Most people, when building a site in the hopes of making their financial dreams come true, have a plan for the main sections of the site. You know the sections I mean… Home page, About Us, Contact Page, Products (broken down into categories, subcategories, and individual items), Services, Support, etc. Or if the site is informational in nature, instead of Products, Services, and Support, the main sections are much more specific to the topic and harder to generalize. In either case, very few people have a clear idea of the full scope of content that will comprise a well-rounded site.

If you plan to start a new site, or you plan to beef up an existing one, I recommend going full tilt with a plan that fully fleshes out the nitty gritty details of the content you’ll be creating. No matter how daunting such a plan might seem to be on the surface, once you break it down into pieces, it really isn’t that difficult to do. Give yourself a week, and I bet you can create an incredibly complete, and massively impressive content plan. I’ve done it in the past, and I know how well it works. I decided to summarize it here so you could implement your own version of it as well.

I recommend coming up with a name for your plan. I won’t recommend one because it should be personal to you, but think of names such as The Ninja Plan, or The Winners Plan, or The Plan To Beat All Plans! Whatever you decide, make it a name that gets you pumped up and ready to make it happen. For now, I’ll just call it The Plan.

The Plan

Strategically and systematically create content that does one thing and one thing only – leads the user to take an action that will increase income.

The Plan Breakdown

1. Create a minimum of ___ pieces of content per week. Content may be written, audio, video, infographic, etc. I recommend no fewer than 2 pieces of content per week. Whatever you decide, make a note of the number and stick to it.

2. Content will be created as far in advance as possible, and scheduled to publish on future dates.

3. Most, but not necessarily all, content will be created for your own site.
Some special content should be created for placement on external sites; either as guest posts or in ezines, article directories, etc. These pieces of content will always be high quality, but will always leave the reader knowing that there is more information she can find on the subject if she follows the link back to your site.

4. In all cases, main content will consist of either one of two generic types:

a. Topic Intro. This content introduces the basics of a topic to the reader.

b. Topic Blueprint. This content gives the reader detailed “how to” instructions that expands upon the Topic Intro already published. Topic Intros may lend themselves to only one blueprint, or may lend themselves to various blueprint branches. Regardless, always publish the Topic Intro content first, and follow up with the Topic Blueprint content immediately afer, spread out over a week or several weeks, but in a continuous flow.

5. All main content will lead the reader at some point to a call to action. This call may be subtle or not. Topic Intro content is often more subtle in its calls to action than Topic Blueprints are. Either way, by the time a user has absorbed all of the content surrounding the Topic, she should be seriously considering acting upon whatever call to action the content has led up to. That call to action may differ from topic to topic.

Example 1. Did the Topic Intro explore the best areas of a local region to find schools of largemouth bass? If so this topic intro content may be subtly leading the user to visit your local baitshop that is conveniently located next to a lake known for large populations of bass.

Example 2. Did one of the Topic Blueprints teach the user how to best catch a largemouth bass? Then perhaps the calls to action included buying the perfect rod and perfect bait to make that happen, with the ability to buy those items immediately. (Note that the products may be your own or they may be products that you recommend as an affiliate).

6. The majority of content created should be “main content” which has the topic focuses listed above. Some “filler content” is allowed, however, which may be only tangentially related to the main content topics. This filler content may include personal and social related material that helps create connections with the audience, or it may be material that reaches out to industry leaders by extending the conversation of content they’ve created. This filler content will very likely veer from The Plan in that it will probably not lead the user to take an action that will increase income. It will, however, provide support in some way for the main content, or for creating subactions such as generating traffic, interest, or networking. In many cases, this filler content will be reactions to current events or recent content discovered elsewhere, so it will not be created in advance, and will not be part of a schedule. Although it is usually created spontaneously, the act of seeking out tangentially related topics to connect with is part of a regularly scheduled activity. Spend at least one day per week looking for external related sources of fresh content that can become a source of filler content for you.

Putting It All Down On Paper

Spell it out. Plan in advance. Write down a list of all the main topics that you plan to cover. Break those topics down into subtopics and determine what kind of intros and blueprints each topic and subtopic can logically use. Rearrange as necessary if some topics should be covered before others. Once your list is fleshed out far in advance, add dates to each one so you know what content needs to be created by what date. I like to plan ahead for at least 6 months of content, but a year’s worth is even better.

Make It So

Now that you’ve got an outline of all the content that you’ll be creating, it’s time to make it so. Start creating, but remember to always keep The Plan in mind when you create each main piece. Strategically and systematically create content that does one thing and one thing only – leads the user to take an action that will increase income.