Do You Need a Content Strategy? Here’s How to Tell

When I did a content audit for one of my clients, I found over 50 tiny blog posts, each with about 100 words, written around activities no one was actually searching for. They weren’t connected to the client’s products, they weren’t optimized for SEO, and they weren’t getting traffic. They were basically invisible.

That was the wake-up call:

Content without a strategy isn’t helping your business. It’s just taking up space on your site.

Research from SEMrush confirms this: “thin content,” or pages that offer little or no added value (whether due to duplication, lack of depth, or failure to satisfy user intent) is not only ineffective, it actively hurts your SEO. Google’s ranking systems, will downgrade or even remove such content, making upkeep essential for maintaining visibility and authority.

A content strategy is the difference between a blog that collects dust and a blog that actively drives sales.

What a Content Strategy Actually Is (and Isn’t)

A content strategy isn’t:

• Posting whatever blog idea pops into your head.

• Writing articles just to “keep the website fresh.”

• Tossing together some random SEO keywords and hoping they’ll stick.

• Building your entire content plan around “high search, low competition” keywords that have nothing to do with your actual customers or business goals. (That old-school traffic-first approach doesn’t work anymore, especially if those posts don’t connect to sales or conversions.)

A real content strategy is:

• Researching customer pain points (yes, AI can help you brainstorm these).

• Mapping content to different parts of your sales funnel.

• Building content clusters (hub-and-spoke) that establish authority and internal linking.

• Making sure every piece has a clear call to action.

• Creating internal links that connect your content together.

• Planning for content distribution so your posts don’t just sit in a vacuum.

In other words, a content strategy is a plan that connects your content to your actual business goals.

Signs You Might Need a Content Strategy (or Audit)

Here’s how to know if it’s time to stop winging it and start being strategic.

For businesses without a blog (or with very minimal content):

• You’ve already optimized your main service/product pages (SEO basics are in place).

• You know you “should” blog but don’t know what to write.

• You don’t have a plan for how you’ll actually manage creating and publishing content consistently.

• You’re posting random topics with no clear purpose.

• You’re relying only on social media or ads for traffic.

• Your site doesn’t rank for many relevant keywords.

For businesses with an older or existing blog:

• Your service/product pages are already optimized, but traffic growth has stalled.

• You haven’t looked at your analytics in months (or ever).

• Traffic is stagnant or declining.

• You’ve never done a content audit (or it’s been more than a year).

• You’ve got forgotten posts, outdated info, or articles with zero traffic.

• Your blog only hits on top-of-the-funnel content that educates but doesn’t convert.

• Posts don’t link back to your services or products (or worse, they don’t have CTAs at all).

• You wrote one-off posts that don’t connect to each other (no hub-and-spoke clusters).

• Content doesn’t serve a clear purpose (SEO, authority, conversions).

For one of my clients (without naming names), we did a full content audit and discovered that their blog was full of outdated posts that weren’t tied to customer intent at all. We pruned the irrelevant ones, merged smaller ones into stronger pieces, optimized what was salvageable, and created a plan to fill the real gaps.

The result? Suddenly, their blog was aligned with how their customers were actually searching, instead of being a patchwork of random posts.

Because blogs often end up looking like a kid’s overflowing bin of stuffed animals (I say this as a mom with a seven-year-old, so I know firsthand). Some are still beloved favorites, some are forgotten, and a few make you wonder why you even have them. Just like you can’t keep piling in new stuffies without making space, you can’t keep adding new blog posts without auditing the old ones. A good strategy means keeping what still works, refreshing what has potential, and letting go of the content that’s just taking up space.

But What If You Can’t Keep Up With Content?

Here’s something no one talks about: even with the best strategy in the world, if you don’t have a plan for how you’ll actually create content, it’s not going to work.

And here’s the kicker: that plan is going to look completely different for every business.

A company with a full content team might be publishing an article (or more) every single day. Meanwhile, a solopreneur might only have the bandwidth for two blog posts a month, and that’s perfectly fine. Your content strategy has to account for your capacity and timelines. Otherwise you’ll just burn out or give up halfway through.

