22 Untapped Sources of Content Inspiration
How to surface meaningful topics and trends
The best way to accelerate your content marketing growth in 2020 is to start planning today.
Google Keyword Planner, Moz and SEMrush are all great tools for finding specific keywords, their search volumes, and even the types of content that appears in the SERPs, but what if you want more meaning from your keyword research sources.
Well, that’s why we’ve put together this killer guide.
By the end of reading this, your days of struggling for content inspiration will be over. We’ll explore a huge range of untapped areas for exploration, and you’ll learn specific tools and processes for turning these ideas into outstanding content.
We’ve split this guide into several chapters, broken down by theme and have also included a handy list of keyword research tools at the end to get you on your way.
Chapter 1: Meetings & Customer Services
1. Internal Meetings
Meetings can be a rich seam of keyword sources and inspiration that go entirely untapped.
Whether these are internal review meetings, get-togethers with suppliers or monthly catch-ups, the content of these meetings can help to inform your upcoming strategy. What’s more, you don’t need to limit yourself to marketing-specific discussions.
Personal development meetings, team building days, finance meetings, and frankly, anything else can all be great places to get inspiration.
Maybe you brainstormed a new product or service and need to consider its branding? Or perhaps you discussed your competitor’s activity and unique phrasing they have used? Examples of keyword inspiration could include a new wonder ingredient in cosmetics, a change to a method of working in IT services, or even something as simple as an industry event. Ask your team members to come prepared with things they’ve seen in your industry, or ideas they’ve had for your product or service, and add them to the meeting agenda.
Create a shared Google Sheet or an email chain for your team to contribute ideas, observations and talking points to, and you’ve got a whole bank of potential keyword sources on hand for inspiration when you need them.
Some people find that email chains can be challenging to manage, that shared documents get forgotten about, or that ideas simply get lost in the noise. If this sounds like your organisation, then you should consider investing in Idea Management Software to encourage a collaborative and creative atmosphere among staff, and to keep ideas organised and in one place.
In Summary
Add an agenda point to meetings to make sure you discuss a range of subjects with a view to getting keyword inspiration. Make an effort to take notes of what gets said, and any avenues for further exploration to inform your keyword strategy so you can start your keyword research. For those of you who might struggle to take practical notes, The London School of Economics has created this great guide.
2. Interdepartmental Meetings
In large organisations or those that work across different countries or even continents, there can sometimes be a disconnect between departments. For example, brand and product managers tend to know more about their customers and their audience than anyone, but sometimes they might work in different markets.
During interdepartmental meetings, speak to your colleagues to understand their opinions, outlook, and any market differences that you might be able to apply to your work and content efforts.
For example, if you’re a multinational IT Services provider that prides itself on impeccable customer service, you’d naturally talk about things like bespoke solutions, 24/7 remote support, specific software/hardware that facilitates this etc. in any content you create or in any marketing campaigns.
However, cultural norms and practices in different countries may mean that the service is different from region to region. By taking the time to understand this can serve as a starting point for your keyword research and content creation.
Pick your brand or product managers’ brains as much as you can during meetings. Example discussion points could include:
- Where do you want your business to be in 18 months?
- What problem does your product or service solve for your customers? What are their pain points?
- What do your customers want from your product?
- What encouragement do they need to convert?
- What values do your customers hold?
- Does your company reflect your customer’s values?
- How do your customers communicate with you, and each other?
The answers to these discussion points can help you in creating new content that speaks directly to and engages your audience.
Before any meeting, create a list of discussion points, share it with every attendee and ask them to prepare. Think beforehand of several more questions you can use to encourage discussion and get into the detail. Use ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘how’ to help avoid one word and closed answers. One of our favourite questions here at SiteVisibility is “If you could go back and do something different with your marketing, what would it be?”. Not only does this allow for introspection and learning from previous mistakes, but it also opens up discussion about how to improve in the future.
In Summary
Leverage other departments or suppliers for as much information and insight as they can give you about their customers, their industry and their offering.
Take note of key themes and ideas and use them as the starting point for further keyword research and content creation. Remind them that the more information they can give you, the better your future marketing efforts are likely to be. To help you, here is a fantastic, and very in-depth, resource from the University of Kansas about conducting productive meetings.
3. Customer Services, Sales and Social Media Teams
Customer service and sales teams are one of the biggest gold mines of keyword and content inspiration!
These teams speak to your customers more than anyone, and they often have the best understanding of what those customers like and dislike, what information they need, and what problems they have. All of these are fantastic starting points for keyword inspiration and content creation.
