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Skill · Content strategy

Content strategy.

Plan what to publish, why, when, and how, before producing a word.

The strategic layer of a content program. Editorial positioning, the 3 to 5 pillars the program owns, the formats it returns to, the calendar that schedules them, and the governance that keeps quality from drifting. Stack-agnostic: it works for blogs, knowledge bases, marketing sites, newsletters, and product content surfaces.

Tactical execution and keyword research sit in other skills; this one stitches them into a coherent program and keeps production aimed at the topics the audience needs, not the ones easiest to write.

Audience: content leads, marketing teams, and founders planning a new content program or relaunching an existing one.

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The framework

Five layers. Skip one and the program drifts.

A content strategy has five layers. Each answers a different question, and a gap in any one shows up downstream.

  1. 01Editorial positioning: the 'why we write' statement. Mission, audience, promise, and the distinction that sets this program apart from the others in the space.
  2. 02Content pillars: the 3 to 5 themes the program owns. Every piece belongs to a pillar, with cornerstone content anchoring each one.
  3. 03Formats and types: length, depth, type, originality, and evergreen vs timely. 3 to 5 formats the program returns to consistently.
  4. 04Editorial calendar: cadence, pillar rotation, format mix, and flex slots for timely opportunities and refreshes.
  5. 05Governance and lifecycle: the production workflow, the roles, the quality bar, and the update-or-retire decisions that keep authority from eroding.

How the skill runs

Eight steps from inputs to an operational calendar.

The skill confirms its inputs first, builds the strategy in layers, then operationalizes it in whatever tool the team uses.

  1. 01

    Confirm inputs

    Brand positioning, audience, business goals, and production capacity. If any are missing, surface that first. If positioning is unclear, run brand-discovery before strategy.

  2. 02

    Draft editorial positioning

    Mission, audience, promise, distinction. Stress-test it by completing the 'We help [audience] [achieve outcome] by publishing [content] that [angle]' sentence.

  3. 03

    Define content pillars

    3 to 5 pillars, each with a theme, the reason you own it, 5 to 15 sub-topics, and planned cornerstone content. Fewer than 3 is brittle; more than 5 dilutes focus.

  4. 04

    Choose formats

    3 to 5 formats the program returns to, matched to the audience's consumption, the topics, the production capacity, and the distribution channels.

  5. 05

    Build the calendar

    Cadence matched to capacity, pillar rotation so each theme recurs, a content-type mix within each month, and flex slots for timely content and refreshes.

  6. 06

    Set up governance

    Roles, the production workflow, the quality bar at each stage, and the lifecycle rules for updating and retiring content.

  7. 07

    Document

    Capture positioning, pillars, formats, calendar structure, governance, the measurement plan, and capacity in the strategy template.

  8. 08

    Operationalize

    Set up the editorial calendar in the team's tool with one row per piece: title, pillar, format, target keyword, publish date, owner, status.

Pairs with these platforms

Where the calendar and the content live.

The strategy is stack-agnostic, but the editorial calendar and the published content have to live somewhere. Notion hosts the calendar and the governance docs; Webflow and Contentful are publishing surfaces for the content the strategy plans.

Where this skill fits

The strategic layer, not the writing.

Content strategy is the strategic layer. It decides what to publish, why, when, and how. Tactical execution lives elsewhere: content-and-copy writes the pieces, landing-page-copy writes the conversion pages, and email-sequences handles lifecycle and broadcast sends. This skill stitches those into a coherent program.

SEO-driven planning sits in seo-keyword: run the keyword research there, then return here for the strategic decisions. SEO is a downstream filter on the pillars, not the strategy itself. Pillars chosen for keyword opportunity alone serve the search engine and not the audience.

A strategy that lives in a doc is decoration. The test is whether it translates into the editorial calendar and the production workflow. If the calendar and the workflow do not change because of the strategy, the strategy does not exist yet.

Reference files

Two references that go alongside the SKILL.md.

  • references/content-strategy-template.md

    The strategy document template: positioning, pillars, formats, calendar structure, governance, measurement plan, and capacity.

  • references/editorial-calendar-template.md

    Spreadsheet column definitions and calendar structure: one row per planned piece, with the pillar rotation and format mix that keep production aimed at the audience.

