Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Content Strategist

🎯 Role Definition

A Content Strategist designs and executes content frameworks that align audience insights, SEO best practices, brand voice, and business goals. This role leads content planning, governance, and measurement across channels (web, email, social, product, and paid) to drive engagement, organic traffic, lead generation, and conversion. The Content Strategist partners closely with marketing, product, design, and analytics teams to ensure content is discoverable, usable, accessible, and aligned with product and marketing roadmaps.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Content Writer / Copywriter with 2–4 years of experience
SEO Specialist or SEO Content Writer
Marketing Coordinator or Communications Associate

Advancement To:

Senior Content Strategist / Lead Content Strategist
Content Manager or Head of Content
Director of Content / VP of Content or Head of Brand & Content

Lateral Moves:

UX Writer or Product Content Lead
Product Marketing Manager
Content Operations Manager / Editorial Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop and own a multi-channel content strategy that aligns with company objectives, product roadmaps, brand positioning, and SEO targets to increase organic traffic, engagement, and conversion rates.
Create and maintain a prioritized, data-driven editorial calendar that coordinates campaign launches, evergreen content, microsites, email sequences, social content, and product documentation across teams.
Conduct comprehensive content audits and gap analyses across all digital properties to identify low-performing content, opportunities for consolidation, and areas for content repurposing and improvement.
Lead audience and persona research—synthesizing qualitative and quantitative data from user interviews, analytics, search trends, and customer feedback—to inform topic selection, messaging frameworks, and content journeys.
Perform keyword research and topical mapping using tools such as Google Search Console, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, or equivalent to inform content briefs, SEO priorities, and internal linking strategies.
Write, review, and approve detailed content briefs and creative briefs that include objectives, target audience, primary messages, SEO requirements, content type and format, distribution plan, and success metrics.
Define and enforce editorial standards and a brand voice/style guide, ensuring consistent tone, grammar, accessible language, and legal/compliance requirements across all content.
Collaborate with UX designers and product teams to integrate content into flows, wireframes, and prototypes, ensuring microcopy and information architecture support usability and conversion.
Set and monitor KPIs and success metrics (organic traffic, SERP rankings, click-through rate, time on page, conversion rate, lead quality) and produce regular performance reports and recommendations for iteration.
Manage content production workflows and governance—assigning tasks, setting SLAs, working with freelance writers, agencies, designers, and video producers to meet deadlines and quality standards.
Optimize on-page SEO elements (titles, meta descriptions, headers, schema/structured data, image alt text) and technical content considerations in partnership with SEO and engineering teams.
Lead content testing and experimentation (A/B tests, content variations, meta tests) to validate hypotheses and improve engagement and conversion outcomes.
Drive content localization and internationalization strategies, coordinating translation, cultural adaptation, and SEO for multi-market rollout.
Develop and manage topic clusters and pillar pages to support semantic SEO and improve topical authority across core business themes.
Identify and implement scalable content operations, templates, and CMS workflows to reduce production time, increase consistency, and enable rapid iteration.
Partner with demand generation, social, PR, and paid teams to amplify content distribution, optimize paid content funnels, and measure attribution across channels.
Create content for conversion and funnel nurture—landing pages, product pages, email nurture sequences, case studies, whitepapers, and sales enablement collateral—to support pipeline and retention goals.
Train and advise internal stakeholders (sales, customer success, product managers) on content best practices, content repurposing, and the role of content in lifecycle marketing.
Manage vendor and freelance relationships, negotiate scopes, and ensure on-time delivery of high-quality assets while monitoring content budgets and ROI.
Ensure content accessibility and compliance by applying WCAG principles and collaborating with legal/compliance teams on regulated content where applicable.
Maintain a backlog of content initiatives prioritized by impact, effort, and strategic alignment; present roadmap updates to cross-functional leadership and adjust priorities based on performance and business needs.
Monitor competitor content strategies, search trends, and industry developments to surface new content opportunities, formats (video, podcasts, interactive), and channel expansions.
Produce executive-ready reporting and storytelling that ties content activity to business outcomes, demonstrating measurable impact on traffic, leads, revenue, and brand metrics.
Facilitate cross-functional content workshops and brainstorming sessions to generate creative concepts, align stakeholders, and accelerate content ideation.
Oversee content migration and CMS transitions, including taxonomy, redirects, canonicalization, and metadata mapping to preserve SEO value during technical changes.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc research requests, presenting user insights and content recommendations to product, marketing, and sales teams.
Contribute to the organization's content operations playbook and roadmap to improve throughput and reduce time-to-publish.
Assist in sprint planning and agile ceremonies for content projects, ensuring content tasks are scoped and prioritized alongside product and engineering work.
Help maintain content metrics dashboards and automate recurring reports for stakeholders.
Provide copy editing and proofreading support for time-sensitive or high-profile content assets.
Participate in stakeholder interviews and gather cross-functional requirements to refine content deliverables.
Support localization handoffs and QA by reviewing translated content for tone and brand consistency.
Coordinate asset handoffs to designers, video teams, and UX to ensure content aligns with visual design and technical constraints.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Content strategy development and content lifecycle management
SEO strategy and execution: keyword research, on-page SEO, schema markup, technical SEO basics
Content management systems (CMS) experience — e.g., WordPress, Contentful, Drupal, Sanity
Analytics and measurement: Google Analytics / GA4, Google Search Console, Looker Studio (Data Studio), A/B testing tools
Experience with SEO and research tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, Screaming Frog
Editorial planning and calendar tools — e.g., Asana, Trello, Jira, Monday.com, Notion
UX writing and information architecture principles for content design
Experience producing content briefs, creative briefs, and editorial guidelines
Experience with content governance, style guides, and tone-of-voice development
Familiarity with HTML, basic CSS, and CMS templating to implement or troubleshoot content
Email marketing and CRM content experience — e.g., HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Content localization workflows and working with translation management systems (TMS)
Experience with multimedia content production (video scripts, podcasts, interactive content) and basic production workflows
Experience with paid content amplification and content attribution modeling

Soft Skills

Strategic thinking with a strong bias for measurable outcomes and ROI
Exceptional written and verbal communication; storytelling skills for diverse audiences
Cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management with influence and diplomacy
Project management and organizational skills, able to manage multiple deadlines and priorities
Data-driven decision making and comfortable interpreting quantitative and qualitative insights
Attention to detail and strong editorial judgment
Leadership and mentorship for junior writers and cross-team contributors
Adaptability and creative problem solving in a fast-paced environment
Customer-centric mindset with empathy for user needs and behaviors
Time management and the ability to prioritize initiatives by impact and effort

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, Journalism, English, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Business, or related field; or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree or certifications in Digital Marketing, SEO, Content Strategy, or related fields (e.g., Content Marketing Institute certification, Google Analytics certification).
Formal training in UX writing, human-centered design, or information architecture is a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Marketing
Communications / Journalism
English / Creative Writing
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) / UX
Business / Advertising
Information Science

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–7 years of progressively responsible experience in content strategy, content marketing, SEO, or related roles.

Preferred:

5+ years leading content strategy in B2B, SaaS, e-commerce, media, or agency environments with demonstrable impact on organic growth, conversions, and engagement metrics.
Proven track record of managing cross-channel content programs, authoring content playbooks, and driving measurable business outcomes through content initiatives.