The biggest challenge with automating or outsourcing content research is that you need to make sure the articles you’re referencing are legitimate. Fortunately there are many ways we can quickly vet and process a lot of different content to find the cutting-edge conversations happening around a topic.
The benefits of content research
- Less writer’s block - The more you immerse yourself in the conversations your audience is having, you more ideas and unique angles you will have to fill out your content.
- Better results from your content - Well-researched content consistently drives more traffic, ranks better in search engines, gets more social shares, and has high opt-in rates.
- Delighted customers - Insights you gain from your research will give you a clear view of your customers and their problems. This makes for good content, but it also empowers you and your team to better address your customers’ problems with your products or services.
- Gain an edge on your competition - You’ll understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. You’ll find opportunities to leverage their weaknesses and capture more of your market.
What you’ll learn through research
- How to support your ideas - The most obvious purpose of research is to find content and ideas that support and contrast your own.
- Your audience’s mindset - You’ll uncover the perspectives and mindset of your audience. You will learn what is important to them, what kind of people they admire, what their values are.
- Keywords - Through the research process you’ll start to learn the common language of your audience. The better you understand the language people use to describe the problems you want to solve, the more effective you will be at finding good keywords to target.
- New problems to solve and ideas for content - Through your research process you’ll discover problems that aren’t being addressed in your industry, and you’ll learn how you can handle or address them better.
