Our Top 5 Topic Ideation Tips for a Content Marketing Strategy

Generating ideas for your content marketing strategy can sometimes be the hardest part of routinely producing quality content for a blog or website. It can appear that every topic has been covered but, with a little research, there are always new and fresh angles to find that will help you rank on Google, generate traffic, and convert that traffic into quality leads.

Here are 5 ways of the top ways we come up with those topics and ideas for a coveted content strategy that produces results:

1. Competitor Research

One of the best ways to compete for desired keywords is to look and see what your competitors are doing. Find out who is ranking for what you want to rank for and get some content ideas based on their content. SEO is a competitive game and you can learn a lot from the people currently ranking higher than you and doing the best in your industry.

By performing a competitor analysis, we’re able to form a strategy that pushes back and finds the gaps and opportunities. Don’t be afraid to take the broad topics of great content and write it with your own spin, your own images, and your own videos. 

2. The Best Software and Tools

The Marketing Technologies (MarTech) world is full of great tools and software to help brainstorm a ton of ideas for your content marketing strategy on any topic. Here are just a few great tools in every marketer’s arsenal.

Answer The Public: This tool offers a ton of great information in every search. Answer The Public lets you search your desired topic or keyword then displays dozens of questions that people are asking online about those topics. From there, we can formulate the best ways to go after keywords.

Ubersuggest: This research tool lets us research keywords, compare them, see their potential, and even see which other sites are ranking highly for those keywords. Ubersuggest is run by Neil Patel who is a major leader in content marketing strategy and this free resource has become a favorite of content writers everywhere. 

*NOTE: if you use specific tools other than these just let me know and I can change them. Or, if you’d rather not talk about what you use in-house, I can delete this section.

3. Keyword Research

Performing strong keyword research is the tried and true way of finding topics and blog ideas that are most likely to generate the right traffic. If done right, you’ll get a sense of what topics are being searched for, how they’re being searched for, and what keywords you need to use to get a piece of that traffic.

Good keyword research helps you find new topics and opportunities that are slightly less competitive and that present an easier road to ranking highly on Google.

4. Survey Your Customers

You produce content because you want to provide value to your audience, so why not ask your audience? 

You can use a quick survey to gauge what questions people have for you, your business, and your industry. Chances are, the questions your customers have are the same that your future customers have. These can be questions about your industry in general, your business’ services, your local area, anything that you think will make for great content that will drive traffic to your site.

We can help you build and distribute surveys to your database to put your finger on the pulse of what’s trending in your target market. 

5. Optimize Old Content

In the same vein as questioning your customers, we can perform a complete content review that involves taking a look back at all of your past content to see what’s working and what’s not. If certain topics are providing the most conversions, focus on those. If you have one blog that is up and away from the most productive, write a follow-up or a new angle on the topic.

Another helpful hint in content marketing is to consistently update your old content. Google loves it when you continue to refresh your old stuff and establishing a solid content updating strategy is a great way to strengthen the content you already have.

A digital marketing agency can help you sift through all your old content to find places that need optimization or can help you fully optimize any new content that you’ve written.

If you’re having trouble keeping up with content or want to enlist the help of the experts, contact us today to talk with a member of our team about how we can help your organic traffic soar.