There are many reasons content marketing is getting more and more popular these days: Content is what is given priority in search (even more so once Google AuthorRank kicks on) and content is what will attract links, social media shares and thus high Google rankings and constant traffic on auto-pilot.
There have been a lot of articles on how to to brainstorm, market and curate content online. But where to actually start? What’s your best bet?
There’s one tip that never stops working for me: Whenever you need a cool article idea that is going to resonate with your reader, ask and answer a good question!
Supercharge your keyword research with What? Why? and How? words!
And whenever you are stuck or whenever you are entering a new (client’s) niche and trying to figure out what to write about, try the following tools:
1. Google Alerts
Google Alerts have always been a great tool to me: It’s old (so isn’t likely to be discontinued unlike other cool Q&A monitoring tools I tried in the past) and it’s very flexible and customizable (mostly because it supports most of Google’s advanced search operators).
Having popular niche questions in your inbox daily or weekly works magic for instant / unexpected content inspiration. I usually get inspired while even scrolling down the email!
Since you need variety, try using wildcard (*) operator after the question word before your main phrase(s). This will be replaced by one or more random words:
2. Google Suggest
Google Suggest is one of the reasons why I have Google Instant always disabled: I just love typing my search query and seeing how it can be expanded on the fly. It’s insanely powerful: You can feel inspired while you are just typing your keywords.
Sadly, Google suggest doesn’t reliably support the wildcard (*) operator (unlike Google Alerts). Here’s how I make it work:
- Type your question word and your keyword
- Go back and type a wildcard in-between:
If you type [why * diet] right away, you’ll get less useful / less expanded results:
Lots of playing and typing!
3. Quora
I remember when Quora was launched in invitation-only mode, most “experts” were stating the site was going to be ruined by spam and low quality once it was open for the public. I am not sure how Quora is doing that but it still works wonders in terms of the quality of replies and, what’s more, in the ability to bring up the highest-quality content.
In most cases, I get some cool content ideas while even typing via Quora suggest:
But by browsing the site, you get even more clues: Notice “trending” and related questions for lots of ideas.
Which tools are you using to track trending and relevant niche marketing?
Toolbox Photo Credit: gordonr via Compfight cc
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All 3 tools are tier 1 properties Ann and you laid it out nicely. I might add Scoop.it to this short list for content curation and syndication value and since the SME can add his/her “insight’ to the “share” and modify [tags] and H1 and imagery so I find Scoop.it to be a useful Social CM app
That just about sums it up … The Five W’s … Who, What, When, Where, Why.
Great job Ann. I echo Neil’s sentiments about Scoop.it. I use it in place of Quora. The visual aspect makes it much more appealing not to mention FUN!
Thanks Ileane and Neil. I do use Scoop.it but rather for content curation than qa inspiration. I’ll re-visit the site to check which uses I am missing!