The Best Research Tools to Write Killer Content
Updated on June 25, 2019, to include current research tools and resources.
One of the first tools I fell in love with when I started mountaineering was an ice axe. An ice axe probably doesn’t sound like something you could love. It’s certainly not warm and fuzzy. You can definitely use it as a weapon. But hear me out! It’s essential for scrambling and climbing on snow and ice and is jaw-droppingly versatile. You can use it as a walking stick to keep balance, for self-arrest if you fall, and to maintain control when glissading down a slope. It’s literally a lifesaver.
Thinking about how much mountaineering tools make my adventuring life easier and how I enjoy suggesting that other people use them, made me realize how many content research and ideation tools make my process way more efficient and that I should probably share those with people, too.
Why Do You Need Content Research Tools?
One of the main reasons for using tools for content ideation is to understand what your users are searching for, so you can deliver the most engaging and useful content to them.
In Content Strategy for the Web, Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach write:
“Great content meets users’ needs and supports key business objectives. It keeps people coming back for more.”
When you’re coming up with content ideas, it’s essential to think about what’s going to make people return to your site. One way to do this is by answering people’s questions. Not only is this a great way to engage with people on your website, but writing blog posts in this way can help you drive a lot of organic traffic, especially if you grab the “featured snippet” or “people also ask” sections of the SERPs.
A Few of My Favorite Research Tools
If you currently write content but need some new methods for finding topics for your blog, read below for my favorite content research tools (some free, some paid).
1. Free Content Research Tools
Content topic research is more of an art than a science. There isn’t a prescriptive, one-size-fits-all approach. It’s best to pick a starting point and then see where you end up from there. To begin to get a feel for what people are searching for, I suggest starting with one of the free content research tools and then dive into the paid tools to find out how viable your ideas are (I’ll talk about my favorite paid tools later on in this post).
One fantastic place to start is Quora. Quora is a website where people ask, answer, edit, and organize questions. Its sole purpose is to solve people’s problems by responding to questions, just like you do with the content on your website.
Let’s pretend your company sells matcha. If you search “matcha,” it pulls up questions people asked around the topic. The inquiry below is an excellent potential topic to explore on your website or social media platforms:
Try typing in different keywords and seeing what questions come up—some will most likely be potential content topics, or at least help you verify your current ideas.
Reddit may seem like a place where you find trolls, not new content ideas. However, 330 million unique users are discussing different topics on Reddit, all which you can use for ideation research.
Reddit is also made up of thousands of communities called “subreddits” where users post links, stories, and videos. Users vote to determine which posts rank the highest on the subreddits.
Let’s go with a similar beverage themed query, but “coffee” this time. If you go to Reddit and search “coffee,” you’ll find the coffee subreddit and topics such as:
- Can I collect pour over coffee in any regular glass container?
- Can water hardness affect flow rate in pour over?
- Does coffee get better with age? (Answer, no! Compost that immediately if it’s too old!)
You could turn these results into content topics such as:
- “Coffee Accessories You Need to Own Now”
- “DIY Pour Over Coffee Containers You Can Find In Your Kitchen”
- “How Long Does Coffee Stay Drinkable?”
Explore the different subreddits and see what ideas you come up with. As of 2017, there are 1 million subreddits, and you’ll likely find some that are relevant to your industry.
A search engine’s goal is to match up a searcher’s intent with a quality piece of content that satisfies that purpose. When someone enters a query into the search bar, the engine will attempt to find the most relevant pages to display in its search results.
An excellent tool for discovering what potential customers are searching for is the Google Ads Keyword Planner. This tool allows you to research new keywords and ideas, and you can access the tool without running a campaign—I just recommend following some instructions.
Although Google will hide info for certain terms with extremely high volume, the Keyword Planner tool provides the average search volume for specific terms and phrases, and it can show you how competitive the market is for that query and how expensive a paid search bid might be.
One of our favorite ways to use the Keyword Planner is to find the Wikipedia page for your topic and then plug that into the “Your landing page” field. For example, some of the keyword ideas from looking up the Wikipedia page for “Hiking” are:
- “hiking boots”
- “walking holidays”
- “backpacking gear”
Once you uncover what people are actually searching for, you can either optimize your current content for those keyword phrases or create new content.
Plain Old Google
Don’t get so sucked into using tools that you forget to look at the actual search engine results pages. Plugging a keyword into Google and seeing what comes up via Google Suggest can be a simple, but effective way to kick off your content ideation process.
