When it comes to content marketing, you cannot just write blog posts for the sake of writing. You need to write with a purpose and a plan. Writing with a purpose makes investing your money and time worthwhile and will lead to better outcomes, such as higher rankings, and more leads and sales.
In a recent research published by the B2B, it was concluded that businesses that blog receive 67% more leads than companies that don’t. But the fact is they are not just blogging about anything. Rather, they write about topics their consumers are interested in to hold their audiences attention.
So, how do they know what they should write about? The answer is simple: Data. The trouble is how to you use data to curate content? Here’s a guide that will help you come up with more strategic content topics and ideas:
Conducting Keyword Research
You cannot just start blogging and hope for results. You need to use certain keywords to capture the attention of your audience. What is your audience looking for, and what do they search for most frequently? It is your job to find this out.
There are generally four types of keywords you should know about:
- Brand Phrases: This includes your brand name, trademarks that may be associated with your brand, and product names.
- Product Phrases: This includes the terms people would use to look for your product or service
- Buyer-Intent Keyword: Phrases that may help convert leads into buyers, such as “compare” and “best”
- Related Keyboard: Phrases that are related to your niche
Building Keywords
So, what kind of keywords would people generally use to find your products? Start listing keywords that are relevant to your products and services. Once you have a list, you can Google the keywords to see what kind of searches come up. This will give you an idea of how effective your keywords really are.
Pay attention to searches that appear higher on the page. Also pay close attention to the meta description. Next, check out the ads that are higher up on the page. Google assigns every ad a Quality Score. The ads that people click on the most show up higher on the page; therefore it is time for you to double-check your keywords again to check their effectiveness.
Using Tools
Luckily for you, you do not have to spend precious time jotting down every single keyword that may help your brand. Some tools you can use are Soovle and Ubersuggest. Soovle pools in keywords from search engines.
Identifying the Right Content Format
Don’t you think it would be useful to know what kind of content would resonate with your audience? This is where BuzzSumo comes into place. This handy tool will not only analyze content from your website but from your competitors’ website as well. This allows you to:
- Analyze how to schedule your posts and the best days to publish your content
- Find the most shared content by keyword
- Understand which post format works best
- Determine how long your posts should be
Essentially, you will have to purchase membership to take advantage of the useful features on BuzzSumo. A free version, however, can also help you uncover some important information that might be useful to you, but the process will require more effort. You can uncover formal insights by clicking on the “Most Shared” tab under the Content Research tab. Pay attention to total shares and individual platform shares. Compare the results to see what kind of format would get you the most shares.
Generating Content Ideas
If you are having a hard time coming up with a strategy to devise content, then perhaps you need to consider breaking down your goals into small chunks. Here’s how you can outline your content calendar:
- Create content using the keywords you have chosen
- Rank higher in search for target keywords
- Spend time producing content as opposed to spending time figuring out what to write
Put It All Together
Now that you know how to go about it, it is time you put all your ideas together. Prioritize your keywords and think of topics that would spark interest amongst your readers. Happy writing!
Source: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/data-relevant-content
