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Сontent plan for a month in 10 minutes: possible or not?
We all are suffering from the creative crisis from time to time, especially while creating a content plan at the beginning of the month. It’s a common problem of every person who is involved in the process of writing. Let’s try to withstand it.

In this post, I’ll show one method which helps me to automate the creating of a content plan. Okay, it may take you a bit more than 10 minutes, but I can guarantee that you’ll find dozens of ideas.

Where we usually find it 

It’s not that difficult to come up with 10 random topics. It’s much more difficult if you remember that the article should always be relevant to reader’s interest and need. Only this way you’ll get traffic, likes, and shares.

So how to find such topics? I think the most logical way is to find what questions people ask at Google, but there are other ways as well. I’ll describe the most common ways and sources to do that.
Forums

Check the forums and find questions people ask right now. Pay attention to the questions that haven’t been answered fully so far. Be the one who saves people from this pernicious ignorance.

I use Google operators to find such forums. For example: yourkeyword inurl:forum




Check all your queries with this method and follow the discussions. Also, after publishing the post, you can get back to this forums and leave a link to your article there.

Even simpler way is to find lists of the best forums. There are a lot of such lists like this.

Question-and-answer sites 

Use resources like Quora, Reddit, etc. You can sort the results by type and time.



The method is the same: find interesting questions, check the answers and choose few of these ideas to cover in your future posts. 

Competitors

Go and find some inspiration on competitors’ blogs. You shouldn’t rewrite their posts, just pick up some ideas from the most popular posts and write your own opinion on it.

For instance, if your competitor has a post on how to carry out the link building issues, write that content marketing is much better and show how to do it.

Also, you can check most popular articles in your niche using tools like BuzzSumo.


You can type your keyword and filter your results by date. You’ll get the list of most shareable articles so that you can assume what people would like to read.
Also, here are a few useful tips to write better.

Some other hacks

• Take a look at the discussions in the topical social media communities;
• Read the comments under the articles in your niche and get out the readers’ problems from there;
• Type your keywords into the Google search box and check related queries suggested by Google;
• Ask friends and experts in your niche and find out what they would like to read;
• Track Google Alerts and Google Trends;
• Ask your readers through some questionnaires.

Automate the creation of a content plan

All these ways I’ve described are efficient and useful, but imagine how much time it takes. It’s obvious that content marketers are trying to automate this process.

For this purpose, I use Serpstat — an all-in-one SEO tool. It consists of 5 features, one of them is a keyword research. The most interesting section here is Search Questions.

This feature performs people’s queries in forms of questions. It’s taken from Google, Amazon, and YouTube in real time. Serpstat arranges them in groups by the question word. Let’s try it.

In action

Imagine that you’re running some beauty blog and you lack the ideas. First of all, create a list of your main keywords. For example — makeup, manicure, hair styling, hair care, skin care advice, etc.

Open Serpstat, type your keyword into the search box and choose the database. Serpstat has 17 regional databases, including UK, US, Canada, and Germany. Tew days back it launched the French base.

Then go to Keyword research > Content Marketing > Search Questions.



Here you see the most popular words which are related to the query, and graph of question words.

And here is the best part — a huge list of questions that real people are searching for in the search engines.



What is it? It’s a list of topics for your articles. Now you have to do some work manually. Filter this list, choose the ones that fit your blog and create a plan. Mine looks like this:



You can find some useless or completely stupid questions but you should think wider. Even these questions can be used for the article. For instance, ‘the most strange users’ questions about SEO of this month’.

Conclusions

There are a lot of ways to find users questions, but it takes a lot of time.

With the help of SEO tools, you can get hundreds of questions from the real users in a few minutes. Answer it in your posts, and next time Google will return your article for this queries.

Share your own hacks on how to handle content plan issues faster in the comments below!

About the author:
Anna Rud is a Content Marketer at Serpstat. Developing rich and quality content and implementing brand strategy are her key responsibilities.
https://twitter.com/anathewriter

I'll admit, I definitely struggle with this on my own account. I'll get this feeling of anxiety when I haven't posted anything in a few days. In a pinch, with nothing new to share, I completely understand the impulse to post an image that's a little off-brand or low quality, just to have uploaded something...

BUT, LET'S NOT GET CRAZY HERE...

If you recall some of the information that was discussed in this post. Here's what we know...

