A Quick and Simple Online Content Marketing Plan

Content marketing can be hard. This content marketing plan should make it easier for you. This simple content marketing plan represents a fictitious small company or individual that already has basic online reputation web properties like Facebook, LinkedIn, and others in place. This plan uses relevant, organic search results as a basis for an online reputation content plan.

Overview

We’ll assume the example company has the following common web and social media properties to work with:

• Facebook
• X (formerly Twitter)
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Website

In a normal online reputation protection project, we would first make sure the web properties were in line with organic search results by searching similar entities. In this example, let’s take a look at a “wealth management professional.”

This is not intended to reflect any real-world company or person. We just pulled the name “John Smith” out of the air.

Understanding the Objective of Your Content Plan

We’ll assume we are developing a content plan for an individual named John Smith, a single-person organization. This imaginary person operates a specialized financial services firm focusing on wealth management in Palm Beach, Florida.

To see a case study summarizing a campaign for a financial services firm click here.

The objective of the content planning and development project is to serve content via search engines to people performing searches for the name of the owner. Because the owner is involved in very specific services, we will target not only his name but associated content themes as well. Here is how this might look:

• Primary Theme: John Smith (Owner’s Name)
• Secondary Theme: Wealth Management Services
• Location(s): Palm Beach, Florida
• Language(s): English (US)

The objective of the content plan is to enhance search results for the name of the firm’s owner by developing online content about both him and the sector he works in. It may also contain information about his location. For example, people may look up the owner before doing business with him, using search phrases similar to:

• John Smith Miami Florida
• John Smith Wealth Management
• John Smith Financial Services

In a later step, we’ll use these kinds of search phrases to find other similar phrases that indicate the kinds of content people are looking for. We know that when a search phrase is used, associated content for similar search phrases is also returned in results.

Preparing Your Tools

You will need a few tools to stay organized and execute the process. All of these tools are browser-based and free to some extent. We use the Google Chrome browser, but any popular browser will work.

Spreadsheet

You’ll be creating a spreadsheet in Google Docs. The spreadsheet will have the following columns:

• Search Phrase
• Headline
• Promotion
• Content Type

You could get more detailed by adding publishing dates, word or character length targets, and more. But this is a simple content plan, so we’re keeping it short and sweet.

Keyword Research Tools

There are several solid keyword research tools worth having in your arsenal. Ubersuggest remains a popular starting point, though its free tier limits the number of daily searches. For more robust data, Google Keyword Planner is a reliable free option. Tools like Semrush and Ahrefs offer deeper insights on paid plans.

Developing Your Search Phrases

Google Related Searches

An online content plan theme usually involves search phrases. This is a simple plan, so we’ll skip more exotic content types and stay with text-based content only. Our project is designed to help a financial services professional manage their online reputation, so we’re going to identify similar searches.

Start by heading to Google and searching for “wealth management,” then look for related search suggestions on the results page. Google surfaces these through features like “People also search for” and AI Overviews that highlight related topics — both help you uncover the language real searchers use. When we do this, we get a list of related searches that might look something like this:

This is a very good place to start. Google has already told us about similar search phrases people really use, so we can begin building a list of phrases our content plan will target.

The above example shows similar search terms people use when looking for wealth management services. But we also need search terms for people who are wealth managers. To find those, we research similar people. We found a few random wealth managers; the results for one of them appear below.

We normally find five to ten similar people or entities using related search suggestions, then examine the various searches to identify those that make sense for our client. Essentially, we want to know what kind of content and placements show up for people similar to our client, which gives us a good idea of what people want to know.

Getting Even More Content Ideas

You don’t need to stop with Google-related searches. You can find even more ideas using the following search term suggestion tools:

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest takes a search phrase you input and appends a number of often-searched variations. Note that the free version limits daily searches, so use it strategically or consider a paid plan for larger projects.

For example, an Ubersuggest search for “wealth management” may start with “wealth management adviser salary” and work its way down to “wealth management Zurich” (A to Z). It provides many options, but keep in mind that we are not trying to flood the internet with unrelated content. We are looking for relevant content to add to our list of ideas. Our content goal should be to make search results better than they are.

Keyword.io

Another useful tool is Keyword.io. Its free feature gives you an idea of similar search phrases, though search volume data is reserved for the pro version. The free version works fine for getting directional ideas. Alternatives like Google Keyword Planner or AnswerThePublic can fill in the gaps if you need more detail.

