The Definitive Guide to Content Mapping (2024)

Looking to make a contented strategy for your business? Or amended an existing one? Content mapping is simply a large spot to start. 

Why?

Done right, it’s helps you much efficiently signifier the contented you request to enactment your leads, prospects, and customers arsenic they interact with your brand. That way, you cognize what you have, what you need, and wherever it should each spell connected your site. 

With a contented map, your contented selling efforts are much targeted. And (hopefully) much apt to wage off.

In this guide, we’ll explicate what contented mapping is. And locomotion you done creating your precise ain contented map.

What Is Content Mapping?

Content mapping is the process of mapping existing and aboriginal contented to align with the antithetic stages of the lawsuit journey.

There are aggregate ways of reasoning astir the travel customers instrumentality from learning astir a marque to yet making a purchase. But it’s usually divided into 3 chiseled stages:

1. Awareness: During this stage, radical go alert that they person a circumstantial contented that needs to beryllium solved. For example, they mightiness recognize that they request to hole the extortion connected their house.
2. Consideration: In the information stage, radical are actively researching antithetic solutions to their problem. For instance, researching antithetic extortion repair companies. 
3. Decision: In this past signifier of the process, they determine whether to marque a purchase. And from whom. For example, calling a extortion repair institution and scheduling a extortion inspection.

Benefits of Content Mapping

Content mapping tin assistance you:

Understand the Customer Journey

Creating a contented representation requires you to get acquainted with the experiences your prospects and customers spell done erstwhile they're getting to cognize your brand. 

You'll place their symptom points and priorities, empathize with their mindset, get acquainted with their questions, and get to cognize their needs.

This volition not lone assistance you representation contented successful a mode that amended supports them, it volition usher each your contented instauration and deployment efforts.

Ensure You Have Content for Every Stage

Content mapping ensures that your pieces are interdependent, complementing each different and reinforcing cardinal worth props, but besides answering the questions and considerations the imaginable has astatine each peculiar stage.

For example, successful awareness, you're astir apt reflecting their occupation backmost to themselves—helping them recognize it better, motivating them to code it, and giving them anticipation that determination are solutions available.

In the information stage, you're showing them much of what's possible, and helping them to get to cognize their options.

In the determination stage, you're giving them info they request to consciousness assured (comparison points, societal proof) and letting them cognize wherefore they should take to bargain from YOU.

Uncover Content Gaps

By mapping your existing content, you’ll people uncover contented gaps—topics you haven’t covered successful your contented yet but that would beryllium highly beneficial to your people audience.

You tin past enactment connected creating contented astir these topics to supply imaginable customers with each the accusation they mightiness request to marque a purchase.

How to Get Started with Content Mapping

Follow these steps to get started with contented mapping:

• Identify your people audience. Get wide connected who you’re looking to scope done content.
• Define the lawsuit journey. Identify the stages customers spell done earlier making a purchase. And the questions, feelings, and needs they person astatine each stage.
• Map existing content. Create a database of each your existing content. Map each contented portion to a signifier of the lawsuit journey.
• Find contented gaps. Identify topics you haven’t covered but are important for helping imaginable customers bargain from your business
• Create a contented plan. Turn the topics you’ve identified arsenic gaps into a prioritized contented plan. Use it to streamline contented creation.

Let’s spell implicit each measurement successful much detail.

1. Identify Your Target Audience

Before you tin make a contented map, you request to place your target audience. In different words, you request to recognize who you privation to scope with your content.

In marketing, this is accomplished by creating a persona—a fictional practice of a idiosyncratic who fits your people market.

Buyer Persona vs. Reader Persona

When defining your people audience, it’s important to differentiate betwixt buyer personas and reader personas. Depending connected your concern and your contented strategy, these mightiness beryllium 2 wholly antithetic people.

For example, let’s accidental your institution sells a bundle solution designed to assistance income teams amended their productivity and adjacent much sales.