You can use Google Suggest to go down a kind of keyword rabbit hole. Start by inputting a simple query, such as “jogging” and see what Google pulls up.
You can then choose one of the suggestions, plug it back into Google, and see what comes up in Google Suggest this time.
For example, if you sell jogging shoes, you could write a blog post titled, “The Top 5 Jogging Shoes for Flat Feet.”
If you want additional data about these queries directly in the SERPs, you can install the free Chrome and Firefox plugin, Keywords Everywhere. The tool will give you data such as Google keyword search volume, CPC, and competition data of keywords.
They also pull “related keywords” and “people also search for” and display them on the right-hand side of the SERPs, which you can export to a CSV file.
Paid Content Research Tools
Free content tools are fantastic, but they can only give you so much information and data. In addition to free resources, I like to use a few paid tools as well. Most of them have free trials, so you don’t have to be afraid of commitment.
Answer The Public is a tool that collects questions. But instead of using questions from users within its site, they’re provided by Google & Bing. These questions are put in a shareable, visual list and the data is shown in question, preposition, or alphabetical form, and then exported to a CSV file or as a PNG.
For example, if you search for “cherry blossoms,” it brings up questions such as “Are cherry blossoms edible?” and “How to cherry blossom bonsai?”. You can then mold these questions into potential blog posts or content hub pages such as, “Top 10 Cherry Blossom Recipes” or “Cherry Blossom Bonsai Tree Care Guide.”
See the little green circles next to each query? If you click on them, they take you to the SERPs. Quickly reviewing the user intent of the query, the various content types (answer box, videos, links, etc.), and the competitors will allow you to determine whether or not you have a chance to rank for this particular piece of content.
One of the best ways to generate new content ideas is to take a peek at what other people are writing. We’re not suggesting you copy what you see. Instead, use your findings on Buzzsumo to initiate a brainstorm.
Buzzsumo shows you what content performs best for any topic or competitor without having to search the web yourself. You can also sort results by social network to figure out what topics performed best on each platform.
Since clearly, I love the outdoors, I’ll use that example again. This time, imagine you work for an outdoor gear company based in Bend, Oregon. Type in the search query “hiking,” and you’ll see topics such as:
- Doctors Explain How Hiking Actually Changes Our Brain
- 10 California Hiking Trails with Insane Paranormal Activity
- “Camping With Dogs” Instagram Will Inspire You To Go Hiking With Your Dog
Here are a few examples of how these search results can turn into ideas for new content just by changing a few words in the previous article titles:
- 5 Reasons Why Hiking is Great For Stress Relief
- 5 Ghost Town Hikes in Oregon
- Follow These Oregonian Instagram Accounts for Hiking Inspiration
Ahrefs is a robust keyword and competitive research tool with many different capabilities.
There are so many things this tool can do, but one of the best and most straightforward functionalities is the “keywords explorer.” You can type in a query such as “space exploration,” and it will show you keyword ideas under a few different categories: “Having same terms,” “Questions,” “Also rank for,” and “Newly discovered.”
I like using the “Having same terms” functionality. If you click on the full list of results, you can see the keyword difficulty and volume, and get tons of ideas for not only great topics but topics that you have the ability to rank for.
For example, the query “space exploration” is difficult to rank for, but by using this tool you can get different ideas such as “space exploration games” and “history of space exploration,” which are both easier to rank for.
There are other sites that pull articles from across the web. Try paper.li, which allows you to enter keywords or an article URL to discover similar articles on the same topic. If you don’t want to keep revisiting the site, they will collect and send you content via email. Alltop is another site that gathers content from across the web. Type in a keyword related to your industry and see what surfaces. We also have our own Content Idea Generator that’s fun, but will also give some unique ideas.
As you can see, there is a variety of content research and ideation tools out there, and I hope you’ll experiment with some of them the next time you’re staring at your screen trying to come up with your next blog or article topic. And if you need ideas for non-promotional content for your social channels, some of these work well for that too.
The post The Best Research Tools to Write Killer Content appeared first on Portent.
On Becoming People-Centric
This is a modified version of a post I originally wrote for CallidusCloud. It appeared on their blog on June 14, 2018.
If you want to move beyond cosmetic changes and lip service to real changes in both the employee experience and the customer experience, the first thing you have to look at is your company’s culture.
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Read More →Why Your Average Cost Per Click is So High and How to Fix It
There are a lot of different elements that go into a successful PPC account, but few things are more frustrating than setting up your account only to have your clicks limited by a high cost per click (CPC).
