Building a content framework

Where do I start?

So you understand the importance of having a framework for creating content efficiently, but how do you build one?

Here are the five steps for building a content creation framework:

1. Conceptualising content

2. Planning a timeline

3. Creating a workflow

4. Reviewing and editing content

5. Organising and storing content

Step one: Conceptualising Content

The first step is coming up with ideas for your Content Offers, i.e. something you create and publish in exchange for personal information and email addresses.

If you’re struggling with ideas, do some online research:

• read blogs from relevant sources

• check out survey results

• write down common FAQs in your industry

• write down the most important/sought-after information in your industry

As you gather these ideas, make sure to consider how your content will be relevant to each stage in a buyer’s journey:

Step two: Planning a timeline

Now back to building the framework, the next step is putting together a timeline. Remember, you will need to maintain agility in producing and executing content.

A good plan to follow, if creating content over a business quarter, is to aim for 2 to 3 content offers you can create and align with the stages of a buyer's journey.

In addition, you may also need to identify any company-wide projects that will need to be supported with content over the next three months. This could include social posts for events, rebranding work, and new business partnerships.

Step three: Creating a workflow

The workflow is the intuitive breakdown of the work you need to do.

It consists of the specific sequence of steps a piece of content moves through from its initial creation to publication. 

Your workflow should identify who will do what, any external contributors (and what they are doing) and each stage of completion. Try to make this as granular as possible for clarity - even if you’re a team of one.

For example, if writing an eBook, instead of:

⬜  Written

⬜  Edited

⬜  Published

Try being more specific:

⬜  Outline completed

⬜  First draft completed

⬜  Editing completed

⬜ Design and formatting completed

With a clearly defined workflow, this means you’ll become better at effectively organising time and resources as your content efforts expand over time.

Another benefit of doing this is that the next time you make a similar piece of content, you know exactly what went wrong, how much time each step is likely to take, what roadblocks you are likely to hit and how you will need to adapt the process to be more streamlined.

Step four: Reviewing and editing content

You need a review system in place to ensure that every piece of content is accurate, well-written and aligned with your brand.

Depending on how your team is set up, this could involve working alongside an in-house/freelance editor and having an appointed SEO specialist to format and update content as necessary.

The following are the seven best practices when reviewing your content:

Set clear expectations
The person reviewing the content must know what they are looking for: grammatical errors, fact-checking, story gaps, article flow, wordsmithing, and more.

Define the roles in the review process
Maybe you have multiple editors, one examining the development of your content’s overall focus, one examining the copy specifically and making necessary edits. Perhaps you have a single editor who must conduct a review of everything. Defining these roles is crucial to eliminating chaos and keeping things on track.

Determine a timeline
Set due dates to keep everyone accountable. One missed deadline can affect everyone’s work. So to remain agile, share a rough timeline with the whole team, get feedback and then finalise it for clarity.

Use a style guide
Your content needs to be consistent across all of your channels - one defining voice. Different writers may bring different styles and skill levels, so a style guide can serve as the communal thread that ties every piece of content together. Reviewers can then continue to refer back to this guide during editorial processes.

Track edits
Tracking changes and making suggestions (vs. making direct edits) means content creators know where to make changes, instead of reacting to things that are altered. This can help the process moving forward, and hopefully will the reduce the level of edits required.

Manage progress
Use a system, like a document, spreadsheet or product management software, to track progress. Share this system with the whole team to keep all the important information centralised: roles, timeline, deadlines etc. This creates transparency and a single point of reference for everyone. It will also allow you to be flexible and adjust deadlines as necessary.

Optimise for search engines
After all this effort put into creating your content, you need to make sure your audience is going to find it in their web searches. Once the content is approaching its publish date, do some spot edits to optimise it. This could involve swapping out some keywords or having an SEO specialist go over and optimise specific sections.

Step five: Organising and storing content

Once content is complete, store it in a centralised location where your team can access it, anytime, anywhere. For example: Google Drive or Dropbox. A content management system (CMS) can also be used to store it as well.

Storing content properly is essential for a streamlined workflow across a team. It is also critical when you want to repurpose, reuse or reference content for future use.

A clear naming system is key for organising your content. This may include using specific tags, such as: content format, buyer’s journey stage, campaign name, date, author, etc.

Examples: 

📁 guide-productname-2025
📁 socialpost-eventname-Feb-2025