These keyword tools will return quite a number of suggestions. For this simple plan, choose about ten search phrases to start and add them to your Google Docs spreadsheet. More sophisticated plans use many more — ranging into the hundreds or thousands.

Building the Search Phrase List and Headlines

Once we’ve completed research on similar people and entities and examined the kinds of related searches people perform for them, we can begin putting together the basics of our simple reputation management content plan. From the many ideas we’ve discovered, we have narrowed our list to the following search phrases:

• John Smith Florida
• John Smith Charities
• John Smith
• John Smith Wealth Management
• John Smith Financial Services
• John Smith Miami Florida
• John Smith Biography
• Wealth Management Adviser John Smith
• John Smith’s Wealth Management Blog

These search phrases were chosen because we presumably know our client — what they are interested in, what positive affiliations they have, and more.

Writing Headlines for the Content Plan

Since we have an idea of what to write about, the next step is to create headlines. Headlines are critically important. If you spend at least half your time writing the headline and less than half writing the content, you’ll probably have more success. Without a compelling headline, the rest of the article will never be read.

This applies to social posts too. A compelling post on X or LinkedIn guides people to an article, but if the hook falls flat the article will remain unread. There are excellent resources online about how to write great headlines — take a few minutes to find one you trust and read it carefully.

One of the secrets to clickbait headlines is disequilibrium — a compelling headline that leaves a reader curious and unfulfilled until they click. But headlines for online reputation management purposes tend to be different. A clickbait-style headline like “You’ll Never Believe What John Smith Does Next” might get clicks, but it doesn’t serve the client and would be untrue.

One of the secrets to “clickbait” headlines is disequilibrium.

For financial companies and any other self-respecting real-world entity, headlines need to be handled more carefully. The example below shows what our simple content plan looks like with all columns complete for ten search phrases.

Notice that not every headline contains the exact search phrase. The point is to get at least part of the search phrase into the headline, while the content itself contains the phrase a few times — enough for search engines to understand what the article is about, but not so many that it becomes spammy.

Content Types, Promotion, and Thematic Development

Search engines display different kinds of content in a search result. For example:

• Articles
• Blog Posts
• Video
• Posts on X (formerly Twitter)
• Images
• Press Releases

Google surfaces a wide range of content types today — including posts from X, short-form video from platforms like YouTube Shorts, Google Business Profile updates, and AI-generated overviews that pull from multiple sources. This article is focused on simple content planning, so we are sticking to text-based planning. You can add other content types as you become more comfortable with them. Here is an example of how different types of content can appear in search results:

Thematic Content Development

The Google Docs spreadsheet shown above has an area shaded green. This is an area of “themed content” — specifically about “charity.” All of the content pieces shaded green are either articles, posts on X, or blog entries relating to John Smith’s charitable giving. This assumes Mr. Smith donates time to a local charity and then gets the charity to write about it on their blog with his name in the headline.

As a reputation management company, we often ask our clients to take positive real-world steps toward improving their online reputation. This is a core part of any effective online reputation strategy. Once Mr. Smith makes his speech, our content manager can go to work.

Promoting Your Content

When content is placed, it needs to be promoted. Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn should all be used as a baseline. There are also some special cases. For example, when content about charity is placed on the charity’s own website, a press release is also written with a link to the article discussing the charitable act. It’s good news — spread it.

You can also use tools like Hunter.io to find the email addresses of webmasters for outreach — for example, to flag an unlinked brand mention and request that it be turned into a proper link. This kind of editorial outreach aligns with current best practices and is a legitimate way to build authority around your content.

Ultimate Content Structure

Once content has been placed, it links to or refers to other content within the same theme. This drives interested parties to read more. If the content is good enough, they will share it. The diagram here reflects just the green portion of the Google Docs spreadsheet — the content related to “John Smith charity.” Green boxes denote content that will most likely show up in search results. White boxes represent content placed to support the visible content, even if it doesn’t surface directly in search results.

Summary

Our job as a reputation management company is to improve Google and Bing search results. We create compelling, true, relevant content of different types based on real-world research. We then develop comprehensive SEO reputation management strategies and execute content plans much like the one described above.

Want help? Call us.