Content is a crucial component of success in the online world.
By producing regular content, targeted at the keywords and terms your customers are searching for, you can improve your chances of appearing high in the Google search results.
At the same time, content delivers incredible value to your audience. It demonstrates your thought leadership, provides useful information and creates the trust that can lead to conversions.
The only trouble is, content marketing is an ongoing strategy. You can’t just produce a one-off blog every now and then and expect to see great results. That means that after a while, even the most creative website owners can find that their ideas begin to dry up.
Fortunately, there are strategies that can help you keep the content flowing.
Table of Contents
Get Seasonal
If you’re struggling with evergreen content ideas, then why not pay attention to what’s happening right now? Perhaps the summer is coming, and you can tailor your content around something particularly relevant to these days. For instance, a parenting and lifestyle blog might look at things to do with the kids during a school break.
There are also plenty of options to write content around common celebrations, ranging from mother’s day and father’s day to Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and beyond.
Sit down with your content calendar and make a note at different times of the year about seasonal topics you might be able to discuss.
Listen to your Audience
If you’re not sure what you should talk about on your website, why not listen to the things that your customers are already talking about? You can speak to your sales team to find out what some of the most common questions asked by your customers are and convert those questions into blog posts.
Alternatively, check out some of the trending topics on forum websites like Quora and Reddit. You can search for questions based on a specific keyword, such as “baking” or “marketing”, and see what comes up.
If you can provide useful and in-depth answers to your customers’ most pressing questions, you’ll do much more than just fill out your blog. You’ll prove your worth too.
You can even check out what people are talking about on social media. Looking at the top trending posts on channels like Instagram and Twitter might inspire you to write something new.
Examine Your Competition
The last thing you want to do is copy and paste whatever your competitors are doing onto your own blog. However, paying attention to other companies in your industry is still a strategic move. Your competitors will have already researched what your audience needs to know about, which means that the content they’re producing should be on point.
Examine what they’ve written lately and pay attention to how customers have responded with shares and comments.
Are there any points that your competitors have talked about that you can look at from a different perspective? Are there gaps in the content that your competitors have that you can fill with your own industry knowledge?
There are plenty of keyword research tools like Ahrefs that allow you to examine which keywords your competitors are ranking for. You might notice some gaps in their strategy that you could use to set yourself apart.
Update Your Old Content
There are many different kinds of content on a standard blog. Some of the pieces you post will be seasonal and trending, based on what’s happening in the world around you right now. Others will be in-depth insights into your industry – content that should stand the test of time.
This evergreen content is excellent for collecting compounding audience attention over time. However, it’s important to remember that just because your content is evergreen, doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t benefit from the occasional update.
Keeping your website fresh by adding to your old content, changing facts, and making sure everything is up to date is a great way to appeal to the search engines. What’s more, if you focus on refreshing the content that your audience already loves, you know you’re going to get a great response.
While you’re refreshing, consider repurposing any of your old content into something new, like creating a video or whitepaper out of a blog post, and so on.
Experiment with Your Schedule
Finally, rather than producing a constant stream of blog posts or articles for your website, why not get a little creative?
Perhaps you could take one of the blogs that you published this week and use it as inspiration for a podcast or infographic too. That way, you’re not building something brand-new from scratch, but you are delivering extra value for your audience.
You can also expand your content schedule by adding things like monthly roundups of your best content to your list. What if you posted a list of some of the top-performing blogs from the month? Maybe you can send that list to your customers via email too.
This would be a great way to keep your audience engaged and coming back for more.
Sit down with your calendar and mark out days in the month for repeating content, like Q&A days with your audience over the video, or social media takeover days.
Keeping Your Content Fresh
Content is king in the digital landscape. However, figuring out a way to constantly produce new and exciting content can be difficult after a while. No matter how creative you are, there will be a point when you hit a bit of writer’s block.
Using the strategies above, you should have some ideas to refresh your mind and update your website, even when you’re running low on inspiration.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to your audience and ask them what they want to hear about too. Regular polls or votes for monthly themes could be a great way to see what your customers are interested in.
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- How To Never Run Out Of Ideas For Creating Content - May 3, 2020
Updating old content has been one of my favorite ways to get more ideas, Heather. I beef up and re-publish old posts with new titles and an extra 600-1500 words. Powerful way to make what you already have do even more work for you.
Ryan
I agree, Ryan. I’ve seen a ton of value and a big boost in my search results after updating a lot of older pieces. Older content still has so much value to add, so if we just beef it up (strategically) we can breathe new life into it.