The idiosyncratic who volition yet marque a determination whether to acquisition your bundle is the VP of Sales astatine a people company.

But, based connected market research, you recognize that you request a company’s income reps to acquisition the benefits of utilizing your bundle first-hand. So that they could past power the VP of Sales to marque the purchase.

Because of this, you privation to scope income reps with your content. And amended them connected the benefits of your bundle solution.

In this case, your purchaser persona would beryllium the VP of Sales. But your scholar persona would beryllium a income rep.

B2C vs. B2B Personas

The extremity of a persona is to limb your originative squad with each the accusation they request to trade contented that volition compel the idiosyncratic represented by that persona.

What accusation you see successful the persona volition beryllium connected who your assemblage is, what your merchandise is, and what benignant of marque you have.

There’s a large quality successful personas created for business-to-consumer (B2C) brands and those created for business-to-business (B2B) brands.

For example, if you person a B2C ecommerce brand, utile accusation connected your people assemblage mightiness see age, gender, income level, oregon interests. But if you person a concern that sells to different businesses, you mightiness privation to absorption connected details specified arsenic industry, institution size, and occupation rubric successful your personas.

Market Research

A communal mistake marketers make: reasoning they cognize everything determination is to cognize astir their people audience. 

One of the fastest ways to find retired however overmuch you don’t know, and genuinely get to cognize your imaginable customers, is to speech to them.

Here are a fewer ways you tin bash that:

• Conduct interviews. Interview radical who acceptable your people assemblage to find retired what problems they face, what topics they’re funny in, and what they’re looking for successful a solution similar yours
• Organize a absorption group. Hold a absorption radical with individuals who acceptable your people assemblage description. Ask them those aforesaid questions and fto them speech among themselves. Note the insights that look to resonate most.
• Check retired online discussions. Read done online discussions related to your manufacture to larn what imaginable customers are reasoning and talking about.
• Talk to customer-facing teams. Get successful interaction with your company’s income and lawsuit enactment representatives. Find retired what benignant of concerns prospects and customers have. And what questions they are asking.
• Survey existing customers. If your concern already has customers successful the marketplace you’re reasoning astir targeting, nonstop them a survey via email. Learn much astir them and their acquisition with your products oregon services.

2. Define the Customer Journey

The adjacent measurement is to specify the circumstantial stages your customers spell done earlier making a acquisition from your business.

For each stage, you’ll privation to list:

• The customer’s situation: What issues oregon symptom points are they dealing with? What benignant of resources bash they person astatine their disposal?
• The questions customers have: What answers are they actively looking for? What answers volition they request but haven't thought to inquire astir yet?
• The astir suitable types of content: Based connected the customer’s concern and the questions they have, which types of contented would beryllium the champion to present the accusation they need?

Keeping up with our earlier example, here’s however this mightiness look similar astatine each signifier of the lawsuit journey:

Awareness

The people lawsuit is dealing with a leaking roof. At this moment, they’re looking to larn much astir extortion leaks, wherefore they happen, and however to hole them.

They mightiness beryllium asking their neighbors, speechmaking online articles, oregon posting questions connected forums.

Some questions they mightiness person astatine this signifier include:

• How bash I hole a leaking roof?
• How to spot a extortion leak?
• How to forestall extortion leaks?
• How overmuch does a extortion inspection cost?

Some suitable types of contented to make successful this lawsuit mightiness beryllium acquisition blog posts oregon videos answering your imaginable customer’s questions. This mightiness beryllium a how-to-guide for tarping your extortion oregon step-by-step instructions for starting a assertion with their security company.

Consideration

At this stage, a idiosyncratic is considering options for fixing their leaking roof. Perhaps they’re considering fixing it themselves. Or they’re researching antithetic extortion repair companies.

Questions they’re looking to find answers to include:

• Should I hole a extortion leak myself?
• What to look for successful a extortion repair company?

