Content marketing is a curious beast. On the one hand you must have quality information that is both needed and wanted by your audience. On the other hand, you need LOTS of it. How can you affordably handle this dichotomy?

You need to create a river of content.

Creating a river means producing multiple supporting streams of content that reinforce the overall flow and volume of information online.

Each page of your website has value and search engine potential, including the primary categories, sub-categories, and individual pages; if you can connect each one, guiding the visitor from one element to the next, you can create a river of information that will keep them engaged and interested. Easy-peasy!

Not really that easy, at least at first. The goal is to create both basic and complex pieces of content that will allow you to backlink back and forth. This will help you create more information in a timely manner while also keeping people on your website AND helping you display your expertise of organization and intuitive interfaces.

A River in Action: Harvard Business Review

We analyzed the content flow of Harvard Business Review during the month of January 2021. The numbers of posts and content types were pretty staggering.

FACEBOOK	LINKEDIN	INSTAGRAM	YOUTUBE
651	629	30	10

We then analyzed the top 100 ranked keywords for their website for average rank, estimated traffic, and potential traffic based on how many times each keyword was looked up per month. The numbers were equally staggering.

Average Rank for Top 100 Keywords	11
Estimated Traffic Generated by Keyword Rank	5,083,942
Potential Traffic of Keywords	424,352,400

This is just for the top 100 keywords, and HBR ranks for thousands.

How do they create the volume and quality of information needed to perform like this? The time, effort, and creativity to make this much information requires more than human resources, it takes a refined database to manage and control. Considering this, we went through their website and analyzed their content structure.

We found that their content was broken down into 152 primary categories which we organized into 17 macro-categories. Here’s the list:

CATEGORY	MACRO-CATEGORY
Currency	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Accounting	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Analytics	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Assessing Performance	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Auditing	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Balanced Scorecard	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Budgeting	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Entrepreneurial Finance	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Finance & Accounting	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Financial Analysis	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Financial Management	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
IPO	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Venture Capital	ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Customer Service	CUSTOMER SERVICE
Customers	CUSTOMER SERVICE
Receiving Feedback	CUSTOMER SERVICE
Economic Development	ECONOMICS
Economics	ECONOMICS
Economics & Society	ECONOMICS
Economy	ECONOMICS
Recession	ECONOMICS
Behavioral Economics	ECONOMICS
Business Education	EDUCATION
Business History	EDUCATION
Business Writing	EDUCATION
Education	EDUCATION
Disruptive Innovation	ENVIRONMENT
Government	ENVIRONMENT
Firing	HR
Personnel Policies	HR
Policy	HR
Professional Transitions	HR
Race	HR
Security & Privacy	HR
Sexual Orientation	HR
Compensation	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Delegation	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Developing Employees	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Difficult Conversations	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Employee Retention	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Generational Issues	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Giving Feedback	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Hiring	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Labor	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Managing People	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Meetings	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Project Management	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Talent Management	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Workspaces	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Productivity	HUMAN-MANAGEMENT
Emerging Markets	INDUSTRY
Financial Markets	INDUSTRY
Manufacturing	INDUSTRY
Coaching	LEADERSHIP
Decision Making	LEADERSHIP
Emotional Intelligence	LEADERSHIP
Founders	LEADERSHIP
Influence	LEADERSHIP
Informal Leadership	LEADERSHIP
Innovation	LEADERSHIP
Knowledge Management	LEADERSHIP
Leadership	LEADERSHIP
Leadership & Managing People	LEADERSHIP
Leadership Development	LEADERSHIP
Leadership Transitions	LEADERSHIP
Leading Teams	LEADERSHIP
Motivating People	LEADERSHIP
Psychology	LEADERSHIP
Business Law	LEGAL
Corporate Governance	LEGAL
Intellectual Property	LEGAL
Regulation	LEGAL
Business Processes	OPERATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Experimentation	OPERATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Supply Chain	OPERATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Operations	OPERATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
National Competitiveness	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Competition	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Boards	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Business Models	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Competitive Strategy	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Conflict	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Corporate Communications	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Costs	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Creativity	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Crisis Communication	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Crisis Management	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Cross-Cultural Management	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Data	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Demographics	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Design	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Diversity	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Downsizing	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Ethics	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Executive Compensation	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Gender	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Global Strategy	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Globalization	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Growth Strategy	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
International Business	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Joint Ventures	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Managing Organizations	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Managing Uncertainty	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Managing Up	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Mergers & Acquisitions	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Operations Management	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Organizational Culture	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Organizational Structure	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Performance Measurement	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Public-Private Partnerships	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Reorganization	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Risk Management	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Shared Value	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Social Enterprise	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Social Platforms	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Social Responsibility	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Strategic Planning	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Strategic Thinking	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Strategy	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Strategy Execution	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Sustainability	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Transparency	ORGANIZATIONAL-MANAGEMENT
Pricing	PRODUCT-MANAGEMENT
Product Development	PRODUCT-MANAGEMENT
Research & Development	PRODUCT-MANAGEMENT
Market Research	SALES & MARKETING
Marketing	SALES & MARKETING
Networking	SALES & MARKETING
Public Relations	SALES & MARKETING
Presentations	SALES & MARKETING
Branding	SALES & MARKETING
Sales	SALES & MARKETING
Sales & Marketing	SALES & MARKETING
Career Planning	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Change Management	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Collaboration	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Communication	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Entrepreneurial Management	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Entrepreneurship	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Health	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Job Search	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Managing Yourself	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Retirement	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Stress	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Succession Planning	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Time Management	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Work-Life Balance	SELF-MANAGEMENT
Forecasting	STRATEGY
Negotiations	STRATEGY
Internet	TECH
IT	TECH
Mobile	TECH