Browse all reference files on GitHub

Bridges to other skills

What feeds in and what scales out.

Content strategy takes its inputs from brand work and hands off to the architecture and production skills below.

  • Upstream input

    brand-discovery

    Positioning and audience come from here. Run it before content strategy when positioning is unclear or the audience is undefined, or the pillars end up built on assumptions.

  • Hub execution

    pillar-content-architecture

    Designs the hub for one chosen pillar: a single topic with 10 to 15 intentional pieces linked to compound over years. It takes one pillar from the strategy and builds it out.

  • Per-piece briefs

    content-brief-authoring

    One level down from the program. It briefs each editorial piece individually, with the fields that earn their keep, so a single assignment carries everything the writer needs.

  • Scaled lane

    programmatic-seo

    For programs with real underlying data and queryable intent, the scaled-content alternative to editorial pieces. Strategy decides whether this lane fits the program at all.

  • Search input

    seo-keyword

    Keyword research that surfaces what the audience actually searches for. Feed it into the pillars as a downstream filter rather than letting it drive the strategy.

Open source under MIT

Read the SKILL.md on GitHub.

The skill source lives in the rampstackco/claude-skills repository alongside dozens of other skills covering the full lifecycle of brand and product work. This page is a structured overview; the SKILL.md is the source. MIT licensed.

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Frequently asked questions.

What are content pillars, and how many should I have?
Pillars are the 3 to 5 themes the program owns; every piece of content belongs to one. Per pillar, define the theme, why you own it (audience need plus brand authority plus competitive opportunity), 5 to 15 sub-topics, the cornerstone content that anchors it, and the supporting content that links to the cornerstone. 3 to 5 is the sweet spot: fewer than 3 risks brittleness, and more than 5 dilutes focus so the audience cannot remember what you stand for.
How is content strategy different from writing content?
Content strategy is the planning layer: what to produce, why, when, and how. The writing is tactical execution that sits in separate skills (content-and-copy for general pieces, landing-page-copy for conversion pages, email-sequences for lifecycle and broadcast sends). Use content strategy to plan the program; use the writing skills to produce the pieces. Pure keyword research belongs in seo-keyword, and keep/update/delete decisions on existing content belong in an SEO content audit.
Should pillars be chosen for SEO?
Not for SEO alone. Pillars must serve the audience and the brand; SEO is a downstream filter, not the strategy. Choose pillars the audience cares about (research-backed, not assumed), that the brand can credibly own, where becoming a top-3 source is achievable, that connect to revenue, and that distinguish you from competitors. Run the keyword research, then apply it to the pillars you would want regardless. Pillars chosen for keyword opportunity alone serve the search engine and not the reader.
What cadence should the editorial calendar run at?
Match cadence to actual production capacity. High frequency (3 or more pieces a week) builds momentum but needs significant capacity; medium frequency (1 to 2 a week) is sustainable for most teams and builds a steady audience; low frequency (1 to 4 a month) means each piece must be high-impact; burst-then-pause suits launches and campaigns. A 3-piece-a-week plan with one part-time writer fails. Structure the calendar with pillar rotation, a content-type mix, flex slots for timely content, and planned time to refresh high-performing pieces.
What does content governance cover?
How content gets made, reviewed, published, measured, and retired. The production workflow runs idea, brief, outline, draft, edit, review, publish, measure, then update or retire, with an owner, required inputs, outputs, a quality bar, and a target duration defined per stage. Roles include the editorial lead (positioning, calendar, quality bar), writers, subject-matter experts, editors, an SEO lead, and publishers. Lifecycle rules cover the 6-to-12-month review of top evergreen content, retire criteria, and republishing updated content as fresh. Without a quality bar, the program produces content but loses authority.
How do I know the strategy is real and not decoration?
It has to translate into the editorial calendar and the production workflow. A strategy document that does not change what gets scheduled or how content is produced is decoration. Operationalize it: set up the calendar with one row per planned piece (title, pillar, format, target keyword if SEO-driven, publish date, owner, status) and define the workflow with roles and a quality bar. If the calendar and the workflow do not reflect the strategy, the strategy does not exist yet.