Wide angle vs narrow angle content creation

[animalstyle]

How do you all handle content creation from a wide vs narrow angle perspective?

Specifically, I am struggling to feel comfortable diving down and making a single peice of content without understanding the larger picture to see exactly where it fits. Do you practice building a larger framework before ever creating individual content? Do you build a ton of individual pieces at a keyword target level and then organize, optimize, and adjust later?

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking but I'll answer regardless!

For my bigger sites, I always establish a broad amount of content on the site. What I mean is that I get a certain number of posts in each category so it doesn't look empty to visitors. And the reason I have a ton of empty categories to start is because I build the entire infrastructure out first before adding content so I can get that behind me entirely.

I also tend to try to create content around obvious topics that should appear on any site targeting that topic. Like... before I start digging into "red widget fastener types: eyelets or rivets for strength instead of beauty" I like to start with "what are red widgets" and "the main types of red widgets" and things like that. I like to cover some amount of broad stuff first, even if I have no chance of ranking for it.

I eventually stop that and go towards things I can rank for at that moment in time. Later I use those broad articles to interlink down to the granular detailed posts and to the money making posts. And then I begin adding more and use them as mini-nets to interlink back to the money posts as I roll them out (as well as more granular long-tail posts too). So ultimately I'm tackling broad and narrow terms all at the same time as I dance from one sub-topic to the next.

As far as your last question, each post has a target keyword and others in it's "basket" that it gets optimized for from the start. I don't post and wait to see what Google favors it for then re-adjust. I set my sights and go. Of course you can return later and squeeze in more terms that Google is associating with the post, but I guide them from the beginning.

 

[animalstyle]

Thanks for this answer Ryu. Essentially this was what I was asking for in the original question, though I just was too confused about the whole thing and as a result I was unable to clearly ask the question.

This balance of mapping out where I need to go conceptually while very logically and methodically producing the individual building blocks that make up the whole is very confusing for me. I was mixing the two in action which was debilitating. What you've said has been very helpful in understanding what I need to do to from here.

I had a list of articles I'd written, keywords for those articles, and ideas - but no overall master plan. I ended up mapping out a working draft of a navigation based on some other sites as examples which helped me roughly define the categories and core structure of the site. I'll keep revisiting this and polishing it until I am happy. With even this rough draft in hand, I can now clearly see where each of the examples you're referencing fits and overall it's helped focus the mind and make it easier to charge forward.

Finding out how far the mind can conceptualize before getting down an doing the work is a difficult challenge, as always I appreciate your insight and willingness to step up and help out!