For a long time now, whenever people have needed information, they have gone to a search engine and plugged in a few words related to what they wanted.
In the early days, we had AOL and Altavista. We still have a few options for search engines, but the most popular is Google, the king of all search.
In recent years, we have seen a significant change in the way people find information, thanks to new technology, new sites, and new behavioral models. Google has changed its algorithm numerous times to try to adapt to these changes and improve the user experience.
One of the biggest changes we’re seeing now is the rise of content discovery in place of using search. Here’s what you need to know:
User-Curated Content
Social media has played a big role in helping increase the influence of content discovery.
Many people now scroll the feed on their social networks to see what information people are sharing, not what they have to say in their status updates. After all, most status updates are about things like what people ate for lunch or the fender bender they just got into – not exactly riveting stuff.
Celebrities and comedians are just about the only people that others follow to see what they have to say.
It is important that you understand the role social media plays in content discovery and that you take advantage of that for your brand. Not only should you be focused on creating content that others will want to share, but you should also be curating content on your feed that will encourage others to see you as a valuable resource and then to follow you.
Even if you are sharing others’ content, having those followers means that when you do have your own content to share, you’ll have a bigger audience for it.
Content Discovery Tools
Content discovery tools are very useful for helping you to get more of your blog or site content in front of your intended audience.
You can either use these tools to promote your content within your own site or to promote your content on other sites (who sign up as publishers to earn advertising revenue).
The right content discovery tool can help you get much more exposure for your content. It helps users find content that they might not even know to search for because they didn’t know what was available.
With many users finding most of their content through a website home page, content discovery tools can really help you maximize your traffic.
Content Marketing
In order for your content discovery tools to be really successful, you also need to implement an effective content marketing strategy.
To start, you need to create high-quality and engaging content. That means creating long-form and in-depth content that answers a user’s question or fills a need for them.
Other keys to creating engaging content include appealing to emotions, sharing personal stories and anecdotes, using entertaining language, and talking about topical or controversial issues.
You will also need to determine the best time to publish your content so that it reaches your intended audience at just the right time. You can learn this information through your online research, but you can also get useful information from your intent-based content discovery tool.
Finally, you will need to determine the best places to publish your content. For example, you might find that publishing certain content to your blog gets a better response on different days or different times of day than it does when you publish on social media.
Again, some of this information will be gleaned through trial and error, but some of it requires the right research and the right tools.
Using an intent-based tools give you a shortcut through some of that. The tool looks at all the data to determine the right time and platform for the content it recommends to ensure that it reaches the right users.
Content discovery can be an invaluable way for you to get your content in front of the right people. You need to use content discovery in addition to SEO to maximize your reach. Make sure you are using the right tools, to get the results you want and to grow your brand.