In this post, we will examine what causes high CPCs, and some cover a handful of strategies you can try to drive them down.
Max CPC vs. Actual CPC
Before we start, it’s best to make the distinction between Max CPC and Actual CPC. Max CPC is the maximum amount of money that you’re willing to spend on a click. Actual CPC is what you end up paying.
Example: If your Max CPC bid is $2.00, but you can secure the top spot with a bid of $1.65, you’ll only pay $1.65 per click instead of $2.00.
Of course, there are other factors that go into bidding, but we won’t get into them in this article. You can read about those factors here.
What Causes High CPC?
Before you can work on improving your average CPC, it’s essential to understand the factors that influence it. There are three primary considerations:
High Competition
Google Ads runs similarly to an eBay auction. Every time someone searches, the auction takes place. Several things determine the winner, but your bid is one of the most significant factors. The more people that are bidding on a keyword, the more expensive it will be.
Industry
This is one that you can’t really control, but it’s vital to understand. Using Google’s Keyword Planner can give you an idea of what the expected CPC is for keywords in your industry. In general, industries that have a higher value per conversion have higher average CPCs because advertisers are willing to pay more per click.
Example: For law firms, one conversion could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars for the business, so it makes sense to pay a much higher cost per click. Compare that to a retailer selling boxes of gelatin for $2 a piece. They have to pay a much lower cost per click to remain profitable.
Quality Score
Quality Score is a metric given by Google to rate the quality of your keywords. It combines your historical performance and the overall relevance of your ads, landing pages, and keywords. The end result is a score from 1 to 10 that directly affects what you will have to pay to reach a specific position on the page. The more relevant you are, the less Google will charge you to rank high. We’ll talk about improving your quality score later in the article.
Strategies to Lower CPC
Understanding why your CPC is a specific price empowers you to begin to improve it. Here are a few strategies to keep in mind when attempting to optimize your campaigns and drive down average CPC.
Lower Bids
The most straightforward tip to implement is to aim for a lower ad position. Experiment with showing up in position 1, 2, 3, etc. Does showing up in position 3 seriously decrease your clicks? If users are still clicking even when you aren’t in position 1, it may be worth it to settle for a lower position if it means significant decreases in CPC.
Long-Tail Keywords
Another solution to high CPC is to bid on keywords where your competitors aren’t. The more specific you can get with your keywords while still being relevant, the cheaper your cost per click will become because fewer people are bidding.
Example: If you are running an e-commerce gelatin company (pretty niche, I know), you might think of bidding on the word “gelatin.” Makes sense, but it’s likely that every other online gelatin retailer in the country is also bidding on that keyword.
Instead, bid on “sugar-free strawberry gelatin.” Still relevant, but much less likely to be bid on by competitors.
Improve Ad Relevance
Look to improve your quality score by improving your ad relevance. The closer your ad resembles a user’s search, the higher your rating will be.
Example: Let’s revisit my online gelatin retailer. Say a user searches for “strawberry sugar-free gelatin,” and this ad shows up:
It’s relevant, sure, but it could be better.
Now, what if I changed the headline to this:
Much more relevant to the search.
I know what you’re thinking: “But how can I make an ad that specific for everyone?” I’m glad you asked, that brings us to our next point.
Make Your Ad Groups More Specific
When creating campaigns and ad groups, separate your offerings into small, related groups so you can target each group individually.
Doing this gives yourself the flexibility to create ads tailored specifically to each ad group. This increased ad relevance will provide your quality score a boost, and decrease your average cost per click.
Example: Gelatin Town offers many different types of gelatin, for many different, gelatin-related needs. It’s important to distinguish between all our diverse offerings. So, I would create ad groups like “sugar-free gelatin” and “flavored gelatin” and tailor my ad copy to those specific ad groups.
Test New Landing Pages
If you have multiple landing pages or have the budget to create them, testing new ones can be a fantastic way to improve CPC. Landing pages influence two factors in the quality score: ad relevance and landing page experience. You can find more information on how to create a killer landing page here.
Example: Back to Gelatin Town. If I have an ad group for “sugar-free gelatin,” I want my ads to go to the most relevant landing page possible. So, instead of having the ad linking to my site’s home page, it should link to a page displaying all of Gelatin Town’s delicious sugar-free gelatin.
Now, Go Do It!
So, what did we learn today?
Hopefully, you learned a bit about what causes your actual CPC to be what it is, as well as a few ways to improve the overall health of your account. Following these tips should help you begin to make progress driving your CPC down.
