Why Is Content Curation Important for SEO and How to Do It?
Adding value to your audience and being perceived as a thought leader are the fundamental requirements of search engine marketing. And it’s no surprise that content curation is one of the most influential topics in SEO today.
On the one hand, top bloggers and publishers build their reputations with original content and ideas. Therefore, marketers have already understood that sharing engaging posts from valuable sources increases the authority and visibility of a website.
What Is Meant by Curated Content?
Content curation consists of finding, collecting, organizing, and presenting relevant information for your audience in a way that makes new and fresh content. The goal is to provide the most relevant and valuable information based on existing content.
To curate content, you should start doing your research on topics relevant to your niche. You can use Google search operators or other tools like BuzzSumo or Ahrefs.
Then, you should find quality content (articles, videos, podcasts) that fit your topic. And then compile it into compelling content that’s useful to your audience.
The goal is to create content that engages readers and drives traffic to your website or blog, without falling into poor practices related to copying or paraphrasing existing content. This is far from what we mean by content curation!
💡 It’s essential to understand the difference between content curation and regurgitated content. You can’t just take existing content and use it without adding your personal touch. In fact, one of the most important warnings introduced on the latest Google updates includes the need of offering first-hand experience in your content.
Curated content will rank better in search engines. Why? Because it takes advantage of keywords people are searching for. They also add value by answering questions people have about a particular topic.
The Difference Between Curated and Created Content
Created content is pure and original material. On the other hand, curated content is selecting previously created material and curating it to make it your own. When you curate content, you choose which parts of information created by others are worth sharing with your audience.
The benefits of content curation are numerous. It saves you time as a writer. Also, it shows off your knowledge as an expert in your field.
This way, users will see that you’re not just an expert but someone who knows where to find experts on topics related to theirs. Therefore, it’s essential to curate content only if you have expertise on the topic you’re investigating.
Why Is Content Curation Important for SEO?
Content creation from scratch takes time, and there are topics that are already covered on the internet in a way we can’t add anything else. In this scenario, curating content can be helpful to give your opinion about a topic, or selecting the most valuable pieces without crafting something 100% brand new. However, there’s something essential for this to work: don’t copy existing content.
According to a study by Bruce Clay, “curated content can provide SEO benefits only if it contains unique text linking to high-quality resources paired with value-added analysis.”
It’s fundamental to include links to reliable and trustworthy external sites in your posts if you want curated content to work. In addition, this type of post must be accompanied by your own original commentary. Only by fulfilling these two requirements, curated content could add true value to the audience!
💡 When addressing on-site SEO, make sure to optimize content attributes (such as meta descriptions, title tags, alt texts, anchor texts, and keywords).
However, when curating content, it’s also fundamental to make some research beforehand. And, not only choose related keywords to target but also write content in a way that the Google algorithm knows that your website’s content is original.
If not, Google might penalize your website and not show your posts.
In addition, according to the Bruce Clay study, curated posts can rank as well as created posts on the same topic. And while creating a blog post from scratch can take a few hours, curated posts can take about half the time for writers, saving them a reasonable amount of working hours.
How to Do Content Curation the Right Way
Everyone has their voice. But what about sharing other people’s voices with your audience?
It’s easy to think that the only quality and valuable content you can share with your audience is the 100% original created content. However, content curating can be helpful if you do it the right way!
So no, re-tweet something is not forbidden. Just be mindful and don’t use it as the basis of your content strategy.
In addition, make sure to add your spice to curated content. Users will notice if a post’s only a paraphrased combination of things said by others as this will not provide any added value to them.
So here we’ll share with you some tips on how to do content curation the right way 👇
#1: Define the Topics That Are Relevant to Your Audience
Defining topics that are relevant to your audience will help you find the best and most reliable sources for your content. Just assure that the topics you’re addressing in your blog posts are interesting to your niche.
Therefore, you can list external sites that offer resources that might help your audience solve their pains or needs.
However, if you’re still not sure what kind of content your audience wants, start by asking them. You can do this through a survey in your online community –if you have one– or by using social media or Discord polls. Also, you can use communities and social media for info inspiration!
Once you know what kind of topics they enjoy learning more about, you’ll find it easier to share relevant content with your readers.
#2: Plan Your Content Calendar Ahead
Once you’ve defined the topics, it’s time to plan your content calendar ahead. You need to know what’s trending so you can find relevant pieces of content every day or week.
In addition, this step is important to avoid content cannibalization and address repetitive topics. This step will also help you find a healthy balance between content curation and creation.
Also, a great way to collect quality content for your curated posts is by subscribing to newsletters from your favorite opinion leaders on certain topics!
Morning Brew is an example of a curated business content newsletter. And Marketing Brew nucleates the latest stories around the marketing and advertising industries.
#3: Analyze Your Sources Carefully & Define Which Value Can You Aggregate
After that, it’s time to analyze your sources. Define what value you can add to the content to make it unique (and to achieve a good ranking on search engines 😉).
To summarize, you should find out which added value you can offer your audience. Based on the content that already exists in your niche.
For example, a post on Top 10 No-Code Tools could be a great idea for curated content if you’re a startup founder with real-life experience with these tools.
The added value in this particular case would be your experience using these tools. And the advice you can give your audience as an entrepreneur who knows them first-hand.
Content Curation Format Ideas
Now you’ve learned why content curation is beneficial for you as an article curator and your website’s content strategy as a whole. However, how can you start curating content for your blog? Here are some examples!
Lists of Tools
List posts are popular on social media and in newsletters! Why? Mainly because they’re simple to digest and easy to skim.
👉 A great example is this List of 10 Founders Building in Public.
Top 10
The top 10 list is a classic format for content curation as it’s good for narrowing down important information on a particular topic.
You can also use this format to introduce new tools or apps in your industry. Or list websites related to a specific topic. Or even the ten best books to learn a new skill.
Synthesize Relevant Content
Synthesizing relevant information is a classic way to curate content for a newsletter. If you have a blog or a platform where you generate content (audio-visual or long, written interviews), you can curate that content to send a newsletter that’s easy to digest by a wider audience.
🗞️ Synthesizing Relevant Content, a Key for Newsletters
Matt Navarra is a Social Media Manager that has a newsletter called Geekout with Matt Navarra, where he shares social media-related news.
Also, as an SEO expert, for example, you can summarize the new features introduced in the latest Google update to make it more digestible for entrepreneurs and a not-so-technical audience.
Add Value to Industry Statistics
A useful way to add value to industry statistics is by highlighting key takeaways, rather than simply listing them out. Imagine you found interesting statistics about how many people use Facebook on smartphones in Europe. With that information, you could write an article explaining how this trend impacts marketers and businesses who want to reach more users through their social media platforms.
Or imagine your target audience is digital nomads. You could analyze statistics on remote work and list the best places to live if you’re a digital nomad or a freelancer!
To conclude, content curation is still misunderstood despite its popularity in the marketing industry. At its core, content curation isn’t about sharing other people’s content. It’s about finding high-quality, helpful articles and putting them on your own website for your audience to enjoy.
So when you decide what content to share or curate, don’t just think about promotion or SEO! 🌈 Think about making your readers happy. Because that’s the only way quality content gets marketed, shared, and noticed online.
This post was originally published on Unita.co on September 23, 2022.