It also has to account for your ability to actually write. Some business owners love writing and can crank out posts quickly. Others? Not so much.

For example: I had a client who was amazing on social media. She was posting Reels and short videos regularly, but when it came to blogging, she mentally hit a total brick wall. Writing felt overwhelming, and she just couldn’t add “write 1,500-word blog posts” to her already packed schedule.

But the fix was actually simple: repurpose.

We took her video transcripts and turned them into blog posts. That way she doubled the use of content she was already creating without adding hours of work.

This is where AI tools can also be a huge help, not as a replacement for your voice, but as a way to save time. 👉 I even wrote about it here: Can AI Write Your Blog?.

The point is that strategy isn’t just about the “what” and “why.” It also has to include the how. And that “how” will look different depending on your resources, your capacity, and your natural strengths. Without a realistic workflow, even the smartest content plan will fall flat.

Don’t Forget the Sales Funnel

Another mistake I see often is that businesses focus only on top-of-funnel content. The broad, informational posts that bring people in.

But that’s a problem.

If all your content is educational but none of it moves readers toward a decision, you’re building awareness without creating sales. (Remember earlier when I said one sign you need a content audit is if your blog only hits on top-of-funnel content that doesn’t convert? This is exactly why.)

Also, have you taken a look at what search results look like these days? Informational content is getting answered right in the AI Overview, so there is little need to ever click to your website even if that blog post ranks at the top.

A strong content strategy prioritizes middle- and bottom-funnel content:

• Middle funnel: comparison posts, case studies, guides that help someone evaluate their options.

• Bottom funnel: service page support content, FAQs, testimonials, and detailed product breakdowns that push someone to act.

That doesn’t mean you abandon top-funnel content completely. It still has value for building authority and giving you content to repurpose across social or email. But a funnel-balanced approach ensures your blog actually helps close the gap between awareness and conversion.

A good content strategy know how to pull in people at all of the stages and move them down the funnel to the sale.

Examples of Funnel Content in Action

Top of Funnel (TOFU):
Parents are sending their child to kindergarten for the first time and are worried about constant colds. They Google something like “how to boost immunity for school this fall.” That’s top-of-funnel content. They’re simply looking for answers, not shopping yet.

An AI Overview might give them a quick summary, but say they want more detail and click through to your blog post on the topic. In your post, you share tips like sleep habits, vitamins, and yes, your product, elderberry syrup. Now, elderberry syrup is on their radar. They might sign up for your email list, keep browsing your site, or just leave with the idea tucked in their mind for later.

Middle of Funnel (MOFU):
Another set of parents already knows about vitamin C, zinc, and elderberry syrup. They want to choose the best option for their family, so they search “best elderberry syrup for kids.” That’s middle-of-funnel content because they’re comparing options.

Here, they might find your blog post comparing your syrup to other popular brands. Some will buy right away, while others will keep moving down the funnel, maybe reading your FAQ page, testimonials, or a post about your unique production process.

Bottom of Funnel (BOFU):
At this stage, families are ready to buy. They Google something like “organic elderberry syrup sweetened with honey”and click straight on a product link.

The point is: your content should exist at every level of the funnel. Top-funnel posts bring people in, middle-funnel content builds trust, and bottom-funnel content helps close the sale. Each piece should have a clear purpose and a next step.

Content Strategy in the Age of AI

And here’s the curveball: AI has thrown a huge wrench into traditional content strategies.

Search results are changing fast. Zero-click searches and AI Overviews mean that shallow, surface-level content often gets summarized directly in the SERP. People never even have to click through. That means a strategy that used to work, like pumping out tons of short, keyword-stuffed posts to capture traffic, is officially outdated.

Instead, modern content strategy has to adapt by:

• Choosing topics that require a deeper dive. Think case studies, original data, client stories, or nuanced how-tos that AI can’t summarize in two sentences.

• Writing content that creates curiosity. The goal isn’t just to answer the basic question, but to make someone wantto click for your examples, insights, and unique perspective.

• Prioritizing experience and authority. Google is leaning harder on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), which means your personal voice, examples, and authority matter more than ever.