The post Why Your Average Cost Per Click is So High and How to Fix It appeared first on Portent.
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Read More →How Long Should Your Blog Post Be for SEO?
300 words? 800? 1,600? What is the SEO “sweet spot” to make sure your blog post ranks high in search results? Questioning the relationship between the length of a blog post and search result ranking implies that Google sets a minimum word count for blogs. Yet, no such standard actually exists.
I get it—the idea of a magic number for content length is incredibly appealing. To tempt this notion further, logically, the more words there are the more opportunities there will be to rank for keywords. But at what point does your content become a page full of keywords and content fillers in an attempt to satisfy search engines instead of fulfilling user needs?
The need to assign an optimal standard content length reflects the amount of effort people are willing to put into their SEO practices. In an attempt to stop you from drinking the Kool-Aid (i.e., to resist low-quality cookie-cutter SEO), this article will teach you how to determine the best content length based on search intent, how to create quality content, and how to monitor your content’s performance.
Let Search Intent Be Your Guide
Most SEO experts have opinions on what constitutes the optimal content length. Some will tell you that “300–500 words are best,” or “2,000 words should be the minimum for a blog,” or claim that they’ve found the “sweet spot” at 1,890 words.
However, knowing how long your content should be depends strongly on what is typical for the industry you are writing for, and what fulfills the intent of the search query.
Does the intent behind a keyword require long-form content to answer? If so, write long-form content. But, maybe, the intent is better answered in less text and more images. If that’s the case, then optimizing your images for SEO and reducing the number of words on your page is the best answer.
An effective way to determine the searcher’s intent in googling a keyword may be quite different from how Google interprets it. Perform a SERP (search engine results page) analysis and see if Google finds the blog content valuable for your target keywords. If Google does value the blog content, what does that content look like?
Performing a SERP analysis can teach you a lot about what kind of content succeeds in the search results for a given keyword. Here is an example of a SERP analysis measuring the content length of the top five results for one of my target keywords:
Of course, some pages included a comment section and videos, and have higher authority and credibility, so there is more to look at than the content length word count. However, this should give you a comprehensive idea of what length of content the target audience prefers and what you’re going up against to rank on the first page. For the keyword example used in my SERP analysis “when to use Oxford comma,” I can tell that people want the content to be direct and to the point without all the fluff. When I looked at the second page of Google (as we all know, nobody else does), I found articles with content over 1,200 words.
Create Content With Substance
Blog posts that perform well and rank well are the ones with high-value content. So, do the blog posts that are exactly 1,890 words long motivate people to make a purchase? Probably not. That is why you need to be innovative and consistent in creating high-quality content. When you create unique and valuable content you have the opportunity to build rapport, authority, trust, and brand awareness every time a searcher lands on your page.
In other words, if you can write your blog post and fulfill your reader’s intent in 300 words, then maybe you should. If it requires 3,000 words to make the reader feel the blog post was of value, then that’s perfectly fine, too.
The writing style you choose will influence your content’s length as well. Some blog topics and writing styles tend to be short, concise, and to the point. Others aim to be more conversational and interactive, which often lend to longer content.
Measuring Content Performance
It is important as you are writing blog content that you monitor your blog’s content performance. Some marketers are comfortable measuring the success of their blog with keyword rankings and organic traffic. In reality, your blog analytics give you access to pools of data beyond that. By getting information on whether your content is performing well, you can make the necessary adjustments to bring value to your users and maintain your rankings in the search results.
For more information on how to determine if your content is performing well, check out our guide to 16 content KPIs.
Don’t Believe the Word Count Myth
There is no perfect blog post length for SEO. It all comes down to the searcher’s intent and how detailed they expect the answer to be. It just so happens that long blog posts tend to answer the searcher’s question comprehensively. But it is not the length of the blog post that leads to higher rankings; it’s the fact that the blog post satisfies the question being asked. It is not uncommon to find top ranking pages for valuable keywords that are no more than 500 words in length, as my example above displayed.
Remember, the advice given here consists of guidelines, not requirements. The best thing you can do for your blog is to fill it with unique and valuable content and get rid of everything you don’t need.
It doesn’t matter if your blog post is 300, 1,500, or 2,000 words, or 100 words more than the top ranking page. By creating valuable content consistently for your audience, over time, you will help Google identify your website as an expert, and a trustworthy source on a topic/industry, and in return will rank higher for competitive keywords.
The post How Long Should Your Blog Post Be for SEO? appeared first on Portent.
