To not state the apparent, however as entrepreneurs, a part of our job is to create content material. Whether or not it’s within the type of weblog posts, touchdown pages, social media posts, emails, newsletters, and so forth – there’s no solution to get round it. It’s a vital element of our job. And typically, it may be difficult to provide you with new concepts or methods to iterate on outdated ones. With the world consuming content material at lightning pace, it’s changing into much more troublesome to maintain up with the expectation of turning out recent content material.
We’ve lately printed some glorious items on the Moz Weblog all about content material distribution and technique, together with the Whiteboard Fridays “Easy methods to Maximize Content material” and “A Content material Engine that Drives Income” (each from Ross Simmonds). And, as I’m positive I don’t need to let you know, content material ideation and inspiration can come from anyplace. However what if I instructed you you could additionally use the Moz instruments to mine for content material concepts? Let’s dig into alternative ways to make use of the Moz instruments to complement our content material methods.
Discover gaps in your current content material
When supplementing or modifying your content material technique, a great place to begin is by analyzing your current content material and discovering the gaps. This may help determine new content material concepts and areas the place your content material technique could also be lacking key alternatives to thrive.
The Key phrase Hole software in Moz Professional lets you enter your web site and as much as 3 opponents to determine Key phrases to Enhance and Prime Competing Content material.
Professional tip: Unsure who your on-line opponents are? Or simply need to affirm and scope out who they could be? Take a look at the True Competitor software to search out out.
The Key phrases to Enhance part is instrumental when figuring out gaps in your current content material technique. After coming into the websites you’d like to match, the software will listing key phrases for which you and your opponents rank. You may then use the filter choice to see solely particular segments of key phrases. For instance, we could need to see solely key phrases the place we’re rating on the second web page to determine alternatives for content material enhancements. We’ll even present you the Visitors Elevate for these key phrases, which is the quantity of site visitors we estimate you may achieve by overtaking your competitor within the SERP.
One other nice use case for this software is to determine new content material concepts. Let’s say we’re engaged on constructing out the “better of” part of our foodie weblog; we are able to filter to see key phrases that embody “Greatest,” as seen within the screenshot beneath. We will then determine key phrases for which we’re not rating, however our opponents are and work to construct content material round them. On this case, we’re not rating for “Greatest Pizza in Los Angeles,” so we could need to see about making a weblog publish about this matter.
Recognizing these content material gaps can strengthen your content material technique. It cannot solely assist spark concepts for brand new content material but additionally assist determine locations the place your content material may be improved or refreshed for higher efficiency.
Determine what sort of content material is performing
Among the finest locations to get concepts for content material is to see what sort of content material is already on the market and performing. Prime Competing Content material in Key phrase Hole can present perception into what’s performing properly by itemizing content material your opponents rank for with the Content material URL and Prime Rating Key phrases.
On this instance, we are able to see that one of many opponents I’ve entered ranks properly for key phrases associated to picking a mattress measurement and, maybe extra importantly, that the content material rating is from their weblog. We will now have a look at the weblog posts themselves to get an thought of what format has been profitable for them and what data they’re together with. We will ask ourselves:
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Is that this a subject we are able to cowl on our web site?
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Can we already cowl this, however it’s not rating as properly?
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Is there a approach we are able to enhance the content material or add a special perspective, format, or content material sort to the area?
The probabilities are limitless!
Spot tangential content material concepts
Sticking with Prime Competing Content material in Key phrase Hole, let’s examine if we are able to spot some concepts for tangential content material. As Amanda Milligan discusses in her Whiteboard Friday episode, content material concepts which aren’t straight associated to your product can usually result in optimistic outcomes like hyperlinks, social shares, and model consciousness. These peripherally associated subjects can complement your content material technique and assist create a well-rounded library of property.
Sticking with our mattress firm instance, let’s say we’re on the lookout for content material concepts to assist construct out our newly launched weblog. We could know that there’s worth in creating items round mattress-related subjects like deciding on a mattress measurement or figuring out what firmness can be greatest, however what tangential content material concepts can we determine in our analysis? The instance above reveals that our opponents are rating for content material associated to subjects like weighted blankets and sleep hygiene. These may very well be nice alternatives for me to create new content material in a roundabout way associated to mattresses however nonetheless associated to the sleep business.
Uncover hidden gems
Identical to content material creation, key phrase analysis is a basic a part of search engine optimization and advertising methods. And as you’re on the market digging into issues like search quantity, issue, and SERP evaluation, you could possibly uncover some hidden gems to tell your content material technique as properly.
Hopping over to Key phrase Explorer, we are able to mine for content material concepts within the Key phrase Recommendations part of the software. Key phrase Recommendations will present a listing of key phrases associated to the seed key phrase entered, sorted by Relevancy to the unique time period. You may as well apply filters for the supply sort, grouping preferences, and quantity to additional outline your outcomes.
Let’s begin by wanting on the choice to filter titled Show key phrase strategies that. This filter defaults to Embody a mixture of sources, however an possibility within the drop-down may very well be the ace up your sleeve in terms of content material ideation – the filter possibility known as are questions. By deciding on are questions, we are able to see a listing of the forms of questions searchers ask in relation to our preliminary key phrase.
On this instance, take into account that we work for an actual property company and are researching content material associated to purchasing a home. Filtering our key phrase strategies by are questions will present us with particular content material concepts associated to what individuals ask when shopping for a house. This could provide a gold mine of content material concepts to flesh out an actual property weblog or web site to assist purchasers discover the knowledge they search.
