Content: What Happens When the Muse Takes a Vacation?

Content, content, content. You’ve got to feed the hungry beast that is the online user. We reach out into the web to find information, entertainment, to communicate, to learn, to shop…and the petrol that keeps it all going is content. Creating all this content, though, can be challenging. What if you’ve exhausted your list of ideas? What if inspiration refuses to strike today, this week, or this month? What if you’ve got five different websites that each need unique content? Here are some ways to keep content fresh and frequent.

1. Set up Google Alerts for topics relating to your niche. For instance, we might turn on an Alert for “SEO,” “Conversion rate optimisation,” and other key terms. This lets us know when news items and blogs are posted that relate to our field and which might be of interest to readers.
2. Troll social media. What’s going on with Twitter? What are people talking about on Facebook or LinkedIn?
3. Answer questions. Are there any frequently asked questions that you might take the time to answer? This can help engage your readers, generate new traffic, and give Google something good to index.
4. Feedback. Did someone post a comment on your blog that you want to address? Did you receive a negative review or rating? What type of feedback are you getting from visitors? Are there topics that they would like you to cover? All of this can be fodder for great content.
5. Curate. Once a month, twice a month, or whatever, why not offer a curated list of resources. “Top 10 Christmas Gifts for the Techy,” or “Best Books for Toddlers,” type lists are popular and easily sharable.
6. Ubersuggest. This is a site that helps you come up with interesting topics around which you can create content. Simply type in your keyword, language, and resources (such as web, recipes, etc.) and hit “Suggest.” You’ll get a list of possibilities that should spark some content-creating genius.
7. Set up a content calendar. Plan out what you’d like to cover and write it down. You can still have flexibility for those times when you’re responding to a news item or some other fresh event, but you have “backup” content ideas in case the well has run dry. Plus, you can plan content around holidays, sales, events, etc.

These tips will help you keep creating the high quality content you need to catch Google’s eye and to capture the interest and attention of your audience.