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At a time when anybody can create content material, the actual problem—and alternative—is in saying one thing new.
I feel content material curation will help with that.
Curation is all about discovering undiscovered tales and repackaging concepts in methods your viewers actually responds to.
On this article, you’ll be taught why content material curation is nice for development, and how one can expertise scout high quality underground or left-field content material.
Gathering and sharing content material is a well-liked social media tactic, however content material curation extends to mediums and channels far past social.
Let’s check out some examples:
| Instance | Kind | What’s it? |
|---|---|---|
| The Pudding | Article | A knowledge journalism publication that curates a variety of wealthy media (e.g. social feedback, headline snippets, literature critiques) to inform compelling visible tales – like this one. |
| Ahrefs’ digest | Publication | Our Senior Content material Advertising Supervisor, Si Quan Ong (SQ), curates key website positioning/advertising information, accompanied by snappy annotations. |
| Near Media Memo | Podcast | Conversations on the intersection of search, social, and commerce. Hosts curate and focus on the newest {industry} content material. |
| KFC’s “Bucket Bangers” Spotify Playlist | Playlist | A playlist by KFC as a part of a PR marketing campaign, curating 46 tracks that identify drop their model. |
| Campaign Inspiration | Picture carousel | This LinkedIn web page curates visible examples of current PR campaigns to encourage entrepreneurs. |
Newsletters, particularly, have develop into the go-to platform for curation, since they’re pretty low-cost to run and simple to set up.
The numbers again this up. A fast have a look at Web site Explorer reveals e-newsletter platform Substack experiencing a 373% leap in natural visitors from September fifth, 2023 to September fifth, 2024.
You possibly can see some nice examples of curated website positioning newsletters right here: I Subscribed to 72 SEO Newsletters. Here Are My 11 Favorites.
Now you realize about content material curation in all its kinds and guises, let me inform you what’s so nice about it…
From saving cash, to constructing visitors, and cementing your authority, content material curation comes with loads of advantages.
1. Content material curation saves time and cash
At Ahrefs, we comply with The Pareto Principle: the concept that 80% of the reward comes from 20% of the hassle.
If you wish to enhance your effort:reward ratio, curation is a superb choice.
I requested SQ about the advantages of content material curation, and he had this to say:
“One profit is that I don’t have to jot down an essay from scratch every week (which is what most newsletters are).”
Whereas content material curation has the potential to avoid wasting you time, assets, and cash, I do need to add two essential caveats:
- Curating area of interest, underground content material examples can nonetheless take time – particularly if you’re first discovering your sources.
- For those who’re doing deep-dive investigations into these examples, it’s possible you’ll spend simply as lengthy curating as you’d creating.
2. Curation helps you construct hyperlinks, visitors, and engagement
Marketing Examples is a goldmine of curated advertising snippets.
Founder, Harry Dry, doesn’t simply collect content material — he dissects real-world advertising copy, identify drops the creator, and breaks down their profitable formulation, making it simple for readers to duplicate that success.
In consequence, his web site has earned pretty constant hyperlinks and visitors over time, rising organically by 88% within the final two years.
Curating content material is an instance of what I name “consciousness you ready earlier”. Your possibilities of driving traction are vastly improved if you crowdsource concepts.
Not solely do your viewers devour your curated content material, they publicize it to their very own community through social posts or reciprocal hyperlinks after they get featured.
Some consult with this as “ego bait”. Clearly there’s a component of flattery concerned, however in my expertise, the highest curators prioritize content material that genuinely helped or impressed them, fairly than chasing large names with the widest attain.
3. Curating content material is nice for EEAT
Few individuals have direct expertise with each subject they’ve ever written about.
However, since 2022, first-hand expertise has develop into a prerequisite for rating in Google.
Curating others’ lived experiences and information in your content material is a robust method to construct your EEAT and enhance your rankings.
4. You develop into credible by affiliation
We are inclined to categorize individuals in response to their social group memberships – this is named social categorization.
For those who’re often associating your self with revered thought leaders, your viewers is extra prone to group you with them, and maintain you in greater regard in consequence.
Mixing in your personal content material and opinion is essential for constructing credibility, however watch out to not overdo the self-promotion.
Again to SQ:
“I don’t have a tendency to incorporate all the weblog posts we publish on our weblog.“
5. You get nearer to your prospects and group
Whenever you curate, you devour content material holistically –like your prospects– and cease being so introspective.
For those who’re solely consuming content material out of your model or model “buddies”, there’s a restrict to the worth you’ll be able to carry to your viewers.
Content material curators flip to their group to supply content material, so curating bridges the hole in two methods: by serving to them devour like their prospects, and by giving them a cause to join.
