How to create compelling content

I love sleep. I do it poorly and don’t get enough of it. So why would I stay up way later than I needed to, choosing to sacrifice any precious sleep I get? I started reading a book that I could not put down. I had to know what happened. I had to get to the end. Thankfully, the ending did not disappoint.

This got me thinking about our end goal as content creators: compelling content that people can’t put down.

Sometimes we get lucky and happen to hit on a topic that does well, gets a lot of views and shares, and drives traffic to our website. Other times, we can pour our hearts and souls into a piece of content and two or three people give it the time of day.

So, how do we do better? How do we create content that people care about?

It starts with research. Typing your topic into a search bar is a great start. Unfortunately, that’s where it stops for a lot of people. Here’s how to take it a step further.

Answer the public

This is an underrated and underused tool for content creators. From their site, “AnswerThePublic listens into autocomplete data from search engines like Google then quickly cranks out every useful phrase and question people are asking around your keyword.

It’s a goldmine of consumer insight you can use to create fresh, ultra-useful content, products, and services. The kind your customers really want.”

If you want to know what questions your content should answer, this is a great starting point.

Social Listening Tools

Talkwalker and Sprout Social are good options for social listening. You can search for topics and see what people are saying and what information they are sharing.

Google Trends

This free tool allows you to look at a topic, or a few different topics and see if anyone is searching for it. The data goes back to 2004 so you can use Google Trends to see if there is any kind of pattern or seasonality to the search.

SEO Tools

Ahrehs and Semrush are the tools that we use. These tools can tell you search volume on any given keyword and if someone is already ranking for it. This means that you’ll be competing against that entity to show up in search results.

This is a brief cheat sheet for you to use the next time you’re tasked with creating a new piece of content. Using one or more of these tools will help you set yourself up for success.

What compelling content have you read lately? Tell me in our Free Slack Group Analytics for Marketers!