If a customer has taken the time to get in touch, then you can be sure that the information they need is a) necessary, and b) not covered on your website or in marketing material.
The same is true for complaints or queries. If your teams consistently see the same subjects come up in conversation, then there’s a good chance that any content you create in respect of these topics will be successful in addressing customers’ concerns.
In Summary
Speak to sales and customer service teams regularly. Ask them about recurring issues, the resources they need and what would help the customer. Factor these findings into your content plan, and you’ve then got a starting point for your research. If you’re struggling to get engagement with teams, try highlighting how providing this information will help to make their jobs easier.
For example, something as simple as giving detailed delivery info and tracking options on your site could mean your team doesn’t have to deal with as many calls or emails of people asking where their delivery is. If a customer can solve their problem with information on the site, they won’t have to take the time to get in contact.
Chapter 2: Events & Social Gatherings
4. Conferences & Industry Events
With our partners at brightonSEO, we know a thing or two about putting on events, and we can testify just how useful they are to our marketing efforts for our brand and our clients.
We simply can’t put a price on the inspiration we get from them.
Industry events are fantastic sources of keywords and subject areas for content creation and marketing strategy. Where possible, and especially if it’s a big event, try and plan your day around the talks and sessions that are most useful to you and your industry. Maybe even split your team to cover more ground.
That said, it can be just as beneficial to go to talks that don’t have a business focus, but you find personally interesting, as these can sometimes plant the seeds of inspiration for great ideas to come.
Try to follow the speakers on social, collate their slide decks, and combine your ideas after the event. For something like brightonSEO, we collate every slide deck from every track after the event. For example, you can see all the slides from previous brightonSEO events here.
One of our favourite ways to effectively take notes is to use the Cornell Note Taking System. All you need is a pad and a pen to divide the page into four sections that consist of title section, an area for your main notes, a margin for critical points, questions and keywords, and a summary section.
In Summary
Attend relevant conferences and events, plan your day, and network with as many people as you can. Take note of common themes, discussion points, and any new ideas you come across and organise them in a document once you return to the office. This can become the starting point of your future marketing plans.
5. Seminars, Webinars & Round Tables
More personal than conferences, seminars, webinars, and roundtables can be great for in-depth discussion and debate, which of course can lead to great inspiration for keywords and content.
Maybe you have an opinion on an industry story that you want to discuss? Or perhaps you’ve spotted a hidden insight into an industry trend that nobody else has?
By joining seminars, webinars, or roundtables, you can ask questions or open up discussions with others interested in the same subjects. You might even discover emerging trends in your industry.
If it’s a webinar, then record or download the session afterwards to review. If you’re there live, ask everyone attending if they don’t mind you recording it. It’s also worth sending around a follow-up email to all attendees asking if there were any discussion points they wanted to bring up but didn’t get the chance. This can open up even more avenues for exploration.
In Summary
Practice active listening so that you are looking out for key phrases and use of terminology in conversation. Note these down and when you’re back at your desk, use these phrases as seed keywords for further exploration. Alternatively, get your webinar/seminar transcribed and then take the transcription and put it into word cloud software to see if you can identify commonly used words or phrases.
6. Social Events
With conferences come after parties (or in the case of brightonSEO, pre-parties and yoga sessions too!), and these are great places to speak to people that you may not normally.
Whether it’s one of the speakers or just a fellow attendee, networking and socialising can be a great way to uncover new or different opinions, expand your knowledge base or bounce ideas off each other.
At the very least, by expanding your social or professional circle, you’re going to expose yourself to new ideas, more fresh insight and fresh thinking. If you’re struggling to think of discussion points or ice breakers, we’ve found this fantastic resource to help.
In Summary
Attend social events and talk to like-minded people as much as you can for keyword inspiration. Try to remember the themes and subjects that come up in conversations with a view to how they can apply to your marketing.
Add any connections you make on LinkedIn and follow up with them after the event. Bizzabo is a very highly regarded and free app that makes making connections at a busy conference much simpler. Of course, the good old-fashioned business card still has plenty of value too.
Chapter 3: Online & Offline Marketing
7. Offline Marketing & PR
We’ve all been guilty of working in silo, and in a large organisation, it can be very easy to ignore what other departments are doing with their marketing efforts. Still, your own company can be a great source of insight and ideas.
PR departments often have extensive amounts of data on customer demographics, personas, behaviour and much more, all of which can be very useful to your online marketing. As such, you should set up meetings with your PR department to understand their plans for the year to see where you can support each other. You may find areas of opportunity that you have completely overlooked.