1. As a brand or business, we need to BE ACTIVE on Instagram to keep our followers interested + engaged. 
2. We can't just post all willy-nilly, off-brand crap, or we will risk seeing a lot of those followers jump ship. 
3. The best way to accomplish posting THE RIGHT content for your brand on a regular basis, is to schedule it in advance. 

STILL WITH ME? 

If you are (yay! thanks for hanging in there)...

You may already have a handful of ideas about the sort of photo or video content that you want to share, or that you already know works well. But, what do you do when you run out of ideas? How do you keep it interesting + still relevant to your brand without everything coming off super "sales-y"? What do you do when the posts start feeling redundant? #HALP!


Today I am sharing ten content ideas for you to mull over the next time you sit down to plan your posts. If your brain ever turns to mush (a constant problem with creative minds), you can reference this list of starting points. Think about your specific brand or business, and see if you can find ways to incorporate these concepts into your unique visual content strategy. 

Also read: How To Make Money On Instagram: 4 Ways You Can Earn Through Instagram 
How Brands Are Using Instagram Stories? 

NO 1. BEHIND THE SCENES

People are curious. By showing some of the work being done behind the curtain, you are tapping into their voyeuristic nature + allowing them to see something that's not often shared. Maybe you give them a peek at your home office or your business' back-of-house that's usually reserved for "Employees Only." You could share the progress of a current project, the making of a hair/makeup tutorial or take them behind the scenes of a photo shoot. Everyone wants to feel special + be granted VIP access, so this is a way for you to make that happen for your biggest fans. 

NO 2. HIGHLIGHT A PRODUCT OR SERVICE

If you're in business, you're most likely selling SOMETHING. Whether that's a physical product, or you offer some sort of professional service, you should find a way to show that off in an aesthetically pleasing way. The delicate art of being a business on Instagram is really in the balancing act of sharing + selling. Meaning, you can't just blatantly blast your advertisements in front of your followers faces 100% of the time and expect them to stick around. Figuring out how to showcase what you offer in a way that fits naturally within the parameters of a visual platform, (like Instagram), and doesn't feel like a constant sales pitch, is key. 

Also read: 
Five Awesome Ways to Use Instagram to Make Better Career Moves 
How to use Instagram for Business: 4 Key Steps for Beginners 

NO 3. QUOTE OR INSPIRATIONAL MESSAGE

Think about your business' core values, or your company's mission statement. Is there some way to use words, maybe through lovely hand-lettering, or smart font pairing, to convey its message in the form of motivational, text-driven images? Maybe you have a well-known tagline or catchphrase that people already associate with your brand. With these quotes + phrases in mind, you can create your own text images relatively simply with apps like Canva or Pablo. Or, if graphic text elements aren't brand-right for your business, you could still get really creative with how you share any message. Cut the words out of a magazine (ransom note style!), spell it with alphabet soup, or have an airplane write it in the sky... I don't know, it's your business, go crazy! 

NO 4. FLAT LAY OR STYLED IMAGE

The most popular type of photo on Instagram (aside from the selfie) is the flat lay, sometimes referred to like an outfit grid (for clothing related images). And, it's exactly what it sounds like. The product is laid out flat, and the photo is taken from an aerial point of view. You can create a flat lay image with ANY product, not just clothing. In fact, I wrote a post about 5 ways to FLAT LAY here. As always, think about your personal brand + how you can best represent your product or ideas with this sort of composition. 

Also read: 7 Ways to Improve Your Instagram Marketing 

NO 5. CREATE A CALL TO ACTION

An excellent way to engage + build community is by instructing your audience to provide you with a direct response. You could ask them a question with your photo + have them answer you in the comments, or inform them about your newsletter or most recent blog post, requesting that they visit the link in your profile. Create a contest or challenge + have your followers use a specific hashtag to track the engagement. Give your fans some instruction along with your images to create a more defined purpose. 

NO 6. START A WEEKLY SERIES

Once you get into the groove, you may notice some photos seem to get more likes + comments than the others. If you track your analytics through a site like Iconosquare, you can find out what type of posts are most popular on your feed. Using that information, try dedicating a particular day to a more modern concept or photo theme. Think #throwbackthursday or #motivationmonday. This will help to take some of the planning off of your plate because the content for a particular day will always be the same theme. Come up with a specific hashtag for your series + allow your followers to participate as well. And this leads me to my next content idea... 

