content-strategy

name	content-strategy
description	Use when the user wants to plan a content strategy, decide what content to create, or figure out what topics to cover. Also use when the user mentions 'content strategy,' 'what should we write about,' 'content calendar,' 'content pillars,' 'editorial calendar,' or 'blog strategy.'

Content Strategy

Expert knowledge for planning, prioritizing, and executing a content program that drives organic traffic, builds authority, and converts readers into customers.

Core Framework: The Topic Cluster Model

• Pillar page: Comprehensive, authoritative guide on a broad topic (2,000-5,000+ words)
• Cluster content: Narrower posts that cover subtopics in depth, internally linking to the pillar
• Internal links: Every cluster page links to the pillar; pillar links to each cluster

Pillar selection criteria: High search volume (> 5,000/month), directly relevant to ICP decision-making, your product solves the core problem, you can produce 8-15 cluster posts around it.

Step 1: Audience Intent Mapping

Stage	Intent	Content Type
Unaware	Learning about a problem	Educational guides, "what is X"
Problem-aware	Researching solutions	How-to guides, comparison content
Solution-aware	Evaluating specific products	Review content, case studies
Product-aware	Comparing you vs competitors	Vs pages, feature deep-dives, ROI content
Customer	Getting more value	Knowledge base, advanced guides

Bottom-of-funnel content converts at 5-10× the rate of top-of-funnel.

Step 2: Content Audit (existing sites)

• Keep + optimize: Good content that ranks but could be improved
• Update: Outdated content with remaining potential
• Merge: Multiple thin posts on the same topic
• Remove: Content with no traffic and no purpose

Step 3: Keyword Research & Prioritization

Prioritization matrix:

Criteria	Weight
Monthly search volume	25%
Business relevance (ICP fit)	35%
Keyword difficulty (inverted)	25%
CTA / conversion fit	15%

High business relevance beats high search volume.

Step 4: Content Pillar Design

• 3-5 pillars for most SaaS companies at early/growth stage
• Each pillar = one core use case or ICP pain point
• Each pillar should have at least 10 plausible cluster topics

Step 5: Editorial Calendar Design

Recommended mix for early-stage SaaS:

• 40% top-of-funnel (educational, broad keywords)
• 30% middle-of-funnel (how-to, use case, problem-solution)
• 30% bottom-of-funnel (comparison, alternative, ROI, case studies)

Calendar template fields: Title, Target keyword, Pillar, Funnel stage, Target ICP, Content type, Publish date, Word count, Internal link targets, CTA.

Content Quality Criteria

1. Search intent match
2. Comprehensiveness
3. Freshness signals
4. Unique angle
5. Conversion path

Distribution Strategy

Content repurposing waterfall:

1. Long-form blog post (core asset)
2. → LinkedIn carousel
3. → Twitter/X thread
4. → Email newsletter section
5. → Short-form video script
6. → Podcast talking points

Common Rationalizations

Rationalization	Reality
"We need to write about everything to build authority"	Topical depth beats breadth. 20 posts on one cluster outperform 100 posts on 100 unrelated topics.
"More posts = more traffic"	One great post beats five mediocre ones.
"We'll figure out distribution later"	Content without distribution is a tree falling in an empty forest.
"SEO takes too long"	Compounding organic traffic is the best marketing asset you can build.

Verification

• Audience intent map complete
• Content audit completed for existing sites
• 3-5 content pillars defined with at least 10 cluster topics each
• Keywords prioritized by business relevance (not just volume)
• Content calendar built with ToFu/MoFu/BoFu ratio planned
• Distribution plan defined for each content type
• Analytics configured to track content-to-conversion path