Content research is the process of gathering and analyzing information to create high-quality, relevant, and engaging content that meets audience needs and ranks well in search engines.
It involves identifying topics, trends, keywords, competitors, and audience preferences to ensure your content strategy is well-informed.
I will will walk you through a practical 7-step approach to content research, ensuring you can craft high-quality content that brings results.
What you will learn
- What is content research
- Why content research is important for your overall marketing strategy
- How to perform content research in seven practical steps
- Top five content research tools
What is content research?
Content research is the process of gathering and analyzing information to create content that is relevant, engaging, and optimized for search engines.
Instead of relying on guesswork, it helps writers and marketers understand what their audience is searching for, which topics are trending, and how competitors are structuring their content.
A strong content research process ensures that every piece of content is backed by data, aligned with audience intent, and positioned for better visibility.
It involves exploring search trends, analyzing top-performing content, and verifying information from reliable sources. By doing so, you can create content that ranks well and provides real value to readers.
Why is content research important?
Content research is important because it aligns your business goals with what audiences and search engines want. It also helps find and fill in your competitor's gaps.
That's because a large part of content research actually studies search results to understand the correlation between the intent behind users' queries, the type of content search engines display based on these queries, and of course, how competitors leverage these queries in their own content strategies.
How to conduct content research in 7 steps
Now that we've seen the what and why, let's get to the how.
I'll walk you through how to perform content research step-by-step and show you how to create content that aligns with search engines, your target audience, and most importantly, your business goals.
1. Define your content objectives
Simply attracting more organic traffic shouldn't be your content's end goal—what you want the content to do with that traffic should.
Tie in your current business goals with your content strategy to give your materials a proper direction.
For example, your content can:
- Drive sales with bottom-of-the-funnel content that shows exactly how you solve the target audience's pain points—think case studies or product comparisons.
- Boost brand recognition and awareness by targeting high-volume keywords and hot industry news, or leveraging content syndication tactics.
- Establish thought leadership through heavily researched expertise-backed opinion pieces and whitepapers.
- Generate leads via intriguing educational posts designed to capture the visitors' contact details, like how-to guides.
Plus, your content's goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound—SMART.
Here's a SMART goal example:
"Increase organic traffic to our blog’s product-led content by 30% in the next 3 months by publishing 12 SEO-optimized articles targeting high-intent, low-competition keywords, and achieving a minimum content score of 80 in Surfer SEO for each post."
Your content goal sets the direction of your research process.
2. Identify relevant topics
Moving on to the content itself, identify topics your target audience will most likely be interested in. Google's search features are a solid starting point for finding relevant content ideas since their algorithms display results based on current user trends and behavior.
Start with a seed keyword—short-tail search queries comprised of one or two words—and type it in the search bar.
In my case, Google's Autocomplete features already came up with quite a few niched variations for the "bread grooming" seed keyword. These are already topics I can note down.
Now let's see what pops up in search results.
The SERP revealed more specific keyword ideas like "Beard grooming tips," "Beard trimming tips," and "Beard grooming 101," for example—search terms that might be worth targeting.
Google's People Also Ask (PAA) and People Also Search For are also good resources for topic and keyword ideas.
Inside SERP's you can also find relevant topics using the free Keyword Surfer extension. There you can also see relevant search volume data.
You can repeat this process with several seed keywords that are important to your business. The next step would be to take note of all these topics and organize them into cluster.
With Surfer's Topical Map you can find thousands of content ideas, organized into topic clusters, in seconds.
It has identified 2,147 content ideas on the topic of "beard grooming" which fit into 109 topic clusters. Next to each topic cluster you can see the average search volume and ranking difficulty data.
3. Understand search intent
Search intent indicates the exact reason users type in a specific query in the search bar.
Whether they search a particular website, want to learn more about a specific topic, buy a product, or do some research to aid their purchase decision, the keywords they use directly reflect the type of content they want to find.
Search intent is usually split into four categories:
- Informational intent: Users look for helpful information around a topic. Take keywords like "beard grooming tips," "how to do content research," or "what is SEO," for example.
- Navigational intent: Users search for a particular website or webpage. Some navigational keyword examples include "Beardbrand blog," "Surfer Keyword Explorer," or simply "Manscaped."
- Commercial intent: Searchers look for information to aid their purchase decision. "Content research tools," "Manscaped vs. Phillips," and "iPhone 15 Pro review" are good examples.
- Transactional intent: Users search for a service or product to purchase it. Think "Phillips OneBlade," "iPhone 15 Pro discount," and "HBO Max subscribe."
SERPs that mainly show how-to guides signal strong informational intent, while product comparisons and roundups indicate commercial intent. Meanwhile, product pages or landing pages correlate with transactional keywords.
Always build your content around the appropriate intent—not just the target keyword.
This is super important because it helps create content audiences actually want to read. Plus, it helps you determine the right approach for your content.
For further context, it's pretty safe to say that a product roundup-type blog post wouldn't work that well for the "buy beard trimmer" search term. Users already made up their minds, so commercial intent-oriented content wouldn't be as relevant—the SERP reflects this.
With keywords like "best beard trimmers," on the other hand, things are a little different. The SERP primarily shows product roundup-type posts, which signals strong commercial intent.
Based on your content objectives, you can decide whether to focus on topics with, let's say, informational or commercial intent.
4. Evaluate competitor's content
Always check the top-ranking results for your target keywords to get an idea of what search engines consider valuable content. This helps identify any secondary topics and keywords your competitors target, as well as their overall content structure, and spot potential gaps you can fill.
