anchor pages. And to build anchor pages, you need to identify your blog’s keywords. Keywords are terms and phrases that define a piece of content. What will your site be about? Answer that question to choose your site’s primary keyword phrase.
Search engines feed on keywords for page results rankings. The keywords you choose drive readers to your website or blog platform for free. That’s called organic traffic. Your site’s primary keyword summarizes your site content. It’s the foundation for your content writing strategy.
Let’s say you’re an angling enthusiast and want to write a blog about night fishing. Your main keyword phrase? Simple — “night fishing.” You’ll use that phrase for your homepage.
Plan and track your content with the refillable, re-usable Content Writing Template
Identify secondary keyword phrases
Now do a little homework. Your goal is to identify a list of keyword phrases you can use to build additional anchor pages in your site structure — and in turn, a blog writing strategy. What kinds of information are important for “night fishing”?
You do a bit of keyword research (here’s how) and discover additional keywords that return high in search results:
- Night fishing in a boat
- Night fishing in saltwater
- Night fishing in rivers
- Night fishing lights
- Night fishing near me
These terms are now your secondary keyword phrases. They’ll become anchor pages on your site and form the backbone of your blog’s navigation. You’ll link to them from your navigation.
Over time, you’ll add more to your list of secondary keyword phrases and build a more robust site structure. But now, you have an additional five pages to write (in addition to your homepage) and keywords to use to guide you.
Dig even deeper to choose tertiary pages
Your content writing strategy does not go willy-nilly at this point. Instead, you’re even more purposeful. You dig a little deeper with keyword research into each of the secondary keyword phrases you’ve identified.
Let’s do an example with “night fishing lights” — one of your secondary keyword phrases and an anchor on your navigation bar. Your research reveals these helpful keywords.
- Night fishing light set up
- Night fishing lights for boats
- Night fishing lights for rods
- Night fishing lights for crappie
- Night fishing spotlights
These keyword phrases become your tertiary pages. Write a post on each topic. Then link to these pages from their parent page on the navigation.
Add it up: you’ve got 31 pages to write
Your research has given you a plan! You have a homepage and five secondary pages to write. These anchor pages give your blog a starting structure. And attached to each of those anchor pages are tertiary keyword phrases — at least five of each of them for your secondary pages — to give your blog depth.
That adds up to a grand total of 31 posts to write. They are posts that are strategically chosen to help build your readership and build your rankings because they’re based on keyword research. You have the foundation for a content writing strategy that works — and you can add secondary and tertiary pages along the way, following the same approach.
Now, work your plan. Write 31 quality posts. When they’re on your site and live, collect additional keywords to add more anchor pages and more tertiary posts. Your blog will grow, one page at a time. Soon, you’ll become the web’s go-to expert on night fishing … or your own specialty niche.
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