NO 7. USER GENERATED CONTENT

This one is utterly fantastic because it requires VERY LITTLE WORK on your end. If you can get your followers to engage in your CTA (Calls To Action), or contribute to your weekly series, then you can turn around + use the photos that they create (with their permission, of course) on your own feed! All you have to do is track your hashtags and scoop up the photos created by your fans, to re-post on your account. This is awesome on a couple of levels. First, you now have totally free content that you didn't have to create on your own (saving you a lot of precious time). And second, you can now give some of your loyal followers a huge public shout out! They feel good, you feel good. Everyone is virtually hugging, UGC wins. 

NO 8. COMPANY CULTURE

If you are a solo-entrepreneur, it's probably pretty easy to "seem" human on social media, because, duh, you ARE a human. Your audience is most likely aware that it's just little ole you, running the whole dang operation. They see you as a person, and can easily relate to you on a personal level. But if you own a company with multiple employees, operating under a company name, being seen as "human" on social media becomes a bit more challenging. However, with the right content strategy, it's not at all impossible. Businesses, large + small, can use Instagram to showcase their talented employees, share how they give back to the community, highlight causes they support and offer an inside look into what they are all about. People like working with + buying from PEOPLE. Opening up + sharing those culture-centric pieces of your brand builds trust and shows authenticity. In turn, it might actually end up being why customers choose to do business with you, as opposed to a similar brand that hides behind their company logo. 

NO 9. SHOUT OUT 

Social media is really about being social and creating community. That is why it's best to only use it for promotion + business about 1/3 of the time. The other 2/3 should be about the sharing the culture of your brand, engaging with your followers, + celebrating others (perhaps in your same field) that you look up to. Think about someone who inspires or motivates you + give them props on your own feed. Maybe you took someone's webinar or just learned something precious from another blogger or business owner. Posting about people you admire on your account is a way to give them applause and say thank you, and it also allows your followers to discover them. 

NO 10. RECOMMENDATION

A good recommendation can go a long way. You can share a product review, post an excerpt from a book you just read or recommend a podcast that you love to listen to. Sharing information like this, not only adds value to your post, but it also allows your audience to discover a little more about who you are. Of course, like all of the suggestions listed above, you'll want to ensure that you are giving the right recommendations for your target audience. What you share should always align with your core values and relate back to your brand on some level.

Design a great landing page and create quality content to generate maximum leads to your business. Sometime writers may run out of ideas even the most creative, productive bloggers faced this. In this post, we will help you to push the trigger to explore ideas.

All of us who create content, whether for an online medium or for other media, know that there are certain times when the article can fall into the rut. Often content creators suffer "writer's block" in which for a time they fail to generate truly fresh and new material.

Every writer must have experienced such situations. So it is critical to have the skill or know different type of information to cope with the situation.
Much of the building of a content marketing strategy is based on experimenting with new types of content. 
Your audience can love your current content, but that does not mean it's all you have to create. Betting on new and different types of materials can expand your reach and attract more.

To help you create different content, here we are giving 20 types of content for your landing pages with which to generate leads and collect useful information about them.

1. Ebooks

Ebooks are the popular way to generate leads and gain credibility within your industry. But it may take the time to visualize the results. Therefore, it is important to make sure that you are dealing with a topic that will be of interest and will help your target audience.  

2. Courses

Your audience may be interested in completing a form in exchange for a video tutorial. It depends on your production capabilities, you can issue a live tutorial or publish a previously recorded and edited. Be that as it may, ask your readers for the email or other information in exchange for the tutorial, to gather information about them.

3. Product testing

Sometimes your potential customers will want to try your product or service before deciding if it is what they are really looking for. This is an excellent way to grow and keep loyalty since those people who convert are satisfied with the test they have made of your product.

That is why it may be worthwhile to provide a free trial of the product or service with no other commitment on the part of the potential customer than to fill out a form with your data.  
Also read: How to Build Content Marketing Strategy Plan That Actually Unbeatable

4. Demos

If potential clients are ready to learn more about your product or service, provide demonstrations with your equipment. You can insert in your web demos of its operation and even close meetings or video calls with the most exciting clients.

These calls to action are especially valuable in the sections of the site that explain the differentiating aspects of your company or the characteristics of your product.

5. Contests

Everyone love contests. You can learn good enough about your audience while offering them a bonus for trusting you. With them, you can increase your reach by leading potential customers to your website.

You can run contests on your own site, or on almost any social platform, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Also, you can opt for one with a simple or more complex mechanics.

6. Cheat sheets

The cheat sheets are short and concise information that someone can mark for future reference. They are complete guides of terms, orders, symbols or other information that can constitute a quick reference. So the more visual and without great details the better.

