How to Research Content for your Website
The most important element in building a successful website is the content. In any niche, to dominate the niche and make money out of it, content is important to attract the attention of the visitors and conversion of sales.
When it comes to producing content for a website, the most common way to do it is by visiting several article directories and blogs. Next, extract important points from the articles there that are relevant to your topic then write your own article based from what you’ve read.
Sure that’s a good method but these days, you can hardly find content that can be considered valuable. Many topics from a range of subjects have been written over and over with only the style of writing differing from each one. The general idea however, remains the same.
The only way to avoid this is by researching your topics well. It’s not pleasant, but believe me; it will surely bring wonders to your site in many ways.
People these days are smarter when it comes to determining what valuable information is and what’s not. Ultimately, it’s either you get what you want from your audience, provided that you do your part, or you waste time and effort trying.
Here are 4 ways you can research your content without solely relying on article directories and blogs. What’s more, you’ll never run out of fresh topics for you readers. I’ve created both the video tutorial and the article below to help you out.
We’re going to use the topic ‘long distance relationship’ as an example throughout this article.
Google Adwords Keyword Tool
This is a free tool provided by google and you can use it at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
This one is pretty basic. Usually, the main purpose of this is to get an idea of the approximate number of the audience searching for a particular keyword from the previous month. But it’s also a good tool to unravel interesting titles as well as topics (more on that later).
Enter the keyword into the Google adwords keyword tool and you’ll get a long list of relevant keywords. You have the option to download that list into a txt file or CSV which can be found on the lower right, just below the list of main keywords.
Now, the reason why you want these keywords is for you to pick one from those, still taking account of the number of searches, and then add a few words to it to make it more targeted and compelling. That would be the title.
One of the keywords from the list is ‘Survive long distance relationship’. From that, perhaps, you can come up with ‘Can You Survive a Long Distance Relationship? Find out in 7 Ways’ or ‘How to Survive Long Distance Relationship – A Guide for New Couples’.
Notice that the title is more ‘customized’ but still relevant to your main keyword ‘survive long distance relationship’. From there you can now come up with an outline once you have the title.
Google Wonder Wheel
Another useful tool in coming up titles and topics is the Google Wonder Wheel. It’s not known by many and those who do are able to find this useful in researching aside from the Adwords tool.
To start, enter your keyword in Google’s search box then click Search. You’ll then see websites related to your search. Next, click on the ‘Show Options’ that’s right above the first result and which has a cross icon beside it.
Under Standard view, select ‘Wonder wheel’. It will then show a wheel with your keyword on the center part and relevant keywords under it.
Now here’s the exciting part, when you click on any of the keywords there, it will bring up relevant keywords from that certain keyword. Click that again and another set of keywords will appear and so on. Keep going and you’ll have a much targeted list of keywords to work your content on.
Amazon
Now let’s talk more about the content. But this time we’ll skip on articles and blog posts in getting ideas.
One of the most useful tools in researching besides the Internet is books (provided that they’re updated, of course). It’s reliable because you can be assured that authors definitely did research and the information they wrote is valuable, at least, compared to those on the Internet these days, especially from the article directories.
Note that you’re not going to copy someone else’s words. That’s plagiarism and it’s illegal.
First, you’ll go to amazon.com and enter your topic on the search box. Make sure it’s on the books department. You’ll then find a wide assortment of books related to your search.
For our example ‘long distance relationship’, we can use the book ‘The Long-Distance Relationship Survival Guide’ by Chris Bell.
Now, there’s an option to view some pages by simply clicking on that book’s picture. Go to the table of contents and from there you’ll get a general idea of what topic you can possibly engage in on your next article.
Use those as a reference and again, never copy another author’s words. It won’t do you any good. Believe me.
You can use a few more books on that niche so you’ll have an extensive variety of ideas to refer to before you begin on your content. As these topics are written by experts or renowned authors, you can get some solid stuff and ideas from there.
Forums
Forums are great because most of the time, here is where people talk about their feelings, thoughts and concerns about a certain topic. If you’re smart, you wouldn’t miss the chance to use this to your advantage.
Visit forums about your niche then go around the threads. Don’t just breeze from one thread to the next; take time to understand as well. What’s the main concern? Was there any explanation or solution? If there is, is it reasonable? Was the main concern resolved?
Let’s take again our topic ‘long distance relationship’ for an example. From one of the relationships forum, one person discusses about her concern whether she’s being too demanding with her busy partner who’s working overseas. Another is worried that her partner abroad is cheating on her and she seeks advice on what to do.
Take note of the problems, opinions, likes and dislikes of people there because they are exactly your audience. They’re the ones who you’ll want response from. In that way, you’ll be able to write your content on a more personalized style and see things through your audience’s point of view. Remember, if you want their participation, you must first be in line with their perspective.
Another similar source of ideas you can go to is Yahoo Answers. Yahoo answers have tons of users that asked questions that might related to your niche as well.
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So, there you have it. These three strategies for researching content are simple yet helpful and will keep you going whenever you find yourself scratching your head trying to figure out what to write about for your site. Use it well and you’re on your way to producing content that stands out from the mass.
