How to Find Content for Your Website: 5 Tips for Finding Buried Treasure

By Andy Crestodina

One instant after realizing how effective content marketing can be, the dread sets in. Where am I going to get this content? I’ve seen it a hundred times: the flash of insight, followed by the clouds of doubt.

I have good news for you today! You already have content. A lot of it. And with minimal editing, you can put it right into your blog or website. Here are five places to look for treasure troves of free, original content.

So grab your shovel and follow this map!

Unlock Your Outbox – Lets start with the mother lode. If you’re in a larger organization, look in lots of inboxes. Talk to other departments and see what emails they write about most often. What questions are they answering with the most expertise? Customer service emails, sales emails…it’s all great web content.
Extranet Island: Internal Content – There may be a pile of gold in these internal docs. If you keep checklists for procedures, training tools, your own best practices, etc., then copy and paste! It shows openness and experience.
Dig Up Old Blog Comments – If you read blogs, hopefully you’re commenting on a few. (If you’re really good, you’re commenting on comments and starting conversations). Think back to the comments you left that were long, thoughtful, and relevant. Go back and find them, polish them up a bit, and post. Let the host of the original blog know they inspired you.
Pan For Gold in Your Social Media Streams – Ever write a post on Facebook that you really believed in? Why leave it there? Your tone in these posts may be well suited for a blog post. With a bit of editing, it may make a nice opinion piece. You’ll know it’s good if a lot of people “liked” it. Pre-qualified.
Hidden Gems: The Pictures on Your Phone – Next time you’re looking for a photo, step away from your keyboard, and take out your phone. There’s a camera in your pocket, and there are probably a few great pictures on it. Why use a stock photo when you’ve already got something original and personal?

 

The 2012 B2B Marketing Survey showed that the biggest challenge is producing enough engaging content. If you look inside your company,  you’ll find plenty of content in a nice authentic tone. If it sounds better than some of your other stuff, it might be because you were subconsciously trying to do marketing when you wrote it.

The content is right there, inside your company. Go dig it up!

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Book cover of "Content Chemistry" alongside a quote praising it as highly practical for modern digital marketing, attributed to Jay Baer, NYT best-selling author.