4 WAYS TO COME UP WITH NEW CONTENT FOR YOUR WEBSITE

1. UPDATE PAGES YOU ALREADY HAVE

Your website is already full of content. The first step of any content strategy should be to maximize what you already have.

Before you worry about blog posts, videos, or anything else, go through your website page by page. Make sure everything is up-to-date.

Are you using keywords that you want to rank in search engines for?

 Is it readable and interesting?

Are you giving clear call to actions after every section?

Maybe there’s some pages you haven’t thought of. An example is this “Photo Policy” page on a website we manage for the Winkler Gallery & Art Education Center. This page didn’t exist until a few months ago and now it’s the 3rd most visited page on the website.

Once you make updates to a page—especially if they’re significant changes—make sure to share! These are great opportunities to share updates to your social media and email list.

2. REPURPOSE YOUR ADVERTISING CONTENT

When you pay for advertising in a newspaper, radio, or television, that media company usually creates the content of your advertisement for you. These pieces of content are created by highly specialized people who know what they’re doing. Get the most mileage out of it you can!

You *should* be allowed to use the content from your advertisement anywhere you’d like.

If you have audio or video, use a service like Rev.com to transcribe it into text format. Edit it down to something readable and share it as a blog post, page on your website, or new section on an existing page. 

Again, don’t forget to share! Squeeze as much promotion you can out of your paid advertising by sharing it on your free channels.

3. ANSWER FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

A lot of websites have a Frequently Asked Questions page. These can range from five questions to twenty or more.

If you don’t already have a Frequently Asked Questions page, it might be a good idea to start one!

However, there’s an even better way to create content around these questions... 

Write blog posts with in-depth answers to common questions about your business— bonus points if you create videos or audio AND written content.

Not only can you then share these new pieces of content to your social media and email list, you can also use them when responding to questions.

4. GATHER INSPIRATION FROM COMPETITORS

If you’re just starting to write blog posts (or create video/audio content), a great starting point for topics is finding out what’s already out there.

Look up your keyword or competition and see what other content has been created.

Could you do better?

Do you have a different perspective on the same topic? 

These are perfect opportunities to throw your hat in the ring. Originally, this felt like stealing to me. The key here isn’t to copy your competitors but try to put your unique spin on what is already working for other people.

There are more advanced methods for analyzing what content is performing best for your competitors (Like this article from Moz), but if you’re reading this, you’re likely not there yet.

A great place to start is by typing your topic into google, looking at what blogs your competitors are promoting, and using a site like Answer the Public.

Do you have any other methods or ideas for generating content?

Let us know in the comments below.

This article original appeared on Priority Digital Services written by Craig Inzana.