Every SEO needs an arsenal of 'well stocked tools to support daily workflows.
Just as technical SEO tools help us to identify critical areas for technical optimization, content tools help to identify key areas for content optimization.
Choosing the right tool to addr to your workflow largely depends on how you intend to use the data.
With content optimization, we all know that the first step is to identify the opportunity, but there is a crucial second step necessary before running the opportunity: understanding the context.
In this article, you will learn how to answer the question: "What type of data do I need? " and the best tools for obtaining this data.
These tools provide data to assess the level of opportunity:
- BrightEdge Data Cube: SERP features, keyword research and competitor analysis.
- Advanced Web Rankings (AWR): Share of voice and SERP visibility.
- SEMrush: Fast and complete organic presentation.
- Keyword planner: Keyword research.
- Ahrefs: Competitive content gap.
And these resources provide supporting evidence to strengthen the information:
- Google Trends : search trends and identifying changes in research behavior.
- BuzzSumo : trends in social topics, questions and related content.
- Mintel : consumer and industry information.
- e Marketing : Media trends that can impact organic research or explain performance fluctuations caused by a non-organic fact .
- Think with Google : market analysis and data points.
What type of data do you need?
You may think this is a rudimentary question, but knowing your data needs can sometimes be tricky.
If youdon 't rate the reason you are looking for data in the first place, you could potentially spend hours in the weeds without even realizing it.
So think about your needs before spending hours hitting a rabbit hole in a tool you really didn't need.
Start by asking yourself:
Do I need discovery data?
Discovery data helps assess opportunities in a landscape through keyword research, site performance indicators, and competitive analysis.
If you're trying to find target terms, diagnose site performance, understand specific areas of focus, or assess competitive space, start here.
Do I need support data?
Data support strengthens the information found in discovery data by providing contextand additional evidence in the landscape or target audience.
If you are trying to understand dynamics such as the reasons why performance measures have dropped at strange times, the use of unexpected or unusual search terms or subjects, evidence of changes in traffic patterns or other environmental factors I contributed to website performance, start here.
Once you understand the type of data you need, it's easy to find it if you know where to look .
Let's start and identify the 10 content resources that we cannot do without in the new era of content SEO.
Discovery tools
Discovery is probably grounded in everything you do and you probably have a solid set of tools that you use daily.
Before developinga content strategy, you should use discovery data to help you understand the competitive landscape and the opportunities available.
Here are our top five content tools and what we think will be the best use for everyone during the discovery process.
1. BrightEdge Data Cube
Key tool value: SERP functionality analysis, keyword research en masse and competitor analysis
If you're not sure which aspect of the content you want to explore, BrightEdge Data Cube can be the solution you need.
BrightEdge is one of our favorite comprehensive tools for keyword research, competitor analysis and evaluation of search engine results page (SERP) functionality. .
All you need to start your discovery process is a pert URLinente (we recommend yours or that of a close competitor).
Once you've connected your selected domain, you can view keyword rankings over time, page-level performance data, content opportunities, and prevalence of SERP features .
With a SERP in constant evolution, it is important to keep an impulse on the classification of your site (and your competitors) at various places in the SERP.
One useful feature that Data Cube offers is content strategies.
The Content Strategies tab reports the historical performance of keywords for different types of organic SERP functionality, including images, quick responses and people asked as well.
You can also explore opportunities by analyzing the universal performance of your competitors.
2. Advanced Web Ranking (AWR)
Key value of the tool: Share of voice and visibility SERP
Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) brings news which means sharing the voice thanks to its capacities to schedule SERP analyzes for different search engines, from different locations and for different devices!
AWR makes it easier to measure content change impacts over time.
With AWR, you can configure keyword groups and schedule regular SERP scans to monitor ranking changes for your defined list of terms.
This automated monitoring provides you with the convenience of focusing on other projects while measuring the share of route changesx for your keyword groups.
AWR ne does not limit you to only measuring ranking changes for your website.
You can also configure competitors in the platform and measure the SERP visibility of a group of keywords on a variety of competing sites to see how you behave compared to others in the 'space.
3. SEMrush
Key value of the tool: Fast and complete organic presentation for the competition, the search for keywords and performance
SEMrush is a one-stop shop to analyze your performance and compare it with your competitors.
