Having a tough time coming up with ideas for your next blog post? Trying to formulate what content will deliver traffic and social shares can make for some bouts of procrastination and writer’s block.
Instead of dealing with that headache, do this the next time you’re questioning yourself: Visit BuzzSumo and start a search to analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor. The results will help you determine the validity of your post and can even shape the stance you take before writing the post.
For instance, you can offer a different perspective on a hot topic that got lots of coverage from the bigger websites and blog influencers (ex. Facebook banning like-gates). Working a different angle allows you to stand out from the crowd a bit, but there are other ways to leverage your article as well including:
- Viewing the top sharers from the list BuzzSumo generates (screenshot above) and then reaching out to them to make them aware of your content. If you can generate a retweet from them you’re well on your way to finding yourself linked and retweeted by other top influencers and thus creating a snowball effect (in a good way)!
- Get creative with your headline by seeing for yourself what others have used and what might get searched for by common users looking for your topic in search engines like Google.
- Use tools like Snip.ly to tweet the same top ranking links in BuzzSumo and include a link back to your article that covers the same topic but with a different angle. Snip.ly is a very powerful tool I’ve already discussed in more detail.
- Easily follow the top influencers on Twitter or send tweets directly to them with the click of a button via BuzzSumo.
Another cool feature found in BuzzSumo is the ability to set up a wide variety of alerts including ones for: domains, links, authors and topics. With a free account you can only set up two alerts, but it’s extremely simple and you have the choice between being notified once a day at a certain time or every single time an alert is triggered.
In my case I set an alert for Link Alerts. This is an easy way for me to keep tabs on other sites that might link to anything on my domain. There are numerous advantages to the other alert options including monitoring a competitors website for when new content is posted or finding out when one of your favorite authors has published a new article.
Another great tool to use when coming up with new content is Google Trends. I’ve found this to be a powerful, yet quick way to determine what words or phrases might work best when coming up with headlines or tweets, Facebook posts, etc. Take a look at the following screenshot to get a feel for how Google Trends works.
I initially typed ‘Twitter Cards’ into the Google Trends search which gave me a simple one-line graph. The beauty of this comes into focus when you add more topics. As you can see I added ‘Facebook Power Editor’ and ‘LinkedIn Publishing’ for comparison purposes and Twitter Cards (blue line) came out ahead by a good margin.
This can be used to drive higher rankings for your SEO and also can maximize the reach of your hashtags.
Combining BuzzSumo and Google Trends is like landing a free one-two punch to blog success. Don’t second-guess yourself or your ideas anymore! Get the proof you need by knowing what’s already out there and then shape your content by providing your unique skillset and perspective.
Do you guys use BuzzSumo and Google Trends for your workflow? What else would you recommend that does something similar?