Some PR departments may be wary of sharing their valuable and hard-earned insight, and they may not be keen on sharing the plaudits for successful campaigns. However, like with your sales and customer services teams, highlight how these discussions can help inform their work, uncover new opportunities for them and ultimately, support their PR campaigns so that everybody wins. Also, you may have access to data and insight that they don’t have, and after all, sharing is caring!
In Summary
Schedule regular meetings with other departments in your organisation to discuss how and where you can work together on your marketing strategy and use it to discuss keyword and subject ideas, and the type of content you could create to target them. You should try and prioritise these along a scale of potential for success, and ease of delivery. The subject areas that show the most potential or are the easiest to implement should be your first step.
8. Competitor Marketing
If you’re looking for keyword inspiration, then this is one of the first places you should look.
Your competitors target the same audiences as you, and so with a bit of digging, you can get a good idea of what is and isn’t working for them. This can help you avoid making the same mistakes and give you a head start on ideation for your content.
We recommend:
- Subscribing to all your competitors’ email lists
- Following their social channels
- Reading their blogs
- Setting up alerts for mentions of their brand and keeping a record of where they appear in various news and media outlets.
- Turning on notifications for their sites, via your browser, to stay on top of any updates.
As with other points, keep a folder or spreadsheet of all the marketing of theirs you see that you like or has been successful, and organise it by channel or theme. That way, you’ll have a handy resource of previous work that you can draw inspiration from. For example, you may find that a competitor is consistently and effectively targeting an audience demographic that you aren’t. This can form the basis of a new workstream or campaign.
In Summary
Take the time and create processes for analysing and learning from your competitor’s marketing activity for keyword inspiration. Keep track of what your competitors are doing well and use it as a source of inspiration. Have a look at what they’re currently ranking for and ask yourself, could you do this even better? If you’ve found a piece of inspiration, sit down and have a think about how you could create 10x content from it.
For more examples of 10x content, check out this list of examples from Rand Fishkin.
9. Current Affairs, News & Industry News
A great way to come up with sources and inspiration for your marketing efforts is to simply immerse yourself into the industry and absorb as much of what content is created and shared as possible. If you’re unsure how to start, then the best idea is to begin actively listening or reading things related to either your industry or your interests. It’s naturally easier to absorb information that you’re interested in anyway.
This should get those cogs in your brain working organically. Still, if you need some direction, you can curate a selection of key websites, news outlets and publications, subject matters, and authors to check regularly. You could set a reminder in your calendar with a link to a shared document to get into the habit of doing it regularly.
However, it’s not just industry news you should keep abreast of, the entire world around us can serve as inspiration for content. Sometimes, great ideas can come from unexpected places. For example, in cycling, Team GB and Team Sky’s ethos of Marginal Gains inspired countless in the business world to produce great content. Examples include “How 1% Performance Improvements Led to Olympic Gold” in the Harvard Business Review, and “15 Steps to Peak Performance” by Cranfield University.
In Summary
Follow a range of news outlets, websites, and offline publications and make a point of reading them and keeping a note of what you find. We cover this in more detail later, but you should set up alerts or turn on notifications for those sites and subjects you find particularly interesting. You can also sign up to newsletters, follow their social profiles and take out a subscription if you like what you see!
10. Social Media: Trending
Unsurprisingly, social media trending topics are great places for keyword inspiration for both short and long term content activity.
Of course, if you want to take advantage of a trending topic, then it pays to be quick, but sometimes you can see something that becomes the seed for a discussion that becomes much bigger and requires a more considered and longer-term approach. It could be something as simple as somebody’s take on a bit of news, a new product or campaign launch, or even something that was only ever meant as a bit of fun such as a comedy trending hashtag.
In Summary
Follow a range of social media profiles such as influencers and experts, competitors, publications, and friends and colleagues, etc., and take time to explore what’s happening in your industry.
You could split your notes into short and long-term opportunities to ensure your output covers both bases. It’s important to note that you may need to act quickly to get results in such a fast-paced medium, but longer-term content can be planned and researched in more detail.
TweetDeck is one of the best and most popular tools for Twitter curation. It’s free, and you can show your main feed, hashtags, lists, topics and more, all in one place.
11. Social Media: Industry Hashtags
Many industries have commonly used hashtags that can be great if you’re looking for keyword inspiration within your niche, and don’t have the time or the inclination to sort through the noise that can exist within the broader social media sphere.