We will even take this analysis one step additional by grouping our key phrase strategies by lexical similarity. Only a reminder right here that lexical similarity refers to how carefully associated or comparable the key phrases within the group are. Low lexical similarity will lead to fewer teams with extra key phrases for the reason that software will group key phrases which might be much less comparable.
Grouping key phrases may help us determine further key phrases we could need to goal and broad-match key phrases which may be value together with in our content material. Be aware of over-optimizing, although! We need to keep away from key phrase stuffing and cannibalization since they could negatively influence rankings. That being mentioned, take into account the beneath instance of how grouping key phrases has helped to determine a number of content material gems.
Utilizing our earlier instance of “shopping for a home” because the seed key phrase, we’ve grouped our key phrases by low lexical similarity. Inside the “What to think about when shopping for a home” group, there are two long-tail key phrases which can be nice inspiration for a brand new piece of content material for our actual property company – “what to search for when shopping for a home guidelines” and “what to know when shopping for a home for the primary time.” We will now take that data and create a devoted useful resource or a weblog publish that features a guidelines for what to think about when shopping for a house for the primary time and what the shopping for course of seems like. Think about the inspiration you may get from digging into these strategies even additional!
Scope out the competitors
Up to now, we’ve recognized content material alternatives, uncovered new concepts, and located gaps in our current technique. However what about our competitors? What are they doing? We touched on this a bit utilizing the Key phrase Hole software however let’s dig in additional. When modifying your content material technique, it’s essential to grasp what your opponents are doing and what their viewers is participating with. Though you received’t have entry to their site visitors knowledge (until they offer you entry to it, which is very unlikely), there’s a approach you may get an thought of what content material could also be driving site visitors to their web site. Or, on the very least, what content material is of excessive worth. That is by way of hyperlink evaluation. Moz presents fairly a number of methods to do that, however I’m going to spotlight a characteristic which may help get us began with this analysis.
Prime Pages in Hyperlink Explorer will return a listing of the pages on a web site with essentially the most backlinks. This could present perception into the forms of content material individuals discover precious on a web site – pages with extra hyperlinks are extra precious. That is partly as a result of backlinks are a rating issue. Moreover, all these hyperlinks present advantages like site visitors, model publicity, and extra.
After inputting a competitor into Prime Pages, we are able to get an thought of which pages on their web site present essentially the most worth. Within the screenshot above, we are able to see that this explicit competitor has plenty of “better of” articles which achieve plenty of hyperlinks. We will now discover these pages and see if there is a chance to create or modify content material on our personal web site to fulfill comparable calls for.
Professional tip: When you’ve created your content material, you should utilize Hyperlink Intersect to search out domains and pages linking to your opponents and to not you. This could provide an effective way to complement a hyperlink constructing technique!
Uncover alternatives for elevation
Identical to creating new content material, refreshing your current URLs is important to any content material technique. Elevating your current content material is like sharpening your jewellery – it helps preserve it in tip-top form, extends the piece’s life, and retains it related to your “assortment.” There are a lot of methods to determine and replace content material in your current library, however listed below are two methods to get began (and discover new content material alternatives within the course of).
First, let’s examine featured snippet alternatives. As soon as we’ve created a Marketing campaign in Moz Professional and are monitoring key phrases over time, we can have entry to the SERP Options part. This a part of the software tracks SERP options included within the search outcomes on your tracked key phrases, together with featured snippets.
Exploring which of our tracked key phrases have featured snippets within the SERP may help us determine alternatives for content material refresh and new items of content material. When on the lookout for alternatives for a content material refresh, we are able to hunt down key phrases the place we’re rating on the primary web page of the SERP however usually are not included within the featured snippet. On this case, the software will present perception into what web page is included within the featured snippet and our present rank. This could make it simpler to identify high-value pages with an opportunity of transferring into that coveted high spot of the SERP.
Alternatively, which of our tracked key phrases embody a featured snippet however the place we aren’t rating on the primary web page (or in any respect) may help to determine potential alternatives for creating new, high-value content material. We’ll simply need to be sure you optimize for the featured snippet proper from the beginning.
Professional tip: Export a CSV of the SERP Options knowledge in your Marketing campaign to kind and filter exterior the app. If a SERP characteristic is marked Included within the CSV, it means your web site is included in that individual characteristic. If it’s marked true it means the SERP characteristic is current for that key phrase, however your tracked web site isn’t included.
Subsequent, we’ll pop over to the Web page Optimization part of our Marketing campaign. Though the first goal of this characteristic is for example how well-optimized a web page is for a selected key phrase, there’s a hidden gem that may assist determine refresh alternatives, new content material concepts, and tangential subjects. The Content material Recommendations tab will listing key phrases and subjects usually used on the top-ranking pages for the key phrase we’re optimizing for.
Within the above instance, we’re optimizing for the key phrase “greatest pillow.” Trying on the content material strategies, it might be a good suggestion to format this content material as a listing (like “11 greatest pillows”) or to incorporate details about what forms of sleepers would profit from every pillow listed (like “aspect sleepers”). These content material strategies can even assist us to search out concepts for different items of content material, tangentially associated.
Discover the candy spot of innovation
If there’s one factor we are able to take away from this exploration of content material ideation with Moz Professional, it’s that there are infinite methods to do it. This publish solely covers a handful of them; the truth is that the world (of content material creation) is your oyster! The bottom line is to search out which options, instruments, and processes match greatest together with your technique and make them be just right for you. How do you utilize the instruments to analyze new concepts? I’d love to listen to about it!