If you're looking for a quick comparison of competitors or a high-level view of a site's competitive positioning, your first stop is to put the domain in SEMrush.
First, the Domain Presentation toolbox provides a summary tab with an Organic Search section which is useful for getting a quick, high-level view of your site's performance in the global landscape.
Each of the sections included in the summary tab has its own dedicated tab in the API. This allows you to quickly and easily deepen this high level information.
Our second favorite go-to in SEMrush is the Keyword Gap toolkit. This feature is perfect for quickly examining keywords of opportunity in a competitive landscape.
At a glance, you can identify:
- the weakest keyword areas.
- Overlap of competitors.
- Types of devices.
- Position filters.
- Terms to include/ exclude.
- Search volume.
- Competitor comparisons.
Finally, there is the Keyword Magic toolbox.
There are not enough good things to say about this tool.
As we mentioned, SEMrush is the place to go when you need quick information, and the Keyword Magic tool proves our point.
The biggest time saver we find in the SEMrush Keyword Magic tool is the table of keywords by number / volume.
This allows you to easily identify the terms used most frequently and with the greatest number of variations in a specific and targeted landscape to help you seize these high added value opportunities.
Another useful feature of the keyword magic tool is the measure of keyword difficulty, which gives a simple and quick measure of how difficult or easy it will be to improve performance of this query.
4. Keyword planner
Value of the key tool : keyword research
If you have access to an active Google Ads account, the keyword planner can be a game changer when it comes to keyword research.
Using the API can be like drinking from a water hose straight from Google's fire hydrant, and that's why we like it.
The API is easy to use and takes care of a lot of the cleaning work normally associated with keyword research.
For For example, the API takes into account similar terms and groups them together for a volume unique monthly average that encompasses all similar terms (for example, plurals).
We see other tools keeping keywords verbatim (ungrouped), which typically inflates search volume metrics total and is a headache to clean up after export.
The API allows you to broaden or narrow the top keyword search ical and can even take into account brand terms .
Another fundOne useful feature to support content workflows is that the exported data provides 12 full months of search volume, in addition to the average monthly search volume, which is great for understanding the seasonality of content planning.
We suggest that you dive into the keyword planner if you haven't already done so. It is more than a simple advertising planning tool for paid teams; it is the dream of an SEO.
5. Ahrefs
Key tool value: Competitive content gap
Ahrefs is traditionally known for its back auditing capabilities, but it also holds the secret to rapid analysis of the competitive content gap. Using Ahrefs Content Gap, you can analyze the keywords that your competition ranks for, but you don't, which will help you better understand where it can go.There should be gaps in the content of your site.
L One of our favorite things about this tool is that you can make content gaps as wide or as specific as you like, depending on the selection of your competitors.
If you want a more specialized content gap, you can choose to analyze a subfolderr of competitors, rather than an entire domain.
Additionally, you can take advantage of Ahrefs Content Gap Filters to find more specialized and longer keywords that your site could target by adjusting the search volume and word number ranges for competitive keywords.
Tools for Supporting Insights
There is a big, ever-changing world that influences how our researchers decide to use their search bar, and the supporting evidence puts SEO out of its usual search silo.
To understand what content will resonate the most, you need to take advantage of the information that talks about what potentially influences the actions of your researchers outside of the SERP.
6. Google Trends
Overview of key tools: Search trends and identifying changes in search behavior
Number 1 on our list of industry resources that support discovery information is Google Trends.
This is by far our and in-depth quick check platform for understanding fluctuating user research interests and identifying landscape trends.
And, bonus - it's totally greduced.
The Google Trends API may seem like surface level at first.
But, if as much as possible, you can really discover hidden gems of opportunity.
For example, if you've used some of the aforementioned tools to identify ranking opportunities in video search, collecting trend data from YouTube search is simple, just change the type in the Google Trends API.
The other elements editable include region, timeframe and "category " (or industry).
Google Trends gives you the flexibility to understand different periods of high interest and periods of 'Low interest compared to the specific period.
It is important to note that interest tends to be relative to the highest point on the graph for a given region and time e.
Another use case for Google Trends is to understand brand awareness and measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns to generate user interest and increase awareness.