• Avoiding fluffy, generic posts. If your article could be replaced by ChatGPT’s first draft, it probably won’t survive in search results.

I wrote a whole post about this: Content Strategy in the Age of AI. The takeaway? If you want your content to survive (and thrive) in today’s search landscape, it has to be intentional, in-depth, and aligned with your business goals, not just traffic bait.

Why a Strategy Matters (The Payoff)

So why bother with all this? Because without a strategy, your blog is just… busywork. With a strategy, it becomes one of your hardest-working marketing tools.

1. You stop wasting time on random, low-impact content.
No more scrambling to publish something just because “it’s been a while.” Instead, every post has a purpose and supports a bigger goal. That saves you hours of energy (and sanity).

2. You know what to focus on.
A strategy highlights content gaps, underperformers, and best performers. That means you can double down on what works, refresh what’s worth keeping, and cut what’s holding you back. It’s clarity instead of guesswork.

3. Your blog actually becomes part of your sales funnel.
This is the big one. When your content aligns with your funnel, your blog stops being a side project and starts actively nurturing leads. Top-funnel posts attract, middle-funnel posts build trust, and bottom-funnel posts convert. Suddenly, your blog isn’t just “content” — it’s sales support.

4. Repurposing and distribution get easier.
When each piece of content has a clear intent, it’s so much simpler to slice it up for social media, email, or even video scripts. You’re not reinventing the wheel every week — you’re working smarter with what you already have.

The payoff? More traffic that actually converts, a blog that builds authority, and a content system that feels manageable instead of overwhelming.

👉 Want to see how to get your content in front of more people? Check out my post on content distribution strategy.

How to Get Started If You’re Not Sure

If you’re staring at your blog (or lack of one) and wondering whether it’s time for a content strategy, the answer doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Start small and take it step by step:

1. Do a quick audit.
Open up Google Analytics or Search Console and look at your top 10 pages. Which ones are actually pulling in traffic? Do they line up with the services or products you want to be found for? If not, that’s a red flag. (Traffic to a random blog post that doesn’t connect to sales is like a line out the door for a shop that forgot to unlock the cash register.)

2. No blog yet? Start with pain points.
If you’re just getting started, don’t write random “top 10 tips” articles. Instead, research the actual questions your customers are asking. AI tools, social media comments, and even your own FAQs can be goldmines for this. Plan your first posts around directly answering those questions.

3. Existing blog? Do some spring cleaning.
Go through your blog and sort posts into four buckets: keep, merge, optimize, delete. Don’t forget: if you delete anything, use a 301 redirect so you don’t lose the little SEO juice you already had. Think of this as decluttering. You don’t need 10 versions of the same post lying around when one well-written one will do the job.

4. Build clusters.
Create pillar pages (the “big guides”) and surround them with supporting posts (the spokes). This structure helps both readers and search engines understand your authority on a topic. Bonus: it makes internal linking a whole lot easier.

5. Map each post to your funnel.
Every blog post should have a job. Top-of-funnel content draws people in, middle-funnel content helps them compare their options, and bottom-funnel content nudges them toward buying. A good mix across the funnel keeps your content working for you at every stage of the customer journey.

6. Always include CTAs and internal links.
Don’t let your readers hit a dead end. Even informational posts should guide people to the next logical step, whether that’s reading another blog, downloading a resource, or checking out your services.

7. Set a schedule.
Content isn’t “set it and forget it.” Revisit your strategy at least once a year. Update old posts, check your data, and refine your plan. Think of it like routine maintenance. Your content works best when it’s tuned up regularly.

Final Thoughts

If your blog feels nonexistent, outdated, or just plain random, chances are you need a content strategy.

For one client, turning their messy, forgotten blog into a set of optimized content clusters made all the difference. For another, it was about creating a system to actually manage content sustainably. In both cases, the strategy was what unlocked growth.

If you’re staring at your blog (or lack of one) and wondering if it’s time for a strategy, the answer is probably yes.

👉 That’s where I come in. I create SEO-driven content strategies that connect your blog to your business goals. Check out my Content Strategy service here.

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