You’ll often find well-respected contributors and companies using these hashtags, which can be a great jumping-off point for your content as they’ll be discussing the important news, issues or trends within your industry. As a starting point, follow key individuals and organisations in your industry and actively take note of the hashtags they are using.
As with many of our other points in this guide, it’s essential to keep a record of any interesting or notable points that you stumble across that you feel you could use within your marketing at a later date.
Some examples of hashtags in the digital marketing industry include #SEMrushchat, #BrightonSEO, #AskMoz & #ecomchat, although there are many more.
In Summary
Regularly check, follow, and engage with people on relevant industry hashtags. Keep a note of areas within your interest for keyword inspiration and use them to brainstorm how you could create content that builds on them.
If you’re struggling to know where to start to find these hashtags, we’ve collated several excellent guides below:
- https://www.sendible.com/insights/twitter-hashtags
- https://kimgarst.com/how-to-find-great-hashtags-to-market-your-business/
- https://later.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-using-instagram-hashtags/
- https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-hashtags/
12. Mention Listening & Alerts
There is a wide range of tools out there that can monitor the web and social media for mentions of specific subjects, certain words or authors and alert you as and when these come up.
Keeping track of what people are talking about online either on social media or on websites, can help you identify themes, trends and discussion points as they arise. Again, and if it helps, try keeping track of these in a shared document.
Some great tools for social media listening include:
Plus, we also recommend the following tools for online mention monitoring and alerts:
It’s worth noting that many of these tools can do both.
In Summary
Set up alerts for mentions of your brand, your competitors, and key areas of your industry. Collate these alerts into a shared document, making sure you include the URL of the post too and use them as a starting point.
As an example, you could review the replies to a post to see what other people think, or you could read any other articles the person or author may have shared. If it’s for your product or service, you may uncover unexpected or unusual use cases which can be great content inspiration.
13. Ask Me Anything or Q&As
Popular on Reddit, Twitter and YouTube, in particular, AMA’s (as they’re known on Reddit) can uncover some great keyword ideas.
They’re often conducted with notable and reputable people, so they’re reliable and come with some clout. Maybe it’s a single quote that sparks an idea for content, or perhaps you have a question about something in mind already, and it’s the perfect opportunity to get an answer?
The best ways to find Q&As or AMAs is to follow people within your niche; quite often they’ll promote them in advance. You could even compile and updated a list of these yourself as that could provide great, valuable content for your audience!
One of the best in the digital marketing industry, this#SEMrushchat example about keyword research is an excellent illustration of not only the types of information you can get but also how it can be used to create a great bit of content.
In Summary
Engage with prominent people in your industry when they conduct Q&As and build on the subject matter of them for your content. Take questions that have been asked and add them to a shared document of keyword ideas to review and categorise later. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you running your own too!
Chapter 4: Search Engines
14. Related Searches & Autocomplete
One of the simplest and quickest sources of keyword inspiration is your internet browser’s search bar.
These related suggestions are always worth exploring as they can expand your train of thought and uncover potential avenues for exploration. What’s more, you can be very confident that these are terms and areas that people are already searching for and are engaged with.
Here, as you start to ask a question, as you type, you’re provided with suggestions for what you might be looking for. A wide range of topics will come up and more often than not, they’ll include suggestions of related topics that you might not have thought about.
The same can be said when it comes to related searches at the bottom of the page of search results.
With both of these, allow yourself to go down the rabbit hole, you never know what inspiration you might find.
In Summary
Look at related searches, take the time to explore them and make a note of what you find. You never know where it might lead you.
For many people, this is their first port of call when thinking of content ideas, especially if they’re unfamiliar with the topic. Starting with ‘how’ or ‘why’ questions is a reliable way to start. Using the example below, if you’re an online plant business, there are plenty of avenues for content creation right there.
15. People Also Ask
Along the same lines, the People Also Ask box in Google searches is an equally useful source of inspiration.
These comprise of questions, problems, issues or discussion points that you know your audience is struggling with and need answers to.
This could be a process for something like keyword research, informational content around how to put up a shelf, or even long-form content that analyses a current event.
By using these, you’re already in a place to understand some of the potential questions your customers or users may have, the information they may need and the concerns they need addressing, so use this as a natural starting point and get exploring!
In Summary
Check the “people also ask” boxes in search results and think about the sort of problems your customers might encounter. You could even task people within your organisation to spend an hour or so a month actively reviewing these, adding them to a shared document, and then meeting to discuss how they can be used.
16. Amazon Questions
We’ve said Amazon here, but we mean any place you sell your products online.