You can go about this manually. For example, here are the top three search results for the "best gaming PCs" keyword:
And here's what their content looks like across all three web pages:
All three blog posts follow rather similar structures—a brief rundown of the best PCs at the beginning of the posts, followed by in-detail showcases of each system, and concluded with explanations about how these systems were tested, brief purchase guides, and quick FAQs.
Since all three top search results have the same structure, you probably can't go wrong with this formula.
Surfer's Content Editor analyzes the top-performing competitors for any given keyword. It looks at their domain authority, content score, and word count.
It then gives you guidelines on how to structure your article and which keywords and topics to touch upon.
5. Gather unique data and insights
Content built on your own proprietary research and data—not just information from third-party resources—makes a huge difference. It positions you as an authority in the field.
That said, try to support your content with original data you can collect yourself or already own.
For example, we conducted a survey to ask SEOs how important topical authority is for their overall optimization strategies as part of product research. We then compiled the responses into a data-driven blog post.
Here are some other ways to gather data for your content:
- Interview industry experts: Interview experts within your niche around particular topics and build your content around the information you gathered—perfect to boost brand authority and credibility.
- Conduct consumer surveys: Ask consumers about industry-related opinions, needs, and pain points—ideal to identify topic ideas and create content your target audience would be genuinely interested in.
- Conduct case studies: Work with clients to see how your product or service resolved their particular issues—perfect for bottom-of-the-funnel content that boosts conversions.
- Use internal data: Use data from your own company reports and create content that draws conclusions from it—great for thought-leadership posts.
You can also back your statements from external resources, like quotes from industry experts, just like what Planable does here:
This tells Google your content is built around credible sources, strengthening its credibility and value.
6. Leverage social listening
Keep an eye out for social media posts and community forums to see topics that are popular among your target audiences. Aside from relevant content ideas, you may also uncover valuable insights from the users themselves.
Check out this thread from Quora, for example:
You can also browse various subreddits to spot common user questions within your niche and new content ideas that might pick up steam.
And of course, take a look at the comments to gauge user sentiment and determine whether it's worth targeting the topic in question. The same ideas apply to social media platforms.
7. Listen to your audience
Make your audience an active part of your content research efforts. Leverage social media networks, email surveys, and customer calls to interact and ask opinions and spot their pain points.
Plus, regular audience interactions also establish stronger connections between brands and their consumers. As such, you get to boost authority and generate a steady flow of recurring visitors.
Top 5 content research tools
Here are the best content research tools in the market:
1. Surfer
Surfer can take care of your content research needs from A to Z.
With Surfer's Topical Map you will never run out of content ideas.
You can find topics that are relevant to your business, audience, and drive real results.
Connect your Google Search Console account to Surfer and explore your personalized map.
Here's Topical Map in action:
And when it comes to researching how to approach and structure your content, Content Editor has your back with real-time recommendations.
2. Google Keyword Planner
Although primarily designed for advertising campaigns, Google's Keyword Planner can be useful for the keyword research process. The platform provides all the data necessary to generate keyword ideas and handle competitor analysis.
For example, you can spot all the keywords a particular site tries to rank for—along with metrics like average monthly searches, fluctuations in search volumes, and overall competition.
There's also the Discover new keywords tab, which helps you identify relevant keyword variations based on your primary search terms.
Note: You'll first need an active Google Ads account to access Keyword Planner.
3. Google Trends
Google Trends helps you pinpoint keywords and topics that start gaining traction at any given time—perfect for boosting website traffic through content around high-interest topics or seasonal trends.
For example, we can see that the "iPhone" search term peaks in popularity around September and October each year—which makes sense, as Apple generally releases new phones around this time frame.
Plus, you can identify high-volume topics and keywords adjacent to your main search term.
For instance, "iPhone with TikTok" keywords are listed as breakout terms—they experience a surge in search volumes of over 5000%. Again, it makes sense given recent news and events.
4. AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is great for generating relevant content ideas based on users' search queries.
The platform reveals common questions users ask based on a specific keyword, as well as long-tail variations of your target seed keywords.
Here's a list of questions around the "iPhone" keyword. You can see each question's average search volumes and cost-per-click.
5. BrandMentions
BrandMentions lets you track user conversations around specific topics from all across the web—social media networks, community forums, and news websites included.
The platform pulls in content containing your target keyword and neatly displays it in the dashboard, along with metrics like a post's view count, overall sentiment, and more. You can filter between keyword mentions from specific content types or social networks to narrow down your search.
Yu can also generate reports and get a high-level overview to see whether the topic in question is worth targeting.
Key takeaways
- Understanding content research is crucial for creating high-quality content that aligns with search engines, audience needs, and business goals.
- Establish SMART goals to guide your content strategy and ensure your content serves a specific purpose, whether it's driving sales or boosting brand awareness.
- Use tools like Google's search features and Keyword Surfer to discover topics your target audience is interested in.
- Differentiate between informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional intents to tailor your content accordingly.
- Analyze top-ranking competitors to identify content gaps and valuable insights that can enhance your strategy.
- Leverage proprietary research, interviews, and surveys to create authoritative content that stands out.
- Monitor social media and forums for trending topics and audience insights to generate new content ideas.
- Use surveys and social media interactions to understand audience preferences and pain points.
- Tools like Surfer, Google Keyword Planner, and AnswerThePublic are invaluable for generating keyword ideas and structuring your content.
