Creating Content Outside Your Niche

A guide to producing authoritative, search-compliant content in unfamiliar or external niche industries.

Speakers: Zeynep Taşan

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Zeynep TaşaninSEO on Board

20 May 2017

Video Transcript

⏱ 6 min read• 1,069 words

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Hey Zeo followers, welcome to another "SU on Board" video. Today we're talking about creating content outside your niche. First, let me explain what we actually mean by that. When we consult for clients in very niche industries, we often say this. Create content on slightly different topics too. Some of them give us great feedback. Others push back and ask why. Let me start with why they say no. That way we can dig deeper. Some clients tell us, "I don't sell these products." Or, "I don't offer this service."

"So why should I create content about it?" Sometimes they say something else. "If I cover these topics. I'm just sending people to my competitor." Because of that same issue from before. They'll say they don't sell the product or offer the service. Here's another reason. "I'm not targeting these keywords or topics. I have other topics I actually care about. Why would I spend my time, effort. And money here?" I'll get to the subtopics in a few minutes. But first, let's start with the goals of a web site. What are we actually after? First, growing your audience. Every site wants this. More traffic, more people reaching you. Another goal is boosting brand awareness.

People try this in all kinds of ways. Not just on the web. Another one is the ultimate goal, of course: more sales. Or if it's not a sales site, more leads. And last, one that's more of an SEO thing: earning links. So looking at this, let's go back to the start. "Why should we make more content?" This is how we touch on all of these at once. You can't do it with a single piece. Maybe you can't hit all four at the same time, but still...

Say you run a sunglasses site. You can't sell contact lenses. It's not legal. But we might still want lens info on your blog. Why? Because you become a trusted source. And the user who lands there thinks: "This brand is legit. They're giving me real info about lenses." And if you ever do start selling them. You've already pulled in your future customers. So why do we make this content? For every single goal we just listed. That's why we brought it up. Here's another thing. How much content can you really make in that niche? How long will that content stay useful? At some point, you're going to hit a wall. So here's the other move. Skip the stuff that comes and goes. Use content that always has search volume. Stuff people always look up and want info on. We call that evergreen content.

So this way, we get to tap into those too. Now you might be thinking: "Okay, I'm sold. But how do I actually do this?" Let's get into that. The very first thing you need to do is planning. Set your strategy. How does that work? Take your content plan, for example. You could say: "60% goes to my own niche content. I'll build everything around that. Another 20% covers the topic you mentioned. And the last 20% goes outside that space." That kind of plan works.

You need a strategy when you build this content. And you should stray from it as little as possible. Next up: picking your content types. Content isn't just long-form text. As you can see here, it can be ebooks. White papers, presentations, even tools. Depends on your industry. You can build infographics. Those help you earn links, too. Long-form text, images, videos, and plenty more not listed here. Again, the goal here might be earning links. Infographics are huge for brand awareness. Momondo is a great example here. As you know, they sell flights. Flights and transportation tickets, basically. But they made one really unusual infographic: "40 different coffees from 40 different countries."

We can actually get into this here too. It's not about their fields. But it's a different concept that sparks curiosity. You can do work like this. Another one is always used in SEO: competitor analysis. You can study your competitors. Focus more on the gaps where they aren't making content. You might pull in more users from there. You need to study your competitors really well here. Next up is research. So how do I decide on these topics? There are hundreds of tools for this. But I wanted to cover simple, free options here. Ones you can use easily. Google Suggest, for example. When we type something into Google's search box. Like "what is a pen," we get related searches. They show up at the bottom of the page, below the results.

We can take advantage of those. Another one is Keywordtool.io. You go to the site and type in a keyword. It gives you results. On the free version, you don't get search volumes, unfortunately. But that's not a big deal. Because you'll see there's also a "questions" section. It shows you what people are asking about that topic. Real questions about that keyword. These are tools that help you find content topics. So now we've started producing this content. So what's in it for us? We said it already supports our goals. Basically, we're pulling in potential customers ourselves. How does that work? Maybe the product isn't for sale yet. Maybe that service doesn't even exist yet. Either way, we're introducing ourselves to future customers right now.

That's a pretty big plus. Social media benefits too. Dress it up with fresh visuals, good content, and videos. You can make a real splash on social. And you get to express the brand much better. When you stay super niche, you may not express yourself freely. But pair your expertise with related topics in that space. Do that, and you can become a sought-after name. Your visibility goes up too. You'll express yourself better, too. And finally, once you do all this work, the most important part is measuring it. If you already have a website, you're probably using Google Analytics. You can review all of this in Google Analytics.

Same goes for Search Console. Head to the Search Analytics section. See what's getting clicked and how much. Check your CTRs. You can optimize all of that and find new content ideas. Today's topic was creating content outside your field. Got questions? Drop them below. We'd love to help you further. Thanks so much.

This transcript was generated using AI speech recognition and verified against subtitle style rules.

Zeynep Taşan

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