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 important part of our job. And typically, it may be difficult to give you new concepts or methods to iterate on outdated ones. With the world consuming content material at lightning pace, it’s turning into much more tough to maintain up with the expectation of turning out recent content material.
We’ve just lately revealed some wonderful items on the Moz Weblog all about content material distribution and technique, together with the Whiteboard Fridays “How one can Maximize Content material” and “A Content material Engine that Drives Income” (each from Ross Simmonds). And, as I’m certain I don’t should inform you, content material ideation and inspiration can come from wherever. However what if I instructed you which 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 present content material
When supplementing or modifying your content material technique, a superb place to begin is by analyzing your present content material and discovering the gaps. This will 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 instrument in Moz Professional means that you can enter your website and as much as 3 opponents to determine Key phrases to Enhance and High Competing Content material.
Professional tip: Undecided who your on-line opponents are? Or simply need to affirm and scope out who they could be? Try the True Competitor instrument to search out out.
The Key phrases to Enhance part is instrumental when figuring out gaps in your present content material technique. After getting into the websites you’d like to match, the instrument will checklist 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 might 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 Carry for these key phrases, which is the quantity of site visitors we estimate you possibly can acquire by overtaking your competitor within the SERP.
One other nice use case for this instrument 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 embrace “Finest,” as seen within the screenshot beneath. We are able to 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 “Finest Pizza in Los Angeles,” so we might 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 spanking new content material but in addition assist determine locations the place your content material will be improved or refreshed for higher efficiency.
Establish what kind of content material is performing
Among the best locations to get concepts for content material is to see what sort of content material is already on the market and performing. High Competing Content material in Key phrase Hole can present perception into what’s performing nicely by itemizing content material your opponents rank for with the Content material URL and High Rating Key phrases.
On this instance, we are able to see that one of many opponents I’ve entered ranks nicely for key phrases associated to picking a mattress measurement and, maybe extra importantly, that the content material rating is from their weblog. We are able to now have a look at the weblog posts themselves to get an concept of what format has been profitable for them and what data they’re together with. We are able to ask ourselves:
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Is that this a subject we are able to cowl on our website?
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Can we already cowl this, however it’s not rating as nicely?
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Is there a approach we are able to enhance the content material or add a distinct perspective, format, or content material kind to the area?
The chances are countless!
Spot tangential content material concepts
Sticking with High 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 instantly associated to your product can typically result in constructive outcomes like hyperlinks, social shares, and model consciousness. These peripherally associated matters can complement your content material technique and assist create a well-rounded library of belongings.
Sticking with our mattress firm instance, let’s say we’re searching for content material concepts to assist construct out our newly launched weblog. We might know that there’s worth in creating items round mattress-related matters 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 exhibits that our opponents are rating for content material associated to matters like weighted blankets and sleep hygiene. These might be nice alternatives for me to create new content material indirectly associated to mattresses however nonetheless associated to the sleep trade.
Uncover hidden gems
Identical to content material creation, key phrase analysis is a basic a part of website positioning and advertising methods. And as you’re on the market digging into issues like search quantity, problem, and SERP evaluation, you could possibly uncover some hidden gems to tell your content material technique as nicely.
Hopping over to Key phrase Explorer, we are able to mine for content material concepts within the Key phrase Solutions part of the instrument. Key phrase Solutions 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 kind, grouping preferences, and quantity to additional outline your outcomes.
Let’s begin by trying on the choice to filter titled Show key phrase ideas that. This filter defaults to Embrace a mixture of sources, however an choice within the drop-down might be the ace up your sleeve in relation to content material ideation – the filter choice 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, think about that we work for an actual property company and are researching content material associated to purchasing a home. Filtering our key phrase ideas by are questions will present us with particular content material concepts associated to what individuals ask when shopping for a house. This may 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 are able to even take this analysis one step additional by grouping our key phrase ideas by lexical similarity. Only a reminder right here that lexical similarity refers to how intently associated or comparable the key phrases within the group are. Low lexical similarity will lead to fewer teams with extra key phrases because the instrument will group key phrases which might be much less comparable.
Grouping key phrases will help us determine extra key phrases we might need to goal and broad-match key phrases which may be value together with in our content material. Be conscious of over-optimizing, although! We need to keep away from key phrase stuffing and cannibalization since they could negatively impression rankings. That being stated, think about 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. Throughout 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 are able to 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 appears like. Think about the inspiration you will get from digging into these ideas even additional!
Scope out the competitors
To this point, we’ve recognized content material alternatives, uncovered new concepts, and located gaps in our present technique. However what about our competitors? What are they doing? We touched on this a bit utilizing the Key phrase Hole instrument however let’s dig in additional. When modifying your content material technique, it’s vital to know what your opponents are doing and what their viewers is partaking with. Though you gained’t have entry to their site visitors knowledge (except they offer you entry to it, which is extremely unlikely), there’s a approach you will get an concept of what content material could also be driving site visitors to their website. Or, on the very least, what content material is of excessive worth. That is by means of hyperlink evaluation. Moz gives fairly a number of methods to do that, however I’m going to focus on a function which will help get us began with this analysis.
High Pages in Hyperlink Explorer will return a listing of the pages on a website with essentially the most backlinks. This may present perception into the forms of content material individuals discover invaluable on a website – pages with extra hyperlinks are extra invaluable. 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 High Pages, we are able to get an concept of which pages on their website present essentially the most worth. Within the screenshot above, we are able to see that this explicit competitor has a number of “better of” articles which acquire a number of hyperlinks. We are able to now discover these pages and see if there is a chance to create or modify content material on our personal website to fulfill comparable calls for.
Professional tip: When you’ve created your content material, you should use Hyperlink Intersect to search out domains and pages linking to your opponents and to not you. This may provide a good way to complement a hyperlink constructing technique!
Uncover alternatives for elevation
Identical to creating new content material, refreshing your present URLs is crucial to any content material technique. Elevating your present 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 present library, however listed here 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 could have entry to the SERP Options part. This a part of the instrument tracks SERP options included within the search outcomes in your tracked key phrases, together with featured snippets.
Exploring which of our tracked key phrases have featured snippets within the SERP will help us determine alternatives for content material refresh and new items of content material. When searching for alternatives for a content material refresh, we are able to search out key phrases the place we’re rating on the primary web page of the SERP however are usually not included within the featured snippet. On this case, the instrument will present perception into what web page is included within the featured snippet and our present rank. This may make it simpler to identify high-value pages with an opportunity of shifting into that coveted high spot of the SERP.
Alternatively, which of our tracked key phrases embrace a featured snippet however the place we’re not rating on the primary web page (or in any respect) will help to determine potential alternatives for creating new, high-value content material. We’ll simply need to make 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 outdoors the app. If a SERP function is marked Included within the CSV, it means your website is included in that exact function. If it’s marked true it means the SERP function is current for that key phrase, however your tracked website isn’t included.
Subsequent, we’ll pop over to the Web page Optimization part of our Marketing campaign. Though the first objective of this function is for instance how well-optimized a web page is for a specific key phrase, there’s a hidden gem that may assist determine refresh alternatives, new content material concepts, and tangential matters. The Content material Solutions tab will checklist key phrases and matters typically 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.” Wanting on the content material ideas, it could 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 ideas 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 secret’s 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 employ the instruments to research new concepts? I’d love to listen to about it!
