Search Engine Optimisation
Content Strategy
The plan, not the production. Most content programmes fail because nobody decided the order, not because nobody could write.
Content strategy decides what to publish and in what order, mapped against search demand, buying stage and your sales cycle. The Nexclick produces the plan, the briefs and the publishing calendar — the writing itself is a separate service, and plenty of clients keep it in-house.
Is this you?
What usually prompts the call
- You publish whatever seems relevant that week and cannot say what it is meant to achieve.
- You have 300 blog posts and eleven of them get any traffic at all.
- Content is written for the top of the funnel only, so nothing converts.
- Two people are producing content independently and it overlaps.
What we do
The actual deliverables
Things that appear on an invoice, not adjectives.
- Content audit of what already exists
- Every page scored on traffic, rankings and conversions. Usually establishes that a substantial share should be improved, merged or removed before anything new is written.
- Topic clustering around commercial intent
- Related phrases grouped into clusters with a pillar page and supporting articles, mapped so each owns one primary phrase and links coherently.
- Buying-stage mapping
- Which pages serve someone researching, comparing and ready to buy. Most programmes are heavily weighted to the first and then wonder why nothing converts.
- Prioritised publishing calendar
- Ordered by demand, difficulty and how close you already are. Pages you already rank on page two for come first, because they are the cheapest wins available.
- Briefs for the first tranche
- Written briefs your team or ours can execute, so the plan is actionable rather than a document that gets admired and shelved.
- Pruning recommendations
- What to merge, redirect or delete. Removing thin pages frequently lifts the rest of the site, and it is consistently the hardest recommendation to get accepted.
- Measurement framework
- What each cluster is expected to produce and by when, so the programme can be judged rather than merely continued.
Decision tree
What to do with every existing page
Run each page on your site through this in order. Most sites find that a third of their content should be merged or removed, and doing so frequently lifts what remains.
01The page gets traffic and conversions
Keep and protect it. Update it annually, make sure it is internally linked, and do not restructure it casually.
02The page ranks between 8 and 25 with real impressions
Highest priority for improvement. This is the cheapest traffic available to you and it is almost always underworked.
03Another page on your site targets the same phrase
Merge them. Keep the stronger URL, fold in the useful content from the weaker one, and 301 it. Consolidating two page-two pages routinely produces one page-one page.
04The page gets no traffic but has inbound links
Do not delete it. Either improve it or redirect it to the closest relevant page so the links keep working.
05The page gets no traffic, has no links and answers no real query
Remove it. Thin content dilutes site-wide quality signals, and pruning frequently lifts the pages that remain.
06The page is a news item or announcement from years ago
Leave it if it is harmless, remove it if there are hundreds. Archives of dated announcements are a common source of index bloat.
07The page ranks well but the content is out of date
Update urgently. Outdated content that still ranks is actively damaging — it is the page shaping opinions of your business.
08You are unsure because there is no data
Check Search Console impressions before deciding. A page with impressions and no clicks has a title problem, not a content problem, and that is a very cheap fix.
How it works
Step by step, with timeframes
Timeframes are typical rather than guaranteed, and they assume we get account access and approvals when we ask.
- 01Week 1–2
Audit what exists
Every page inventoried and scored. This is the step that tells you whether your problem is missing content or too much of it.
- 02Week 2–3
Cluster and map
Demand grouped into clusters, each mapped to existing or new URLs with one primary phrase per page.
- 03Week 3–4
Sequence
The publishing order, argued rather than assumed, with expected outcome and timescale against each cluster.
- 04Week 4
Brief and hand over
Briefs for the first tranche plus a walkthrough, so the logic transfers to whoever executes it.
What you get
Reporting and ownership
- The full content inventory as a spreadsheet, with a keep, improve, merge or delete decision on every page.
- The cluster map showing which page owns which phrase and how they link.
- A twelve-month publishing calendar, sequenced with reasoning attached.
- Written briefs for the first tranche so work can start immediately.
- A measurement framework stating what each cluster should produce and by when.
Tools and platforms
- Google Search Console
- Google Analytics 4
- Ahrefs or Semrush
- Screaming Frog (content inventory)
- AlsoAsked
- Looker Studio
Timeline
How long this actually takes
The strategy takes three to four weeks. Executing it takes six to twelve months, and that gap is where most content programmes quietly die — the plan is produced, everyone agrees with it, and nobody publishes to it after week five. The single biggest determinant of whether this works is not the quality of the plan but whether a named person owns publishing. We will ask who that is in the first meeting, and if the honest answer is nobody, a smaller plan somebody can actually sustain is worth more than a comprehensive one they cannot.
Pricing model
Day rate
Fixed-price strategy project. Ongoing briefing and calendar management sits within a retainer, and plenty of clients take the strategy alone and execute in-house.
Questions
Content Strategy questions
How is this different from keyword research?
Keyword research establishes what to target. Content strategy decides which of those targets to pursue, in what order, in what format, and how the pages relate to each other. The keyword map is an input to the strategy rather than the strategy itself.
Should we delete old blog posts?
Some of them, usually. Pages with no traffic, no links and no purpose dilute site-wide quality signals, and removing them frequently lifts what remains. Never delete anything with inbound links — redirect it instead. The audit tells you which category each page falls into.
How far ahead should a content calendar run?
Twelve months planned, one quarter committed. Anything beyond that will be revised as data arrives, and treating a twelve-month plan as fixed means ignoring what the first quarter told you.
What is a topic cluster and does it matter?
A pillar page covering a subject broadly, with supporting pages covering sub-topics in depth, all linked together. It matters because it concentrates internal linking and topical relevance around one area rather than scattering unrelated posts across a site.
We have no traffic at all. Where do we start?
With commercial pages rather than blog content. A new site needs pages describing what it sells, targeting phrases with purchase intent, before it needs informational articles. Publishing thought leadership before your service pages exist is a common and expensive sequencing error.
Can you do the strategy if we write the content?
Yes, and it is a common arrangement. You get the audit, the cluster map, the calendar and the briefs, and your team executes. It costs considerably less than a full content retainer and works well where somebody internally genuinely has the time.
Last reviewed 28 July 2026.
Tell us what you are trying to fix
A 20-minute call, no pitch deck. The Nexclick will tell you what we would do, roughly what it costs, and whether we are the right people for it.