6. Whenever you curate, your content material will get higher
To create is to curate. All concepts are formed and borrowed from someplace – that’s how information is acquired.
If I don’t curate, I have a tendency to search out my very own content material stagnates.
Curation introduces me to new concepts, jogs my memory of the issues I’ve forgotten, permits me to construct deeper, extra knowledgeable arguments, and in the end helps me produce higher content material – with much more in the best way of knowledge achieve.
For example, this weblog began out as a easy checklist of content material curation advantages, thunk up by yours really.
However as I got here throughout cool examples of novel content material curation, it advanced right into a extra complete (and hopefully, extra attention-grabbing) information.
“One other good thing about content material curation is that I get to maintain abreast of something new in website positioning and advertising, which informs my very own work”
7. You construct your private “model”
Curation provides you the possibility to platform your personal experience and assert your self as a thought chief.
Check out the search quantity for some of the prolific curators in website positioning: Aleyda Solis.
Aleyda curates website positioning information and insights throughout her e-newsletter, SEOFOMO, her podcast, Crawling Mondays, her owned social media channels, and {industry} talks.
In consequence, her identify now drives ~600 month-to-month natural searches, in response to Web site Explorer.
And over 19K “in content material” mentions, in response to Content material Explorer.
Curation is about piecing collectively unrelated content material to disclose new concepts and data.
You’re giving another person’s content material one other shot at engagement – typically after a “failure” to launch.
“The identical core info will be made roughly invaluable by altering its format. Nice concepts are typically locked away in locations that render them inaccessible to individuals that might profit from them.”
Listed below are 9 methods you’ll be able to “expertise scout” novel content material, and carve out your personal curation USP.
1. Take note of lesser-known voices
In each {industry} there are sources that audiences defer to for info and concepts.
Look past them.
Scout for “rising stars” and underground sources to provide your curation exclusivity.
Mark Williams-Cook, Director at Candour and Founding father of AlsoAsked, does simply this when curating his e-newsletter: Core Updates.
“I’ve made a aware effort not simply to comply with the ‘large names’, as there are some really wonderful SEOs which can be very quiet on social media. I’d at all times suggest following somebody in the event you see them placing out stable recommendation, even in the event you’ve by no means heard of them. I’ve made some good buddies and wonderful connections that means!”
That is most likely one thing you’ll must do manually at first.
I attempt to pay shut consideration to individuals leaving savvy feedback on social media posts and {industry} communities.
2. Construct an X checklist of “ones to watch”
When you’ve discovered the fitting “ones to observe”, you can begin constructing an inventory to refer again to each time it’s time to curate.
SQ makes use of X lists and subscribes to others’ Substacks:
“I’ve my very own Twitter checklist of entrepreneurs (getting poorer nowadays sadly) and comply with different individuals’s substacks/newsletters and see if there are any hyperlinks they suggest.”
3. Mine area of interest and atypical sources of knowledge
Nicole DeLeon, Ed Zitron, Marie Haynes and different tech curators just lately mined Google’s DoJ trial documentation to research “buried” info on how the search engine ranks content material.
Search Engine Roundtable founder, Barry Schwartz, is at all times extracting content material from Google rep social comments, Google developer docs, and Google’s Office Hours video series to curate hot-off-the-press information.
Techemails mines leaked tech firm emails from courtroom filings and curates them throughout social media and their web site (p.s. they’re preeetty eye-opening).
Discovering and teasing out obscure info is a superb ability to have in relation to content material curation.
Listed below are some extra methods you are able to do that:
- Observe updates in firm documentation (e.g. model Ts & Cs, Google Developer Docs, Anthropic Release Notes)
- Mine Freedom of Data Act (FOIA) request databases
- Monitor authorities information through truth discovering our bodies (e.g. Certainly curates content material from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to tell content material of their Hiring Lab)
- Research public datasets launched by analysis establishments (e.g. Harvard Dataverse)
- Mine “hidden” or ephemeral content material (e.g. podcasts, webinars, {industry} talks, seminars and many others.) to curate quotes and promote comparatively unheard info
- Monitor public bulletins and press releases from organizations
4. Observe down new and trending content material
Be the primary to interrupt and curate information in your {industry}. Begin by trying to find industry-specific key phrases in Content Explorer.
Then add filters to ensure you’re seeing the freshest and highest high quality content material.
In my expertise, I discover that:
- Including a minimal Referring Area of “30”
- Including a minimal phrase depend of “300”
- Sorting by “Date: latest first”
…reveals me the most recent and greatest website positioning associated content material, however it’s best to mess around till you discover what works in your {industry}.
Tip
In terms of filtering, don’t get too prescriptive about it – keep in mind, you need to discover novel content material that normally flies below the radar, so keep away from being overly strict with minimal thresholds.
