Be a Better Writer Blog

Curation, Creation And Your Content Strategy

Tweet

 

If you're responsible for developing or executing a content writing strategy, you know how tough it is develop new content. Coming up with new ideas week after week is hard enough without also trying to cover EVERYTHING that's relevant to your visitors.

Some sites have found a way to keep their pages fresh - content curation.

Unlike content creation, which means developing original content, content curation is the process of putting content created elsewhere on your site. Curated content isn't meant to replace original content; it's meant to enhance it.  In fact, combining the two gives your site a real edge over other sites.

Content curation sounds new, but we've been doing it for years.  When you share a video or link on your Facebook or Twitter page, you curate content. When you compile a list of your favorite game sites, you curate content.

Content curation has always been around, but now it's becoming a deliberate - and important - part of developing a content writing strategy.

The real question is why.  Why are sites publishing one another's content? Because they've experienced one or more of these boosts by doing so.

More Internet Traffic 

Everyone wants people to read their content, but sometimes finding readers is an uphill battle. Relevant content and keyword optimization help, but they only go so far.  Curated content can take your site to a whole new level.  

Suppose you add content from another site.  That site reciprocates and adds your original content to its site.  Those visitors start clicking your links, and soon they become YOUR visitors.  They start sending your links to their social media feeds, and the number of clicks continues to grow.

Now imagine you're adding content with detailed descriptions filled with keywords.  You already know what keywords do to search engine rankings.  Now, without ever resorting to keyword stuffing, you can dramatically increase your keyword density and land on the top of the search results page.  No one ever saw their click rates DROP by being at the top.

A Reputation as a One-Stop Source 

Have you ever tried to research a topic online?  You spend hours trying to find all the information because no site has everything.  Then you stumble across a site with long lists of links to articles, blogs, and other relevant content.  Soon it becomes your go-to source for research on that topic.

When you curate content, you put it all in one location.  Once users find your page and see how much content it offers, they realize they can save hours of research time, and they stick around.  If they need to do more research, they come back.  Plus, they might recommend the site to other users looking for the same content.  Before you know it, visitors are calling your site the best source of up-to-date information.  

Ideas for Your Own Content

Once you start using content curation tools, you start to generate some ideas for what YOU want to contribute.  Even if other writers are covering your area of expertise, you can still use their work as a springboard for your own content writing strategy.

There are two ways to do this.  One is to organize content into categories.  All your content might focus on one subject, but each item focuses on a different area or takes a different angle.  Instead of forcing visitors to sift through it all, divide the content into subgroups:

• News sites vs. publications

• How-to vs. informative/educational

• Frequent vs. one-time writers

• By specialty

You can also highlight the best-written or most informative content, or create a top ten list of the best articles of the week.

The other way to create content is by responding to other people's content. Maybe you reacted to an article because it crystallized your own perspective, or because it completely contradicted it.  Write about it.  Link to the article and respond to it.  Argue the points, provide new evidence, reference other content on your site to make your point.  If you're stuck for content ideas, curated content can be your biggest inspiration.

Content curation is fast becoming an integral part of content writing strategy.  You might worry that other content cannibalizes your own, but it doesn't.  Instead, it increases the value of your site and spurs ideas for your own contributions.