7. Checklists

Checklists are another type of low offer that you can include on your landing pages so readers can print or download on their desktops. It includes clear headers, colorful design, and limits navigation on the page to quickly attract the visitor.

8. Series of emails

A series of emails are a list of several emails sent to a person who specifically decided to receive them. It differs from an email marketing subscription in which in this case a finite number of submissions are sent.

This format is especially popular during holidays such as Christmas when many brands make thematic promotions with a duration determined at the time and in that interval they send the users periodic informative announcements.

9. Email Subscriptions

Blog subscriptions in addition to driving more traffic to your website can also help you generate more conversions. But how do you get blog readers to become potential customers?

First, you can turn them into subscribers by only asking for their email address in exchange for sending them blog information on a weekly or monthly basis. It is essential that it is easy for them to subscribe for example using a one-step form.

10. Guides

Information guides have a multitude of styles, formats, and sizes, from some that include detailed explanations to shorter and more short ones. They are provided or users with useful, more or less profound information in a guide format.

11. Kits

Kits are pieces of content grouped into a single offering. The user is offered content and similar information at a single time. For example, an English kit that includes an interactive presentation, a report with original research data and a glossary of terms.

12. Original data and research

Data and metrics have become especially valuable as many concepts become more intuitive with figures. Having original and quality data about your industry will help you build authority and confidence in your audience. The problem is that analyzing and taking advantage of them requires a lot of time, resources, and experience.

One of the least expensive ways to collect original data and research is to conduct a survey of your subscribers, potential customers, and industry professionals. Then make a report or infographic and share it so that it can be downloaded by the visitors of your website.

Annual reports are similar to the original data and research. They usually focus on information about a particular organization, or to an industry in general. So they can be useful resources for a significant number of users.

13. Podcasts

Thanks to this type of content you can create a loyal audience and position yourself as a strong brand that provides a good user experience. With them, you will be able to put the voice to your mark with a relatively small budget (only a microphone and a good communicator are needed). If you do a good job, your audience will look forward to your new podcast.

When working with podcasts, one of the best ways to get information and keep users loyal is to request the subscription of these to receive updates and news. By offering a "latest news" subscription, you can maintain the public up-to-date on related information, such as industry trends or forecasts of future communications.

14. SlideShare Presentations

Like a blog, SlideShares is an excellent way to generate traffic. We may allow access to your information in exchange for completing a form. If your SlideShare is good enough, it can be a method that requires a low level of effort and high conversion results among your potential customers.  

15. Information Templates

Templates are an excellent system for creating original content for yourself. These can be of different types: calendars, worksheets, work schemes or infographics.  

16. Events

Hold events that the audience you want to attend. There are lots of possibilities, you just have to think which one will be most suitable for your goals and target. The most important thing about this type of communication is that whatever your event, ask the attendees for their contact information so you can send the event data and your personalized invitation.

After the event, you can follow the participants to inform them about similar occasions or where to download content related to the event that may be of interest to you. It is interesting to add calls to action in these communications that invite users to subscribe to other types of content or your social profiles.

17. Tools

Developing interactive tools can take time and effort to be difficult to grow, but if they are actually useful to your audience, the payoff often pays off.

18. Free applications

Although a priori may seem like a free product does not generate business, in fact, they are a great opportunity for lead generation.

Giving free versions of your product or service, may be versions with fewer features or functionality than payment, provide significant advantages over your competitors. The only thing to ask the public is to fill out a form.

For example, booking.com in addition to posting links directing users to the App Store or Google Play also offers the option of receiving a link to download the free application via email. For convenience, some users are willing to provide this information in exchange for useful content for them.

19. Webinars

The web seminars are a useful content format for the introduction of your target to the sector of your industry and establish yourself as an expert on the subject. A successful webinar takes a lot of work, particularly regarding planning and promoting it, but with the right strategy, it can be an excellent way to generate high-quality content.

20. Whitepapers

Whitepapers are more academic and persuasive than ebooks. They are structured to present a problem, and then provide a solution to this. People download them because they provide detailed information.

The great thing about white papers is that they can be created for almost any industry. A form is usually required to be downloaded. Allowing visitors to auto-complete this data with information contained in one of their social profiles makes the process simpler so that more users will be encouraged to complete it.

Generating different types of downloadable content for your users is the best way to keep your content fresh and current facilitating the task of reaching and loyalty to the audience of your interest.