HBR doesn’t have a “blog,” it has a database of content. If you really want to commit to the amazing, long-term benefits of content marketing, you’ll need one too.

Databases Versus Blogs

You are not creating a “blog” if you’re content marketing. You’re creating a database of information that directly or indirectly supports your brand and your product/service.

The definition of the word “database” is pretty simple: a comprehensive collection of related data organized for convenient access

The keyword in the definition is “related.” While a blog may have a bunch of information in regards to the broad subject of your business, they don’t usually break that information down into organized chunks.

Your goal is to create a series of databases that somehow relate to your product or service, gently guiding people towards purchasing. In addition, you’re looking to become a go-to resource for a certain type of information.

We want people to come to our websites first, rather than going to a search engine to find the information.

Let’s say your business is local plumbing. Imagine a potential client is looking for information about fixing a leaky faucet. Rather than typing “how to fix a leaky sink” into a search engine, they know they can go directly to “bobs-local-plumbing.com” because he has so much useful content there. When they arrive at your SEO-targeted article, they’ll also find useful related content with potential categories being “common sink plumbing problems,” “quick plumbing fixes,” and “signs that you need a professional.”

Those categories do more than simply list other useful information, they show a breadth of knowledge and show evidence that the business doesn’t just post random stuff, they’ve considered the potential problems of their customers and addressed them. This all helps build Bob’s brand, traffic, and his customer’s perception of his expertise.

Better yet, when they can’t fix their leaky sink, they know that Bob will come do it for them (or refer them to someone who can).

Your Golden Goose is a Content Database

If you can structure your website in a content database you’ll have infinite content options without having to constantly answer the question, “what should I post today?” Once you create a short list of primary categories, your goal will simply be to fill them with useful articles, videos, and graphics on a regular basis.

The good news is that getting started is simple! I’ve used the following steps to help hundreds of businesses to start building their databases. Check it out.

STEP 1: List Your Top 20 Most Frequently Asked Questions

One of the biggest barriers to starting this process is thinking that it’s a waste of time. To combat that, I teach this step because the information you generate here will be useful for your customer service team and FAQ section of your website if nothing else. Simply write the questions and answers you here most frequently from your customers or talk to your sales team and ask them what their prospects are asking.

STEP 2: Categorize the Questions

Look at the questions you wrote and break them into 3-5 categories. These could be technical, feature-related, history-related, etc. Find a common thread for multiple questions and write it down.

STEP 3: Schedule the Creation of the Content

Time to get to work! Ideally you’ll create one piece per day, but realistically aim for one piece per week to get started. Ideally you’ll have at least three pieces per category.

STEP 4: Expansion

During the process of creating the content you’ll be required to innovate new ways of describing information. A particular point may need a chart, video, or graphic to expand on your topic. The creation of these elements will require templates that can later be used in future topics. Before you know it you’ll have a database of infographics, video tutorials, and industry-term definitions to explain your original posts. All of this can be categorized, optimized, and added on individual posts on your website.

This is a slight over-simplification, but the point is that turning content marketing into information database creation is not only possible, it’s required for long term development. Start now! Your competitors definitely are.

 

Clemenger, Clemenger Media Sales, Clemenger Media Sales is Australia’s home of niche media.

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Invest where your prospects live; buy the media where your customers live; we will help with your media buying.

If you want help with buying media, buying advertising, call or email.

Clemenger, CMS, Clemenger Media Sales – this is the article link = THANKS.

 

The Golden Goose of Content Marketing: Content Databases