Many people make the mistake of thinking that good search engine optimization (SEO) is all about putting the right keywords in the right places, and, while it’s PARTLY about that, that’s not the entirety of it. Truly good SEO is more than just keywords; it’s also having good, unique, fresh content that will appeal to viewers, earn you a higher ranking in local search engines, and keep people coming back to your site, and, even more importantly, interested in your business.
Unfortunately, though, coming up with content isn’t easy. In fact, it can be quite difficult, especially if you’re trying to generate a lot of fresh content on the same or similar topics. Fortunately, though, if you know some basic tips, it’s easy to generate new ideas and always keep your content engaging- both to readers and to the search engines!
Do Some Keyword Research
One of the best ways to come up with fresh, creative new content ideas, as well as ideas that are going to be relevant and truly useful to you, is to do a little keyword research. There are great tools, such as Google’s Keyword Planner, that can help you with keyword research, but it’s even better if you can have it done professionally.
However you do it, researching keywords can give you an idea of keywords relevant to your business that are “trending” at a particular time. That way, you can determine the most popular topics and search terms, as well as the most competitive ones, so that you can write up-to-the-minute content that will hone in on popular keywords and also keep you ahead of the competition.
Read Up!
Another way to generate great content ideas is to read as much as you can. Read industry or trade magazines that are relevant to your business. Read related blogs and sales posts. Browse through social media. Just read, read, read!
Reading, especially in your own area of business, will help you to know what the “hot topics” of the day are-and in today’s world, they change constantly. Reading can also give you new ideas and information that you can incorporate into your own content.
Obviously, you never want to blatantly copy any other content that you find, but you may certainly allow what you read to inspire you!
Do Something Different
As a final word of advice, whenever you do come up with a great content idea, dare to be different. Put your own prospective article title into Google, and see what comes up. Read similar articles or blogs to the one that you are planning on writing.
You’ll likely find that there’s a lot of similar or “rehashed” content. To truly make your content shine, try and do something different. Keep your original idea, but step outside the box a little; try to take a new spin on your content, rather than just doing the same old thing. You’ll be surprised at what a difference this can make in your readability and in the overall success of your content, and the same goes for the rest of these tips as well.