How do you go about sourcing and writing your own content?

Might seem a bit general, but I'm curious to know what techniques and strategies people use (if any) beyond the basic stuff we all know about (i.e. doing keyword research on the topic, searching for articles/videos/reviews centered around the topic, then writing). More or less how they like to organize themselves.

To elaborate, I've seen posts about people pumping out their own content in a few days (2000+ words). I know that being able to write this amount of content in such a short period of time probably comes with experience. However, my question is more or less how you go about searching and organizing the information you want for your article/blog. Do you create an outline beforehand? What type of sites/information are you looking to learn from/source to really grow your knowledge and make you sound like an authority figure? How much time do you spend on research before you proceed to writing your blog?

Dash Rendar said:

Might seem a bit general, but I'm curious to know what techniques and strategies people use (if any) beyond the basic stuff we all know about (i.e. doing keyword research on the topic, searching for articles/videos/reviews centered around the topic, then writing). More or less how they like to organize themselves.

To elaborate, I've seen posts about people pumping out their own content in a few days (2000+ words). I know that being able to write this amount of content in such a short period of time probably comes with experience. However, my question is more or less how you go about searching and organizing the information you want for your article/blog. Do you create an outline beforehand? What type of sites/information are you looking to learn from/source to really grow your knowledge and make you sound like an authority figure? How much time do you spend on research before you proceed to writing your blog?

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If you have a genuine interest in something, often than not you can do 2k words in a few hours with zero research. An example would be sport. Your favourite team has played this week, you can do a report about the game, talk about how the season is going and also add possible scenarios for the end of the season, all easily and quickly.

MisterF said:

If you have a genuine interest in something, often than not you can do 2k words in a few hours with zero research. An example would be sport. Your favourite team has played this week, you can do a report about the game, talk about how the season is going and also add possible scenarios for the end of the season, all easily and quickly.

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Absolutely, I get that content will flow easier depending on your level of interest in a topic - but this also depends on your level of understanding. Even if I was a casual fan of basketball and knew some of the marquee players and teams, I wouldn't be able to write adequately about any of the schemes they run or strategies they employ. I guess my question is more geared towards subject matter that you might have a basic understanding of at best.

To stick with sports, let's say for example I'm creating a site around hockey and I'm trying to write about basic topics; such as how to learn hockey, maybe different techniques, some of the best equipment, etc. How would you go about doing a deeper dive into a topic that you only have a surface level understanding of in order to produce solid content? Sourcing secondary research and making it applicable? Videos? Major authority sites?

I know this can be subjective depending on the person and some people might just say "I do the research and then write" but I'm just curious to see how people approach a topic they might not be 100% familiar with and what their go-to methodology is.

Dash Rendar said:

Sourcing secondary research and making it applicable? Videos? Major authority sites?

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Yes to both of those, depending too on how dedicated you are, go to some games, reach out to the local team(s) to see if you can visit the stadium, visit a training session and why not look to do written interviews with some players?

Well some people outsource the work , others can write pretty good and a lot within couple of hours

There are 3 levels of content
- Content that help readers get a GENERAL understanding of their problems and CATEGORICAL solutions
- Categorical content that highlights the PROS and CONS of these solutions
- Specific solution pages that GET THE READER TO BUY

Your keyword research must MIRROR the 3 content levels above

Pro tip: Interlink between the levels using Attention-grabbing text (ie., appeal to people's EMOTIONS)

Otherwise, you can RANK but you might not necessarily BANK as much as you'd like

I usually do about 2-3k words per day and it's not as difficult as you'd think. If you're sitting down to write a single article that length, you do want to prepare some sources and watch a few YouTube videos. Over time, if you're writing about a single topic, you'll stop needing to do as much research because you end up becoming an expert of a sort. However, if you're writing shorter articles on various subjects, it's easier and more difficult at the same time. On the one hand, you get to write a few 500-word articles and feel a sense of accomplishment when you're done. On the other, having to hop between topics like technology reviews, tutorials for new parents, and adult subjects can seem a bit disconcerting. But I think that it keeps me spry!

Recently when I was writing an article for SEO, I put Lorem Ipsum through Yoast and inserted keywords to see how many times I'd need to mention them to fall into the 0.5-2.5% range. So I guess that's a hack of a sort. Actually, Yoast has a way of training you how to write, so you find yourself consciously conforming to SEO-friendly guidelines. Your sentences and paragraphs get shorter, you avoid passive, and you start using transition words even in real life. I honestly believe that web writing is a learned skill, nothing more. So once you start doing it (if that's what you're interested in, I couldn't tell from your post) you'll see yourself start to conform to the standard.

And yes, having an outline is very important, at least to me. Before I started writing web content, I was churning out blocks of uninterrupted text, but Yoast won't let that kind of thing fly. So I start working on an article by doing some preliminary research on a topic and creating a structure. That helps you later on because you get to research more specific topics instead of the larger question posed in the title.

Great thread, by the way!