Many people ask questions on Amazon about the specifics of a product, especially if it’s a considered or high-value purchase, a TV for example.
If you sell a product or service, then take the time to explore the questions people have about it. Are people concerned about functionality? Is it good value for money? Does it work well with other products? As we said in our section about customer service teams, if you consistently see these questions or queries come up, then you instantly have an avenue for keyword research and content creation. These questions are indeed a gold mine of content ideas!
There are also Amazon-specific keyword research tools that are a fantastic resource for retail and e-commerce businesses:
- https://keywordtool.io/
- http://sonar-tool.com/us/
- https://www.sellerapp.com/amazon-keyword-search.html
- https://www.keywordtooldominator.com/k/amazon-keyword-tool
In Summary
Explore products or services in your industry on Amazon (or indeed anywhere you sell your products online) and find what questions people have about them so you can create the content to answer them.
You can use tools like SEMrush or other Amazon keyword research tools to find further related questions and keywords to build a content plan.
17. Reviews
Product reviews are a similar source of great keyword inspiration.
This information comes from people with knowledge of your product or service, so it has an element of authority from the outset. You may find product benefits you weren’t aware of, or see examples of people using your product or service in a new or inventive way that can spark an idea.
Find the review sites that are important for your industry and remember to check competitor’s reviews as well.
For retail, review sites are a bit more obvious, but if you’re a travel company or a hotel or destination, you could look for reviews on Yelp or TripAdvisor. You could stumble on some hidden gems. For example, did you know that Eastbourne (and specifically Beachy Head) is incredibly popular with fans of Taiwanese music star Jay Chou… a little fact that would be of benefit to businesses there, or tour operators in the area.
In Summary
Read reviews of products or services in your industry and find what people are saying about them. Look at the common questions people have about them or any themes that consistently come up, and use them as a starting place for your research. Additionally, make sure your customer service or social media teams provide regular updates to the marketing department about common themes, and if any new issues arise. If required, you could simply grant them access so they can do this of their own accord.
If you come across additional benefits to your products or services, add them to the description on your website. If you can find new or inventive ways that your products are being used, create a blog post or showcase it on your social channels.
18. “People also bought…”
This is especially useful if you’re creating content around products, whether it’s fashion, electronics, industrial items, or anything else.
Knowing that quite a few people buy a soundbar to go with their new TV can open up a train of thought and help you to research what people are searching for during the buying process. Of course, you can then create content around this.
You can also take the same approach with related videos on YouTube or similar articles on news websites etc.
In Summary
Review and understand your customer’s buying habits to inform your content efforts. Where can you add to it? Where can you improve it? And where can you create new content? To use the TV example again, if you know that people who buy an expensive 4K TV also tend to buy a pricey soundbar with it, you could create a piece of content about the “The best soundbars for Samsung/Sony/LG TVs”.
19. Google Trends & Google Rising Retail Categories
Google Trends has been a popular tool for nearly a decade and a half, but Google has recently added the Rising Retail Categories tool to their armoury, and both can be great for generating keyword ideas.
Google Trends analyses the popularity of search queries in Google Search across multiple regions and languages and uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over time. You can use it to search for keywords and topics in your industry and understand if their popularity is increasing or decreasing in time or even spot seasonality trends.
For example, the term “toilet roll” grew massively in the UK over the last 12 months. When we looked at Google Trends, we could see a definite spike in searches for the term around February/March 2020, which is perhaps unsurprising considering everyone went and stockpiled toilet paper at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic…
Google Trends also allows you to dig deeper into different subject areas and niches so if you’re looking for up to the minute sources of inspiration for keywords, and one of the most straightforward tools to use, then there’s no better place to start.
Moving on to Google Rising Retail Categories, this new tool is similar in concept but focuses purely on, you guessed it, retail. You can see which areas of the retail industry are trending and growing in popularity, and then with that date, dive deeper into each subcategory for even more inspiration.
It’s the perfect tool for creating content that you know will be timely and relevant.
In Summary
Regularly review Google Trends and Rising Retail Categories for up to the minute keyword inspiration based on data. Look out for rising trends that matter to your business and make sure to capitalise on these opportunities within your marketing efforts.
Chapter 5: Your Own Data
20. Google Analytics
In the good old days, Google Analytics used to contain swathes of keyword data about the specific queries people used to get to your site.
Sadly, all good things come to an end, and those days are long gone, but that doesn’t mean that using Google Analytics for keyword inspiration has.
