Final exam — Content Strategy — Fluent Collective Courses

Ten questions, seven to pass. This tests whether the course’s key ideas actually stuck — not trivia, the concepts that matter. Pass and you bank 100 XP.

1. What does the Strategy-First Rule require before any piece gets created?

A budget approved by management and signed off for the quarter A documented five-part reason: goal, audience, evidence, promotion plan, and success metric At least 2,000 words planned for every single piece Three stock photos selected and approved before writing begins

2. A page gets decent traffic but serves no current business goal. Where does it land in the Audit Matrix?

Keep — traffic is traffic Update — the traffic proves the topic works Kill or repurpose Merge — combine it with the homepage

3. What is the Data Moat?

A paid tool for keyword research Original research and proprietary data competitors can’t copy A backup of all your content A firewall for your website

4. A roofer has 30 topic ideas. Which does the strategist create first?

The ones with the highest search volume The highest-scoring on buyer intent × relevance × winnability The easiest ones to write Whatever the team votes for

5. What’s missing from this brief: “Write 1,500 words about email marketing”?

Nothing — it’s clear and actionable It needs more words — 1,500 is too short Everything strategic: keyword, intent, angle, E-E-A-T plan, promotion It needs a stock photo budget

6. Which best demonstrates E-E-A-T “Experience”?

Writing “we are industry experts” in the author bio and on every page Original photos from the actual job, with details only someone who did it would know Citing five other blogs that wrote about the same topic Publishing the post on a Tuesday because Tuesdays supposedly perform best

7. A survey study gets 60 responses. What’s the honest way to publish it?

Round it up and say 100 — nobody checks Publish with the real sample size and methodology stated Don’t publish — under 100 responses is worthless Present it as industry-wide fact without mentioning the sample

8. A post gets 10,000 visits and zero signups on a high-fit topic. The strategist’s move?

Kill it — no conversions means the topic has failed completely Fix the conversion: stronger CTA and offer matched to intent Celebrate the traffic numbers and change nothing about the post Rewrite the whole post from scratch with a new topic

9. What makes the quarterly review different from a traffic report?

It’s longer It produces written decisions It only looks at social metrics It’s presented as a slide deck

10. Two of your pages target the same keyword and neither ranks well. What’s happening and what’s the fix?

Coincidence — keep both published and hope rankings sort themselves out Cannibalization: they’re splitting authority. Merge them into one definitive page and redirect. The keyword is cursed — pick a new one Delete both pages and start over from scratch

Final exam: Content Strategy