Evaluating the period of the initiative by identifying the peaks which correlate with the dates of campaign dissemination can help assess the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of an initiative.
Two aother useful features of the Google Trends API are "related topics " and "related queries ".
These modules allow you to obtain information on other areas of interest in a given subject, in addition to the specific source search term.
We just scratched the surface about the value Google Trends brings to data-driven information support, and we encourage you to explore the data in Trends and see the creative ways you discover to take advantage of the tool.
You might be surprised how far in the rabbit hole you need.
Good luck staying out of the weeds on this one!
7. BuzzSumo
Overview of key tools: trends, social topics, questions and related content
We know that SEO doesn't live in a silo, and understanding trending topics or viral events can do a lot to interpret quantitative research data and shape content strategies.
This is why we like to diversify. our reresearch by focusing on the most trendy media: the social.
BuzzSumo you allows you to browse your selected areas of interest from a different perspective.
This allows you to better identify the messaging, the types of content and the relevant sub-subjects. might resonate the most with your users.
The Discover function is a quick wayto find ideas in a given area and even provides questions associated with the search term.
To do your analysis a little further, the API allows you to search using not only keywords but children of subreddit as well.
8. Mintel
Overview of key tools: Consumer and industry overview
Mintel is a market research company that publishes reports, trends and industry information that can be leveraged to help you better understand the landscape and your target audience when developing a marketing strategy. of content.
We like to use Mintel reports to overlay additional data into landscape analyzes to create a more complete understanding of the industry and research environment.
In addition to providing data points and graphs to the market, Mintel does a lot of work in its reports by analyzing the data to create tangible information for consumers and the hts industry. .
Mintel offers a wide range of report types that break down data to highlight the market, consumer and key trends.
The Mintel platform even allows you to filter reports byfunction of consumer demographics and 'trend drivers, or main influences on consumer behavior.
These report filters make it easy to find consumer information that is aligned with your target audience to provide additional context for developing integrated content strategies that help you cover your bases and adopt a more comprehensive approach to marketing.
9. eMarketer
Overview of key tools: Trends in Thai media This can impact organic research or explain performance fluctuations caused by non-organic factors.
eMarketer is a publisher of sector research that provides information to help brands do business in the digital world.
Being in the organic research industry, it is essential to understand the digital world and the various factors that can affect performance, even outside the organic channel, in order to understand performance fluctuations and even predict future trends.
One of the most important uses of eMarketer is discovering the holiday season.
Research is crazy over the holidays.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday bring some of the most stressful hard times for brands - and probably even more stressful for them agencies.
During this extended weekend of shopping spree, eMarketer publishes industry forecasts in the media and research behaviors and follows them back on how the landscape has acted against these predictions.
It is all aboutalways an easy reference to help support recommendations or understand performance in these times of increased attention on multimedia channels.
10. Think with Google
Overview of key tools: Market research perspectives and data points
Think with Google is one of our favorite market research tools.
New reports are systematically published, so you always have new ideas to consider.
However, our favorite part about Think with Google is that the reports come from a variety of industry and marketing channels, so its data can facilitate the development of a integrated strategy.
There is no shortage of information in Think with Google repository, so we strongly recommend that you check it.
If you don't know where to start, we suggest that you use its search function tor find relevant research for your project.
From there, you can filter the results to find the ones that best suit your needs and support your discovery data.
In addition, its search function provides comprehensive reports and individual data points, so that it easily caters for in-depth research and fast, high-level data needs.
In summary
Just as it would be ineffective relying on a single tool or a single approach for analysis, site latency or mobile usability, by turning to one or two searches for content only the tools will limit the effectiveness of your content strategy.
The secret to optimizing your SEO content is to select the right tools to help you identify, access, and use the data necessary to both assess your opportunities and understand the context in which your content strategy will be implemented.
Each of the tools presented in our top picks has its own driving optimization strengths, and your own situation will help you identify the right combination.
This article was co-authored by my colleague Merkleite Angela Petulla and is a senior specialist at Merkand has been working in the research industry for two years.
More resources:
- Content Marketing: the ultimate beginner's guide to what works
- The difference Between content marketing and content strategy (and why you need both)
- The process of content campaigning to constantly approach insane ROI
Image credits
All screenshots taken by the author, June 2020
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