There is no disputing the fact that content curation in the most effective manner can accelerate your SEO marketing. Before we move into the relation between the two, let’s check out what content curation is all about.
The procedure of finding out and combining the existing content on relevant topics according to your industry and audience niche is called curation of content. To put it in layman’s terms, if you turn content which has been already created by you or by someone else into a new piece of post which is relevant to your target audience, it is called content curation.
The process of content curation becomes even more meaningful when you add your personal views to the content that you curate. You need to find out new reasons to make your target audience consume the curated content and come back for more, rather than switch over to some other content. If the content curation strategy is executed in a proper way, it can add value to the target readers, leading to an increased numbers of links, social shares, and definitely better rankings.
Now that you have a clear idea of what content curation is, let’s move on to the factors that make it a success. What are the main factors that make content curation successful?
When your goal is to hit the right chord with your target audience, the first thing that you need to know is what drives them and who they actually are. Unless you know your audience, you would find it tough to select the best content that you should curate for them.
In content curation, the main point is to add value by gathering the best content and then organizing it in the most effective manner. The method that you adopt for doing this should be truly valuable for the target audience.
If this is not the first time you’re curating content, in all probability, you will certainly know the sweet spot of your audience. Unless you know this, you won’t be able to focus on crafting the best curate content. Take a careful look at whatever had worked in the past and leverage different platforms like Reddit, Slashdot, HackerNews, BuzzSumo, GrowthHackers, Twitter, and Zest. Make sure you don’t copy blatantly but you can definitely get inspired by the source.
Make sure you experiment with different formats of curated content like podcasts, visuals, articles, videos or infographics and apply the tactics which are perfect for each of them. Identify what works with the audience and what works well. If you fail, don’t lose heart; try something different.
Regardless of whether your practice area is online counseling in UK or dementia care services Sydney or dental services in the US, your main focus should be on maintaining a broader prospect network that’s engaged with valuable content. There are several best practices that you can keep in mind while curating content so that you can ensure success.
While it is a wise approach to stay focused on a handful of themes, you should also ensure that your work reflects the human touch too. For instance, the majority of content topics that we use focus on SEO, paid advertising, and sales, but there are times when you will also find topics on company culture, cocktails, baseball, and many other events.
This is a useful technology that provides you with a one-click process where content can be curated easily by queuing content from the browser. You should prefer anything that makes it effortless to choose content that you’re going to curate, select the channels through which they will be published, and then space the content automatically over several days and weeks.
It is quite likely that you will come across good quality content from almost everywhere but you have to be smart enough to identify a total set of sources that you can count on for producing consistently good content and also a variety of content on similar themes. There are aggregation sites like Alltop, newsletters, and great blogs from which you can pull out content on a weekly basis.
If you can mention the name of the publisher from whom you curated the content and tag his name in Twitter thereby giving him credit, this will be enough for him. Giving him credit and showing him gratitude can also become attention-seeking and this could drive more reciprocation of your curated content.
Here is a scenario - consider social media to be driving along a house at 40 miles an hour and throwing a newspaper into the mailbox. The newspaper will get inside the mailbox sometimes, while most often it won’t. Similarly, you too need to play the game of numbers so that a certain percentage (though small) of your content reaches the target audience at the right time.
By asking you to post at multiple channels, we don’t mean posting at 50 LinkedIn groups thrice a day! Don’t go overboard with posting but, at the same time, don’t be scared about curating good quality content across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and your company’s Google+ page at the same time.
In case you’re using an automatic distribution system, you won’t have to invest your time in finding new content every day. Make sure you reserve time twice or just thrice in a week to make people go through your content and queue up brand new stuff for future use.
If you opt for visual curated content, this will always deserve a personal section as visual content can have a separate appeal for the target audience. Visual content is more linkable and digestible and shareable too. You can check out the best websites that include visual content and learn how they use the visual images to their best.
Think about using Buffer, Social Inbox, Gaggle AMP, and other tools through which the other team members can suggest their personal recommendations for curation. This is one of the best ways in which you can make others involved and save your time that you may have had to invest if you had to curate everything on your own.
When you’re busy curating content, if you pay attention to what other people are curating, this can even help you in making a good impression. So, you should sometimes focus on their curated content as well.
There are just a handful of sources and blogs that constantly have great stuff in them. If you curate 1-2 times in a week, you would find it easier to queue content from a single source. Rather than doing this, try to space it out. It is only when you space out content that it adds to the comprehensiveness and value of all your curated content.
What if you have a website on home care Tweed Heads? Or what should be your content curation strategy if you have a website on cancer research? In case you have a medical website or a blog of your own and you sell services or you offer information to your readers, what should be your content curation and social media strategy for your medical site?
Though you may feel that writing a simple title for a tweet and adding a link to an article is all that you need to do, it’s not enough. You must tell people why your content is important for the patients. Also, ask for their opinion so that you get to know whether or not they agree with yours.
Are you interested in sharing a study from your medical journal? What are you supposed to do when you realize none of your readers will understand the medical jargon used? Well, you need to sum up the study by using descriptions and words that everyone would understand. You need to remember that the majority of the journals only give permission to their subscribers to read the full article. Hence, you should either point out your main point within the first few paragraphs or make sure the abstract of the article is sufficient enough.
The writers usually invest a lot of effort and time into writing videos, articles, and podcasts. So, it is your responsibility to recognize and acknowledge them. You can mention the name of the website where it appears and the name of the author. In case you use Twitter to tweet a link to the same post, don’t forget to include the Twitter tag of the author so that he may gain added exposure.
The CNN, New York Times, Yahoo!, and several other websites publish all types of health content which are based on the most important topics among the readers. When you curate health content, you will get to know what the public is interested in and what they’re discussing. In case you find there is too much of misinformation and myths, you can also challenge them as soon they appear in the media.
So, now that you know the details on content curation, what are you waiting for? Don’t you think you should immediately use the tips mentioned above and get engaged in content curation to improve the SEO ranking of your business? In case you need professional assistance, seek the help of an expert who can guide you with content curation.
