What Content Should I Create?

These six Saved Views were created to help answer one question, “What content should I create?” Although each approaches the challenge slightly differently, they have one thing in common.

All the views include Top Rank so you can determine whether or not you’re currently covering the topic.

You can set the parameter for this metric to only show those topics where you’re not ranking. Alternatively, you can use it to find topics where you’re ranking poorly. Investigate those to see if there’s an intent mismatch. If so, you’ll want to create new content.

This post only scratches the surface of what you can do using MarketMuse Saved Views. We’ve compiled dozens of different ways you can use these views in What Should I Write About?

Let’s take a look at these Saved Views.

Topics That Haven’t Been Covered

If you’re ever looking for topics to write about that you haven’t yet covered, this Saved View is for you. It works best when a filter is applied to only show those topics that are not ranking.  

So where do these topics come from?

If you click on a topic and look at the Page Details you’ll see how a topic gets associated. Essentially, this view is a list of topics related to pages on your site. Of course, not every topic will be of interest. But that’s okay, you can apply filters to the other columns of data to create a more reasonable list:

• Topic Volume – Monthly search volume. This is more of an aspirational metric as you won’t be able to capture all the searches. You have to share the traffic with others who appear in the SERP.
• Potential Traffic – How much traffic you could expect to receive by creating a page on this topic.
• Difficulty – How difficult it is for anyone to rank for a topic.
• Personalized Difficulty – How hard it is for you to rank for a topic.
• Topic Authority – For topics where you don’t rank, you’ll find Topic Authority to be quite low and oftentimes negative. Consider applying a filter to this metric and sorting so that those with the highest Topic Authority (however small) appear at the top.

When searching for topics that you haven’t properly covered, Topic Volume and Potential Traffic allow you to filter and sort for those situations where traffic is a priority. Personalized Difficulty and Topic Authority metrics enable you to find topics that will be comparatively easy to rank (low Personalized Difficulty) with the greatest degree of success, relatively speaking (high Topic Authority)

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Topics That Are Ranking but Don’t Match Intent

A comprehensive page can rank for numerous topics but that doesn’t mean it will rank well for all those topics. Sometimes the page ranks for a topic which isn’t really the focus of the page.  Quite often, it’s because the page doesn’t quite match the intent for that search term.

Here’s an example from the MarketMuse home page. While these topics may be covered to some degree, they’re not the focus of the page.

This view is similar to the previous one, with the addition of the URL column. The key difference lies in how the filter is applied. In this case we want to filter on Best Rank is greater than 40. You want a high enough number to catch poorly ranking topics as these are the ones most likely to suffer from intent mismatch.  

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Pages That Are Ranking but Don’t Match Intent

Like the previous Save View, the purpose here is to find intent mismatches. But in this case we approach it by looking at pages instead of topics. In order to do this, you need to use the Pages Inventory with a different set of metrics.

Apply a filter to create a shortlist of possibile pages that need further investigation. Then look at the details of each page to determine how (and to what extent) the intent mismatch is occurring.

Related Topics shows the number of topics associated with the page. Powerful pages typically have a large number of related topics, so applying a filter to this metric can weed those out of the list.

Page Authority is another metric for which you can apply a filter. Pages with low authority tend to be the ones in need of remediation.

That same reasoning also applies to Avg. Topic Authority. Just keep in mind that the average is shown because a page can rank for many topics. It is possible to have good Page Authority for one topic but the average can get dragged down by the other poorly performing topics.

Competitive Advantage is how much easier it is to rank for you to rank than your competitors for a topic. Once again, it’s averaged because one page can rank for many topics. Consider sorting the list using this metric so that you prioritize the situations where you’re most likely to be successful.

Organic Traffic Est. is a judgment about how much traffic the page receives. This value metric can also be helpful in deciding what to prioritize.

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Topics With the Biggest ROI

When we talk about ROI we’re referring to Potential Value($) and to see that we need to look at the topic inventory. Potential Value ($) is based on cost-per-click (CPC) * Potential Traffic, which itself is based on potential rank. Factors that we consider when determining potential rank include your existing rank, Personalized Difficulty, and Topic Authority.

We include Top Rank in this view so you can immediately determine whether you have an existing piece of content covering the topic. Consider updating it if you’re ranking well for the topic. Otherwise a new piece of content is probably in order. You’ll just need to verify whether there’s an intent mismatch.

Although Topic Volume is included in this view, it’s best to think of it as an aspirational metric. You’ll never capture all the search volume because unfortunately, you have to share that traffic with everyone else that appears in the SERP.

Although Potential Value ($) is the primary filter for this view, consider also applying filters for Personalized Difficulty and Topic Authority. In the ideal situation you’ll have topics with great Potential Value ($) that are easy for you to rank (low Personalized Difficulty) where you have a distinct advantage (high Topic Authority).

If you’d like to find quick wins that take into account ROI, filter for topics where you currently rank between 6 and 30 (fine tune those values to match your definition of quick wins).

By the way, the next view is set up specifically to find quick wins.  It’s almost the same as this view, but we swap out Potential Volume ($) for Potential Traffic.

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Topics With the Quickest Wins

This Saved View helps you find quick wins based on your rankings for existing topics. Most content marketers consider quick wins as content ranking somewhere between 5 and 30, which puts you between the bottom of the first page of the SERP and page 3. However, you can fine-tune the filter as you see fit.

The advantage of creating this view using MarketMuse is that we provide you with proprietary metrics – Personalized Difficulty, Topic Authority, and Potential Traffic.

• Personalized Difficulty tells you how hard it is for you to rank for a topic and is unique to your site.
• Topic Authority is your competitive advantage based on the authority you’ve built up around a topic.
• Potential Traffic is the amount of traffic you could expect if you update your content, taking into account your existing rank, Personalized Difficulty, and Topic Authority.

Instead of just applying a filter on rank, you could include Personalized Difficulty, Topic Authority, and Potential Traffic. This way you have a shortlist of quick wins for which you’re most likely to succeed (Personalized Difficulty and Topic Authority) and see some decent results (Potential Traffic).

Topic Volume is also included in this Saved View as an alternative to Potential Traffic. Just remember that you won’t be able to capture all that traffic, so Topic Volume functions more as an aspirational metric.

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Topics With the Most Traffic

Readers with an eagle eye will notice that this view uses the same metrics as the previous Saved View, Topics With the Quickest Wins. The only difference is the order of the columns, which is for display purposes only.

The key difference is that you’ll probably want to filter or sort based on Potential Traffic or possibly Topic Volume. Just keep in mind that Topic Volume isn’t a good predictor of traffic.

Personalized Difficulty and Topic Authority are also helpful in that you can narrow your choices to those where you have a realistic chance of success. That means finding topics with low Personalized Difficulty (they’re easy) and high Topic Authority (you have a strong competitive advantage).

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Takeaway

Whenever you’re wondering about what content to create, these Saved Views are a great starting point. Adjust the filter as necessary to reduce the list to a manageable size that you can investigate further. As you find suitable candidates, make sure to add them to a plan so you can create content briefs and assign them to your team.