This post is part of the Article Site Makeover series.

Okay, as promised, here’s the highlights of my content creation plan for the new article site blog.

I followed Dr. Mani’s plan here and answered the questions that were applicable to this situation to create my plan. You can find a link to his site in the previous post. (I don’t want to spam him by linking back there twice in one day. )

Section 1: Who creates the content?

Content will be created mostly by me using both original research and private label materials. Once the site is established and can provide benefit to others authors, there will be a manual submission process that invites others to contribute. In time I may also outsource some of the content creation, but other things have priority in my wish list for when the budget for outsourcing becomes available.

Section 2 was about outsourcing, so doesn’t apply at this time.

Section 3: What kind of content will I offer?

Articles, of course, since that’s the main focus of the site. But I also recognize that people have different learning styles and so will include audio versions of articles, interviews with experts, and videos.

Since I’m building an authority site I want the content formats to appeal to as wide an audience in my target market as possible.

Section 4: What are the details of my content?

Mindful of becoming stuck in a posting rut, I have decided that content length and detail will be varied. I don’t want readers to get bored, and they will if all they find when they visit is heavy reading. So based on that here are my content details:

• Feature articles will be longer (500-1000 words) and be very detailed.

• Tips and short articles will be from 250-500 words and provide general information.

• I’ll also be using audios, videos, humorous stories, and interactive elements to provide information in different ways.

Section 5: Frequency of Updates

The initial blog business plan calls for content to be added three times daily. I can see there being postings more often depending on the news stories of the day.

Section 6: Who will add the content to the site?

Again, for the time being I will add the content myself. News items, videos and podcasts will be added daily as they occur. Feature articles and tips will be written in advance and set up using the wordpress post-dated feature.

This was a really useful exercise for me to do. In the past when I’ve started a blog, I’ve never really given a lot of thought to where the content would come from or what it would look like. I’d just pick a topic and go off and write a few articles. I think by having a [tag-tec]content plan[/tag-tec] this time, and knowing exactly what kinds of content I want, I will have a much better chance of creating a successful and long-lasting blog.

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That’s not necessarily true in many cases, but I am finding a definite advantage to doing Dr. Mani’s course after the initial postings. For sure I don’t get the benefits of doing it as part of a group, but that’s okay. One of the nicest things I’m finding is that I have the time to read the comments and follow the links to some really great content left by the original participants.

Just as an example this morning I followed one of the trackbacks and found Pat Doyle’s list of 23 great ideas for blog posts. Not only are the ideas excellent, but she makes a really good point about varying the type of posts that you do. It is really easy to get stuck in a run and to only do one type of post all the time. (Yeah, I’m speaking from experience here.)

That list will come in very handy now that I’m working on the content section of the course. Which is another thing I’d never thought of before — having a content plan. With an extra 23 ideas for posts to complement the full length articles, there will be something on the new site  to appeal to all the different information processing styles.

Side Note: If you’re looking for Day 2, there isn’t one. I spent yesterday running errands and enjoying the sunshine, and last evening watching movies with my son. I’ve learned that when your 20-something child wants to spend time at home with mom, that it’s a no-brainer to turn the computer off and enjoy it.  I think today he’s taking me golfing, so I’ll be back later tonight to show you an example of my content plan.

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I have the plan, I have the overall strategy, and by cobbling together pieces from the strategies I’ve learned over the summer I know what I want the finished product — the big picture — to look like. But as I started to set up the new blog, I realized that what I don’t have is an actual strategy for each individual site that makes up that finished product.

Fortunately for wayward bloggers like me, Dr. Mani created a two-week course back in August called How To Launch a Blog in 2 Weeks. I didn’t take part at the time because I was in the middle of the 30 Day Challenge, and didn’t want to get distracted. I’m so thankful that he’s left it available on his blog for now because last night I spent the evening going through the first part and creating a blog strategy for my new article blog.

Since this is an older site that’s getting a makeover, the first thing I did was gather up some statistics so that I have something to measure against. Unfortunately i forgot to grab the traffic statistics before I changed over to the new hosting account, so I’m starting from scratch on those.  Here’s what I do have to use as a starting point:

• broad match for main keyword phrase: 43 of 82,500,000
• phrase match for main keyword phrase: 25 of 23,300
• alexa ranking: 2,617,123
• page rank: 0

Pretty pathetic for a domain that’s been online for two years, but not surprising given how little time I spent on it in the last few months. I got really frustrated with the quality – or lack thereof – of the articles being mass submitted. In the end I was allowing maybe 1 submission in 10 to actually be approved.

The new version of the site will be an article blog, with mostly my own articles. Once I get established as a provider of quality information and get a steady flow of traffic coming in, I may open it up and invite other authors to submit.  But there will be some pretty strict submission guidelines, and it will definitely be a manual submission and approval process.

The domain has been active for about 2 years now, but I have done no list building at all yet. This time I will be building a list that will recieve a weekly digest of the most popular articles, along with a sponsor ad promoting either one of my own reports or an affiliate product.

Onsite monetization will be through contextual advertising and affiliate marketing to begin with.

I also have set up my financial targets up to the end of 2010, beginning of course with the Moving East goal of creating $700 per week of reasonably reliable income.

Since this site is in a market which many of my niches target, it makes a good base on which to build an authority site, as well as test out new niches and create a steady flow of income.

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