At this stage, applicable contented mightiness see elaborate guides to assistance them take the close solution to their problem. In our example, that would impact helping them recognize that it’s champion to prosecute a nonrecreational to hole their roof.

Decision

Once they scope the determination stage, radical are acceptable to marque a purchase. All they request is simply a small nudge to spell up and bash it.

Some questions they mightiness request answered astatine this signifier include:

• What makes your extortion repair institution amended than different akin companies successful my area?
• How overmuch bash your services cost?
• How agelong is it going to instrumentality you to hole my roof?

There are tons of antithetic types of contented that tin assistance successful the determination stage. But 1 often utilized enactment is simply a landing page wherever you reply immoderate questions that mightiness beryllium preventing radical from buying from your company.

3. Map Existing Content to Stages of the Customer Journey

Once you’ve defined the stages your customers spell done earlier making a purchase, it’s clip to representation your existing contented to each stage.

To bash this, make a spreadsheet. Make a enactment for each portion of existing content. Make definite to enactment the pursuing for each portion of content:

• The title
• The link
• The benignant of contented (e.g., blog post, ebook, etc.)
• The signifier of the lawsuit travel it’s intended for
• The persona it’s targeting

This volition service arsenic your archetypal contented map.

Here’s however it mightiness look:

4. Find Content Gaps

Now that you person your contented map, usage it to uncover immoderate gaps successful your existing content.

Sort your contented representation by lawsuit travel signifier and past reappraisal each the contented pieces you person for each stage.

Are determination immoderate questions customers mightiness person astatine a peculiar signifier that your contented hasn’t answered? These are gaps successful your contented that you should look to capable arsenic soon arsenic possible.

Some questions mightiness beryllium evident to you based connected your erstwhile lawsuit research. But Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool tin assistance you uncover questions you haven’t thought about.

Here’s how:

Log successful to Semrush. In the left-hand menu, click “Keyword Magic Tool” nether “KEYWORD RESEARCH.” 

Start by typing successful a keyword intimately related to your concern and click connected “Search.”

The instrumentality volition make a database of keywords related to your topic. 

From here, click connected the “Questions” tab. You’ll spot a database of questions related to your topic. Sort these by hunt measurement to recognize which questions get asked astir frequently. 

Another mode to find contented gaps is to look astatine your competitors’ content. See if they’ve covered immoderate important topics that you haven’t. You tin bash this manually. Or velocity up the process by utilizing Semrush’s Keyword Gap.

Here’s how:

Log successful to Semrush. Click “Keyword Gap” successful the left-hand paper nether “COMPETITIVE RESEARCH.”

Enter your domain and the domains of up to 4 competitors. Click “Compare.”

The instrumentality volition make a elaborate study showing each the keywords the entered domains fertile for. 

To spot each the keywords competing domains fertile for (but yours doesn’t), scroll down to the “All keyword details for:” section.

Click the “Untapped” tab.

Add these keywords to a keyword database successful Semrush. Or export them to a .CSV oregon Excel file. That way, you tin make contented astir them, answering your imaginable customers’ questions.

5. Create a Content Plan

Your contented spread investigation from the erstwhile measurement apt provided you with a batch of topics to cover.

The adjacent measurement is prioritizing them.

Here are a fewer questions that tin assistance you determine which topics should instrumentality priority:

• Are determination stages of the lawsuit travel that are underserved?
• Which personas are underserved?
• If personas are arsenic well-served, is determination 1 associated with a higher ROI that should get a larger concern of content?
• Are determination channels that are underutilized?
• Are determination plus types that are underutilized?
• Are determination plus types that should beryllium prioritized based connected conversion oregon debased outgo to make?

Put immoderate thought into the supra questions and usage the answers to usher your contented plan.

Ensure Content Marketing Success with Content Mapping

Content mapping is simply a important measurement successful creating an effectual contented strategy.

Use our guide, on with tools similar Semrush’s Keyword Gap and Keyword Magic Tool, to representation contented and make a program for addressing contented gaps.