Discover how to generate new content and topics instantly.

Okay, you have decided to create content to build your audience online or to generate leads and fill your sales funnel.  You have your plan and you are executing it but soon you run into the “what next problem”.  What topic will you create a content piece on?  You are stuck on what topic to work with.

Worse yet, your numbers are in from your previous content and no one is consuming your stuff?  What gives?  You start to sweat… the clock is ticking… Okay don’t worry!

The BIG myth is that it is difficult to come up with good topics!  You just need a systematic method to determine the best topic for your next piece.

I have found with most of my clients and even when I started out with producing content that it starts easy because you have a few topics already in mind when you get going.  You bang out some great stuff.  You are meeting your self-imposed deadlines until that one day when you sit for hours thinking about finding that perfect topic! Something original and unique to your business for your audience.  At this point you are already in the trap.  As the clock ticked away I use to give up and write some crap just to get something done.  Not a good strategy!

Over time from lots of research on the “topic” problem I discovered several different techniques from other people which I have pulled together into a systematic method for topic development and content creation.  It is easy to follow and will really work for anyone creating content.
Here is the systematic method I call The Topic RACE method.

Research with tools

• The goal is to use a seed list of keyword terms (from your industry) and hunt out topics which are already being written about
• Use http://buzzsumo.com/ to discover content already being shared the most
  • Use a seed list of terms from your industry or something which connects well into your industry
• Use https://www.google.com/trends to determine what topic is of more interest at any point in time
• Use https://www.google.ca/advanced_search  to narrow your search based on keywords and review the topics
• Use https://www.google.com with advanced search terms to find unique pages
  • Use (keyword) + inurl:links to find pages with links to your keyword, these are usually resource pages with a variety of links to similar topics
• Use http://www.notey.com/ to find blogs on your seed list of keywords to determine what is being created in the blog world
• Create a list of 10 potential topics and remember to copy the links from the websites you visit for reference and content gathering

Assemble some content

• Choose your topic from your list found in the research section
• Pull together different aspects of the content from your research pages found above
• Remember to maintain the connection between content and site so that you can reference it if using some content
  • If you do use content directly try to contact the original site to let them know you are using their content, link to them and thank them
    • They may link to your new piece as well which is great!

Create a new story with the content

• Now is the creative piece where you look at the content you have and try to determine your twist or unique view of the content
• It could simply be ordering the content differently or adding something new to the content based on your knowledge or observations
• Frame out your full story with the new content

Execute the full content creation

• use your new story and polish your content for delivery
• review, review and review some more
• pre-publish if you can and have someone else review your content
• publish your new content

 
PRO TIP: Create content which has already been proven to be popular and your content consumption rates should go up.

NOTE: I use the term “content” above because you could be creating a blog post, video, graphic, e-book, etc… and the Topic RACE method works for all of them.
 
Okay, I know this reads like this is a lot of work to discover a topic and not so “instant”, however, once you become familiar with this method you too will discover your time and stress from creating content is dramatically reduced and you will be discovering lots of new stuff along the way.
 
To recap: 

1. Form a seed list of keywords for your industry
2. Use the Topic RACE method to Research, Assemble, Create and Execute.
3. Enjoy your new content.  Remember, your instant topics are a few clicks away.

 
If all of this is still too much or you want to go much deeper into strategic content planning and creation, please touch base with us and we will be please to work with you to grow and reach new audiences.