How to find the stories people want to read

Finding stories can be a simple task, you can pluck an idea from pretty much anywhere and begin writing. However, these stories are not the ones that are often recognised, read and shared. It takes a lot more than that. After all anyone can seek inspiration, find it and thanks to the internet publish it. The trick is is to find the stories people want to read or find something they didn’t realise they needed to know.

There are many ways you can find such stories; Google trends, social media and Google Analytics can provide you with a strong head start. All you need now is time, the mentality needed to analysis the data provided and determine what the better stories to publish are.

Google Trends

I have mentioned this tool before, but it is a tool that is worth looking into. Through Google Trends you can discover what the top searches are, collect data and form an article round your findings. 

As it is October I would imagine a key search trend within Google is Halloween. However, as this is a vast topic ranging from how to make or where to buy costumes to guides on pumpkin carving along with decorations, make-up tutorials and so on; this isn’t a strong enough trend to ensure your story is read. You need to look a little deeper. 

Since 2004 there has been a strong interest in ‘Halloween costumes’ and ‘Halloween costume ideas’, which isn’t surprising, but now you have the two important keywords that will hopefully drive traffic to your article.

It is important with these keywords that you don’t use them as anchor text for any links especially if you are planning to feature this article on another site. This keyword heavy anchor text will be seen as commercial and Google will ignore it entirely and ensure no link value is generated from the article, or they will penalise such a link placement.

The more creative part now is finding the unique angle that will grab people’s attention. Once the angle is covered and the keywords are placed in a natural way, you now need to place useful links that will add value to your article. These links should be internal and external links. Internal links are ones that will keep the reader on your site, just to another piece of content and an external link will go to a resourceful page on another website. You want to use internal links to show Google you value your content, but you also want to show them that you’re not bias which is where external links come in.

Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends/

Social media

It’s important that you follow and read all the key players in your industry, whether they're a competitor or not. Social media platforms are now seen as the new and updated industry journal. Every hour or even minute a new update comes along, which is then shared or commentated on by other decision makers. These are the people you want to target and so you need to speak to them in a way that they can trust. Keeping an eye on what people are talking about, what people are commenting on and what people are acknowledging can put you in a very strong position. The only drawback is that you must act quickly. As an update swings by every hour or so, you need to write quickly and accurately to remain relevant.

Draw in people’s opinions into the piece as well. This is a great ego bait technique that can help you and your site generate more back links. By showing the key people you want to target that you respect their opinion and share their views by giving them a mention in the article, or perhaps a link they will often in return share with their social media followers and/or blog readers that they have been mentioned in it. (Some bloggers have ‘In the Press’ pages where they share all the coverage they have received along with a direct link to the article that features them.)

Find out more about using Facebook to find stories here: http://blog.storyful.com/2012/10/10/storyful-tips-and-tools-facebook/#.UmfYQflJOAj

Google Analytics

If you haven’t got Google Analytics on your site, do it now… and then come back. Not only does Google Analytics show you where your traffic is coming from (although not provided is becoming ever more predominant), how much traffic you're receiving, what landing pages are successful and can show you traffic trends, it can also help you find the stories your readers are looking for.

Go into your account; select ‘Behaviour’, ‘Site content’ and then ‘All pages’. This gives you the rundown of how popular and unpopular certain articles and landing pages are with your readers.   Can you see a specific trend there? Is there a certain phrase, keyword or subject that tends to do well statistically? If so then this should be your focus. If it is a subject, go into Adwords and Google Trends to see other related searches that you can target to generate more traffic and ultimately conversions.

Another way you can use Analytics is to see why some content has been out-performed. Look into it by selecting one article and then narrow down your search by selecting the exact publishing date of the piece through to the present day. Was it a piece that historically performed well? Was shared and read? Then all that should be done is to either update the piece or do a run up article linking the new feature to the original. The content worked and people enjoyed reading, it’s just outdated.

Google Analytics: http://www.google.com/analytics/

Now you have written the piece, it’s time you publish it. However, if you don’t want to feature it on your site and would rather have it published elsewhere, why not read How to place good content for some more of my tips?