What do you use to come up with content ideas?
-
Buzzsumo charge and not sure it's worth it. didn't find Quora helpful. Any others?
-
Hi,
I'm working on a presentation that helps brands answer this question. It really feels like one of those questions that should have a great, simple answer.
My quick-fast-dirty process looks a lot like this.
Brand-level
- Determine goals for brand
- Ascertain how content can help brand attain those goals
Competition
- Do a simple Google search to see which brands are competition for the same audience (e.g., using your money keywords)
- Pay close attention to the content they've created that's ranking well
- Try to create a short list of things you can do content-wise better
Audience
- Figure out who they are being visiting social media, Quora, Reddit, etc., and doing a keyword search to see who is using your terms
- Make at list of the folks who are influencers and what questions, concerns, issues are being raised
- Use this information to find other such platforms where similar audiences might be congregating (i.e., do a Google search or Twitter search or Facebook search to see what other groups key members might be a part of)
Content
Armed with your keywords, the questions you can likely answer and the types of content your competition is creating, you can being to think about the types of content you can and should create based on your brand's needs and goals.
For example, if you have an existing product that is now newer and better than ever, but you need to get people to learn about the changes, maybe you write a top of the funnel piece that includes your brand as part of a solution to a problem you found from online discussions. The maker of a sleek, redesigned wallet for millennials, say, might write a post titled "Why Your iPhone Case Should Never Double as a Credit Card Holder."
The key is to focus as much on the execution as the idea. That is...
- Have a clear goal with regard to each piece of content
- Know in advance which segment of the audience you're attempting to reach and what desired actions you wish for them to take
- Understand that publishing content is only part of the process. (It must be shared, promoted and, hopefully, amplified to be successful)
To help you get started, here are a few indispensable resources:
For help with what questions you should be answering:
For how to come up with better ideas more easily:* Creating Demand for Products, Services, and Ideas that Have Little to No Existing Search Volume - Whiteboard Friday*GENERATING BETTER CONTENT IDEAS
-
Thanks, all. Regarding trying to guess what our customers are looking for, I've found from previous jobs that attempting to surmise a searcher's language can be tricky. I used to do digital marketing for a cookware company and we'd have a word for a saucepan, for example, whereas we found that searchers were using different language and terms.
Google Trends I like but doesn't it just give you an idea for the search volume over a defined period, and allow you to filter down geographically etc? I want to make sure that there is significant call/traffic to justify the pages that I'll be creating.
Cheers,
Rhys
-
Go to SEMRUSH. Check keywords that bring competitors big traffic and where I am not yet competing. Make pages that will defeat theirs.
-
Amanda is on point with her suggestion. The 90 foot view is always where I start.
What are you user's actually looking for? Like really step into their shoes - they're human too remember - and ask yourself what kind of questions they have. We marketer's all have fancy terms for different levels of marketing funnels but ultimately it's very simple. A human being has a need and they look to Google for their solution. Given what you know about your customer/user/visitor - how can you make their journey easier, faster, simpler? Add value, be authentic and don't cut corners.
Once you have a few idea's that start with the person, use the tools Amanda has recommended to validate your theory and gain more understanding.
Good luck!
-
Sounds simplistic but keyword research categorized by estimated volume based around semantic relativeness, Google Trends, competitor research, and the 90 foot view of those three things together to then define a content strategy.
~Amanda
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
ViewState and Duplicate Content
Our site keeps getting duplicated content flagged as an issue... however, the pages being grouped together have very little in common on-page. One area which does seem to recur across them is the ViewState. There's a minimum of 150 lines across the ones we've investigated. Could this be causing the reports?
Technical SEO | | RobLev0 -
Should I use canonical tag in these cases?
Should I use canonical tag in these cases? On the page itself (with the tag pointing to itself) On pages that doesn't have duplicate versions
Technical SEO | | GoMentor0 -
Can you use schema markup to do this?
We sell steel plates. They come in a number of different grades and then in a variety of sizes. Generally we have a page for each unique grade. What I want to do is to use schema to enhance the rich snippet in SERPS to say something like width: 2 - 3.5m length 6 - 14m thickness 6 - 300mm Phosphorous: 0.005% Sulphur 0.005% is this possible using schema? would I use thing/product or another theme? i'm trying to scope out the possibilities here to determine whether it is worth spending time on. The the other more interesting question is whether it is possible to respond differently to informational and purchasing searches. So if someone is looking for informations physical and chemical properties would be best used in the schema markup. If they are looking to purchase then product characteristics. Can these be shown differentially?
Technical SEO | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
Which Web host do you use?
A friend of mine has a successful website which is hosted by the company he used to use for developing his site. As he no longer uses them feels he should use it. Who do you use for hosting a small to medium sized business?
Technical SEO | | Ant710 -
Content is king, is it okay if its in a widget?
My home page for my site, isn't really a home page, not sure how to describe that. We have additional pages that are stand alone pages which we work on and add content too, just not for the main page. So I have put my 300 words in a widget on the front page (which actually shows up on all the page being a widget. Is that good for SEO, or should it be in the body of a page? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | greenhornet770 -
Moving most (not all) content to another domain
Hi there, My company website has 3 main sections, two of those sections (each containing approx. 50 pages) will be moving to a separate website. The new website will also be owned by the same company. The new domain does not yet exist. I read this guide http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-guide-how-to-properly-move-domains , its very good, however it refers to moving the whole domain to a new URL. Are there any specific differences to consider in my situation for a partial move? Many thanks in advance! Nigel
Technical SEO | | Richard5550 -
Duplicate Content Issue with
Hello fellow Moz'rs! I'll get straight to the point here - The issue, which is shown in the attached image, is that for every URL ending in /blog/category/name, it has a duplicate page of /blog/category/name/?p=contactus. Also, its worth nothing that the ?p=contact us are not in the SERPs but were crawled by SEOMoz and they are live and duplicate. We are using Pinnacle cart. Is there a way to just stop the crawlers from ?p=contactus or? Thank you all and happy rankings, James
Technical SEO | | JamesPiper0 -
How do you properly handle syndicated content?
The same piece of content is pulled in and presented (syndicated) within a frame on different web sites (owned by the same company). However, I would like only one web site to rank on Google's search results for that content. How do I set this up? Thanks, claudia
Technical SEO | | claudmar0