One of the first places you should check is the Behaviour > Site Search > Search Terms report. Here you can see every search query that has been made on your site, and it can be incredibly useful as you know these people are already engaged with your brand and are looking for something specific.
As an action, you can then further improve that content, or if needed, create something new to meet the search demand.
The Audience reports can also be useful, especially if you don’t have a grasp on your demographics as well as you might like.
By understanding the age, location, interests etc. of your users, you can start to put yourself in their shoes and think of the sort of content they may be looking for and consuming online.
The Referral section of GA can provide some great insight as to how people are arriving at your site. You may see that people are coming from news sites, blogs etc. Delve deeper and you can see the specific articles that are sending traffic, which of course can provide further inspiration for your content.
In Summary
Use your GA data to build an understanding of who your customers are, how they are using your site, and how they may be arriving there. Once you have this, sit down with members of your team and brainstorm the types of content you feel they may want to see. Then you can start with your keyword research based on these assumptions.
21. Google Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC) is incredibly valuable as a keyword research and inspiration tool.
By looking at your performance data you can see the queries that you are getting impressions for, and more importantly, identify the ones that aren’t being clicked on.
This can be your starting point for either improving existing content by including the topics or terms that you can see within Search Console or creating new content for your site to satisfy those looking for content with those terms and attract more traffic.
In Summary
Set aside a portion of your schedule to review GSC monthly and note down any inspiration you discover. Either create new content or update existing content off the back of your findings. SEMrush has a process for connecting GSC and importing the findings directly into a report.
We also highly recommend this article from Data Box, which contains over 100 Expert Tips on using GSC for SEO in 2020.
22. PPC Data
Your own PPC data is another gold mine of incredibly valuable information about your audience and your site, so it pays to either look over it yourself or schedule regular meetings with your paid search department to understand the campaigns and keywords they’re seeing success with, and what’s working for them.
This can be a great way to start the cogs working for your keyword research and ideas. What’s more, if you come up with anything new yourself, you can share it with them too!
The best place to start here is to analyse your Search Terms report within the Google Ads.
Simply go to Reports > Search Terms, and you can see your high (and low) performing terms. Finding terms with high CTR but a low conversion rate, for example, could indicate that your current content isn’t what the user is expecting to see, or you may be catching them at the wrong stage of the funnel.
Either way, you’ve just found some content inspiration.
In Summary
Book in time in your schedule to regularly review your PPC performance. This can be a can of worms once you get started, so these resources from Cognitive SEO, Search Engine Journal, and Search Engine Watch are great places to start.
Chapter 6: Tools We Love
As promised, now you’ve got loads of ideas for keyword sources and a list of content ideas. Collate these ideas and inspiration into a shared spreadsheet and review them with your team members. Ask everyone to find the ones they like and come with a couple of ideas for content that could be created.
When you next meet, discuss these and give them a score of 1, 2, or 3 (1 being the ‘best’) based on the following criteria:
- Relevance – how relevant is this content to your organisation?
- Desirability – how desirable or useful will your customers/audience find this content?
- Ease of delivery – how easy is it for you to create and publish this content?
Once you’ve done this for every idea, give each one a total score. You will have a spreadsheet of actionable ideas that can be organised and prioritised into your content calendar. The lowest overall score should be the ideas you focus on first.
We recommend a format like this:
- Title
- Relevance
- Desirability
- Ease of Delivery
- Total
Now, here’s a rundown of some our favourite keyword research tools to continue the process and start getting some insight into what people are searching for within a given topic, and how you can create content that targets these queries.
Although these tools look different, they primarily all do a similar job in that you use a seed keyword (or phrase or question) and they return several related queries and their search volumes, allowing you to plan your content around the areas you know people are looking.
- Google Keyword Planner
- Answer the Public
- UberSuggest
- Also Asked
- keywordtool.io
- Ahrefs Keyword Generator
- Moz Keyword Explorer
- Soovle
- SEMrush
- Keyword Sheeter
- Majestic
- Keyword Surfer (Chrome Plugin)
- Buzzsumo
- Wordtracker
- SimilarWeb
- KW Finder
- SpyFu
- Long Tail Pro
Wrapping Up
We hope you’ve found this epic list of keyword sources to be helpful and set you on your way to creating some killer content.
Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list, and we’d love to hear your ideas. Get in touch with us, and if we like them, we’ll update this list and share them to our community of thousands of digital marketers around the world.
We love working with ambitious brands and helping to grow their online presence. If you want to improve your content marketing, then connect with us on our social channels or drop us an message via the form below and we’ll be in touch right away.