How To Keep Your Content Fresh in 2021

Part of any good search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is producing high-quality, relevant content on your website. Even if you’re the best writer in the world, this can also be the hardest thing to do. The reason for that isn’t the actual writing; it’s coming up with content to write about. There’s a pretty good chance that your field has existed for a long time now, and if you’ve been writing about it for a while, it might seem like you’ve tapped out every possible topic. Perhaps that’s true, but it’s more likely that you just need a little inspiration to get you started.

A Few Ways To Identify New Ideas and Topics to Keep Your Content Fresh in 2021

Yearly Trends

See what we’re doing here? We are creating a guide for you to follow to keep your content fresh in 2021. You can do that yourself, no matter what sector or industry you work in. Believe it or not, this is not only a way to get a topic to write about, but it’s also a good SEO tactic. After a while, it can be hard to think of new keywords to use that won’t get buried. However, by creating a yearly guide, you will have a keyword and 2021 to rank with. Also, people do like to see what is trending and what to look for as the calendar turns. You can even gain some traffic with this strategy. 

Solve Problems

It can be easy for businesses to take the path of least resistance. When coming up with ideas, you may toss some aside since you are not all that interested in writing about them. However, this is not always a good idea. What you should be doing is thinking about what your readers and consumers want to read about as opposed to what you like to write about. Try to get inside your audience’s heads and figure out what they need. Can you answer questions for them? Answering potential questions has become more important in recent years, and will only get more vital as time goes on. With the rise of using voice search, a lot of users are verbally asking questions into their mobile devices to get answers. If you are prepared and you have anticipated those questions, you will be well ahead of the game. 

Keep a Swipe File

When you are surfing the web for your own needs and come across something interesting, save it to a file. Even if it’s not related to your niche, you can still use it as inspiration. Your swipe file can be a repository of anything you come across that sparks your interest, inspires ideas or just seems like it has value in any way. The next time you are trying to come up with a topic, you might just find one in that file. Either download an app to your phone or have a designated notepad so that you can keep track of your file at all times. You can also use this file for any ideas that get sparked when you are on the go. All too often, ideas come and go quickly and, despite our best intentions, we forget them. 

Check Twitter

It’s amazing how Twitter can be used for just about anything. You can get your news, sports updates, gossip and everything in between. Yes, you can even get content topic ideas there, too. The best way to do this is to search for hashtags. Choose something broad that’s related to your sector. For example, you can use #SEO or #digitalmarketing. You will end up getting hundreds of tweets with those hashtags, and there is bound to be something that will be good for several topic ideas. You can even bookmark the hashtags that give you the most results so that you can check back later on when you are out of ideas again. 

Suss Out Your Competitors

All’s fair in love and war, and also SEO marketing. When you are running on fumes when it comes to ideas, you can always check with your competitors. Don’t steal their content, but reading it might give you inspiration. You can also choose some of the same content topics, as long as you don’t regurgitate everything they have already said. If you are wondering what will get you the most engagement, there is a handy trick you can use by going to YouTube. Visit a competitor’s YouTube page, and pull up their list of videos. Then, sort them by popularity so you can see which ones are the most viewed. You can then draw some ideas from those popular videos. 

Update Your Content

Sometimes, maybe you just need to update old content instead of coming up with new ideas. Relaunching what you’ve already written is great in a couple of ways. For one, it gives you fresh content, which will keep your site current, which search engines like. You can also provide content to users who maybe missed it the first time around. You can always brand it as a relaunch, and there is always new information from your niche that you can add to keep things up to date. 

Ask Your Audience

Of course, if you want content that your readers will enjoy, then you can always ask them what they want. Don’t just post the question, though. Take the time to develop a survey that they can answer to help direct your content. Don’t make the survey too long, and don’t be discouraged if only a fraction of your readers responds. Your questions should be open-ended so that you can get the full context of their answers. Avoid yes or no and multiple-choice questions, as they can be hard to interpret. 

Producing original content is one of the most difficult aspects of SEO. Search engines tend to love updated websites with current and original content, so you can’t just stop producing it. Finding new topics can get tough after a while, but with these tips, you can push through your writer’s block and come up with new and fresh ideas for 2021.