Content Research Checklist
Content Research Checklist
Content Research Checklist
Use Quora or your industry’s top forum to find the questions your audience is asking about this topic:
What terms are your audience using to describe this topic that you should use in your content?
What assumptions do you hold about this topic that your content should address?
Look at the questions and assumptions you’ve gathered so far. What are the top five questions you have about the
topic you’d like to cover in your content?
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Write down the best related keywords, their difficulty level and amount of people searching for that keyword.
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Highlight the keywords that will work the best in your content on this particular subject. Circle your #1 priority
keyword.
Enter that keyword into Google and read all of the top 10 search results for ideas they completely missed or ones
you could potentially build upon. Take notes from your research:
Turn off private results in Google to see what different content shows in your search results. Add notes to the
sections above.
Use at least one of the terms from this word bank and research your keywords and questions again. Take note of any
interesting information:
Take note of the sources that may provide research on similar topics in your industry for your future content:
Search for your keyword in different search engines to find new results:
Boardreader
DuckDuckGo
Dogpile
Vimeo
The WWW Virtual Library
Yippy
Use what you know: How can you apply what you’re currently reading to the topic you’d like to cover in your
content?
Use Wikipedia to kick off your research process for these reasons:
Extended dictionary. Link to Wikipedia when introducing terms or concepts. If the reader would like to find
out more, Wikipedia offers more than a mere dictionary definition. Let the reader do research on the basics
of the term if they want to.
Finding new sources. At the bottom of Wikipedia entries, you'll see the sections "See Also", "External Links",
and "References". Click through to these outside sources and see if you don't find additional research or links
that can lead you further into the rabbit hole of research.
Finding correct terminology. One of the best uses for Wikipedia is picking up the correct keyword or words
to use in searching. Find a Wikipedia entry using "common" language in a Google search. The article will
provide scientific, industry, or technical terms that you can then use for deeper searches in scholarly sources.
Understanding concepts.U Wikipedia is a great place to learn about a complicated subject. se it in
conjunction with studies and abstracts you've found from scholarly sources. While it isn't great as a source, it
is a fine place to go to get a better understanding so that you can actually interpret the study you've found.
Test
What kind of data would your audience be interested in?
Survey
Ask your readers questions and create surveys. Learn the basics of general trends and preferences from your own
readers to really understand your niche audience.
Create a simple system to turn your qualitative information into quantitative data.
For example, Julie graded the advice on Dove chocolates by assigning number values to good and bad advice.
Afterward, she used that information to create a pie graph to interpret her data.
Enter your data into Google Sheets to convert it into a graph your audience can easily understand.
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