Content and Editorial
Content strategy and planning
Decide what is worth publishing before anybody writes it, and what is not worth publishing at all. Scoped as its own piece because that is how it is usually bought.
What does content strategy and planning actually involve?
Decide what is worth publishing before anybody writes it, and what is not worth publishing at all. In practice that means a question inventory built from sales calls, support tickets and search data rather than from a keyword tool alone, and then the harder half: mapping each question to the page that should own it, which exposes both gaps and duplicates.
Why this work exists
Everyone agrees this matters. Far fewer put a name against it.
Within Content and Editorial this is the item with the clearest cause and effect, which is why it is scoped on its own.
The nearest piece of work to it is finding the piece that ranks for a term nobody in the business wants. Where that is already handled, this moves faster than the estimate; where it is not, the two get done together or neither of them holds.
What good looks like
You can tell it is right when a new person can pick it up and be useful inside a week.
The gap between that and where most accounts start is why this is scoped as content strategy and planning rather than as a line inside something larger. Working out why a well-written page gets no links is the usual second step once it is in place.
When this is the right work
What tells you to start here:
- Publishing happens because it is Tuesday
- Several pages compete for the same question and none wins
- Nobody can say what the content programme is supposed to achieve
If none of those is true, something else is probably the constraint, and the Content and Editorial overview maps the alternatives. The usual neighbours are keeping facts current without rewriting whole articles and building the reference page the rest of the content can point at.
What the work covers
In order, the work is:
- A question inventory built from sales calls, support tickets and search data rather than from a keyword tool alone, done before anything downstream is committed to.
- Mapping each question to the page that should own it, which exposes both gaps and duplicates, with the evidence kept so the decision can be defended later.
- A sequence that reflects buying stages rather than publishing convenience. This is where the theory meets the account and usually loses.
- A capacity plan that matches review capacity rather than writing capacity, which changes often enough that a single pass has a shelf life.
How it runs
Three stages, in this order, for the reason each one gives.
Working in public
Decisions get written down where the client can see them as they are made, so nothing arrives as a surprise in a monthly report.
Reading what is already there
Before anything is proposed, the existing setup gets read rather than assumed. Half of what a brief describes as missing turns out to exist under a different name.
The cheap wins
Anything that can be fixed in an afternoon gets fixed in the first week, partly because it is free progress and partly because it clears the view.
What each part runs into
The four parts do not fail in the same way:
- A question inventory built from sales calls, support tickets and search data rather than from a keyword tool alone – working in Ahmedabad this means accounting for a catchment smaller than the ambition on the website
- Mapping each question to the page that should own it, which exposes both gaps and duplicates, and in Abu Dhabi the constraint on it is an incumbent whose position comes from presence rather than effort
- A sequence that reflects buying stages rather than publishing convenience, harder in Leeds because of a buying pattern that resolves faster than the reporting cycle
- A capacity plan that matches review capacity rather than writing capacity – in Dallas, complicated by the fact that a sector mix that pulls the brief in several directions
The trap
Planning by keyword volume. The highest-volume question in a category is usually the one furthest from a purchase.
This is the version most often delivered, which is why the discipline has a worse reputation than it deserves.
How it is measured
Coverage of the priority question set, and share of pages that earn a position within two quarters. The measure is specific on purpose: a headline figure that cannot move inside the engagement is not useful.
Movement smaller than the normal week-to-week swing gets reported as no movement.
What you end up with
What arrives at the end of it: a question-to-page map, a prioritised plan with reasoning, and an honest capacity figure.
Plain language throughout. Jargon gets defined where it is unavoidable.
How it differs by sector
The brief changes with the sector, not just the emphasis:
- Healthcare and clinics: the thing that changes the scope here is that content that affects health decisions is held to a higher standard, and advertising is restricted.
- For Education and training, admission cycles, a parent paying for a student’s decision, and course-level demand. and that shapes how far this can go.
- Automotive brings its own limit: Local inventory, model-level demand, and a buyer who arrives having already decided.
The industry pages carry the rest of that detail. Healthcare and clinics and Education and training are the two where this piece of work most often decides the outcome.
Common questions
How far ahead should a content plan run?
A quarter in detail and a year in direction. Beyond that the market moves and the plan becomes a document nobody reads.
Who should own content strategy?
Somebody who talks to customers. A plan built only from search data misses the questions people are too embarrassed to type. The common mistake is covered in Lifecycle and Email; the expensive one in Local SEO.
How do we know this is the right piece of work?
The signals above are the test. If none of them describes your situation, something else is the constraint, and saying so is more useful than selling this. What this leaves out is in Retainer or Project, and some of it in SEO or PPC.
What happens if it does not work?
We report that it did not, with the reason. Coverage of the priority question set, and share of pages that earn a position within two quarters agreed before the work starts makes that an honest conversation rather than an argument. This connects directly to What should we fix first on a new site?, and less obviously to Why did our organic traffic drop?.
Who does the work on content strategy and planning?
A practitioner rather than an account manager, and the same person throughout. Coverage of the priority question set, and share of pages that earn a position within two quarters is their number, which is the only arrangement under which the reporting stays honest. If this is the part you came for, Crawl budget goes further into it, and Crawl depth covers what sits either side.
Ask about content strategy and planning
A line about the situation is enough. The first reply will say what we would check rather than what we sell.
Begin with the diagnosis, not the pitch
Most accounts have one thing holding them back. The useful first conversation is about finding which one.