This subsequent half is absolutely essential. When you’re comfortable together with your configuration, hit “Save filters” so that you could repeat this evaluation for the following instalment of your e-newsletter, podcast, social put up, article, or no matter else you is likely to be curating.
With the Content material Explorer, you’re trying to find cases of a key phrase within the title, content material, URL or all the above.
However related content material gained’t at all times comprise the precise key phrases or subjects you’re trying to find.
During which case, attempt trying to find key phrases within the anchor textual content linking to that content material.
There’s a preconfigured seek for this in Ahrefs’ Web Explorer. Simply hit the “examples” tab, and choose “Most quoted newly revealed pages about ChatGPT”
This can load a full report of the most linked to pages in regards to the subject “ChatGPT” during the last week. Then all it’s essential do is replace the report together with your chosen subject, and alter any filters.
And hit “Save report”.
One other tip for breaking information was just lately disclosed by website positioning professional and founding father of website positioning weblog Detailed, Glen Allsopp, on the Ahrefs Podcast (it’s an excellent episode – I extremely suggest a full hear!)
He spoke a couple of approach that he refers to because the “iPhone Hyperlink Constructing” technique.
“The rationale I name it this, as a result of it doesn’t matter who you’re, it doesn’t matter how previous your web site is, it doesn’t matter how lengthy you’ve been round. When you have a photograph of the iPhone 16 earlier than anybody else and you set that on [your site], the entire tech world goes to speak about it, proper? You’re going to get hyperlinks from each tech web site on the planet. Doesn’t matter that [your site] has nothing to do with tech and devices. You’ve acquired the primary iPhone hyperlink. Individuals are going to speak about it. So I consult with it because the iPhone hyperlink constructing.“
To hold out “iPhone hyperlink constructing”, Glen units up an alert utilizing Visual Ping. This sends him a notification as quickly as there’s an replace on one of many webpages he’s monitoring. If one thing new or attention-grabbing has modified, he’ll work this into his subsequent piece of content material.
5. Ask your community
Turning to your social community for examples of current content material is a good way to curate.
Right here’s Chris Haines, Ahrefs’ Senior website positioning Specialist, doing simply this on LinkedIn…
And right here I’m posting in Women In Tech SEO (my #1 group) for contributions to my article: So You’ve Been Asked To Humanize AI Content
Typically, Slack communities will dedicate a channel to self-promotion. That is one other helpful method to discover new content material to curate.
“Within the Ladies in Tech website positioning Slack group, we’ve a hashtag channel (#wts-amplify-me) that serves as an area for members to advertise their work, and it’s healthful to see a number of our members use it to spotlight the work of others! This channel helps me curate content material for our weekly WTSNewsletter. As e-newsletter creators, we’re accountable for amplifying various voices, which was the driving power behind beginning WTSNewsletter. The shortage of range in {industry} newsletters motivated me to create our very personal weekly e-newsletter that showcases the good work of underrepresented people.”
Group content material sourcing doesn’t start and finish with LinkedIn or Slack. Try different pockets of the web, together with area of interest boards, Subreddits, Fb teams, and Mastodon cases.
6. Bookmark every little thing
A few of my greatest articles have been impressed by the posts I’ve bookmarked.
Listed below are my high suggestions for bookmarking curated content material:
Use net highlighters
Use a web highlighter plugin to bookmark attention-grabbing content material for future curation.
Manage examples in a observe taking app
Use a observe taking app like Notion or Obsidian to arrange your content material examples.
Bookmark your saved social media content material
You’ll undoubtedly have banked some nice content material on social media through the years, however navigating again to these archives generally is a little bit of a faff.
I bookmark mine to my browser so I can simply soar again in (e.g. LinkedIn “Saved”, X bookmarks, X superior searches, TikTok saved, Instagram saved and many others.)
7. Arrange creator notifications
Comply with creators and journalists that encourage you. Subscribe to their channel, activate notification bells on LinkedIn and X, and arrange RSS feeds to get alerted each time they push out new content material.
Tip
Whenever you’re trying to find new content material within the Content material Explorer, take a look at the Authors tab for concepts on which thought leaders to comply with in your {industry}.
8. Arrange key phrase alerts
Get notified as quickly as on-topic content material is revealed, with Ahrefs “Point out” alerts.
9. Use AI to extract and annotate content material
AI broadly summarizes outdated content material, and has a behavior of forgoing (or totally fabricating) references. In different phrases, it’s fairly horrible for curating distinctive content material.
As a substitute, use it to extract, summarize, and examine the content material you’ve selectively curated.
Extract nuggets from “hidden” content material
I used AI to extract quotes and insights from webinars, interviews, and YouTube movies. The post I wrote for SpinSucks was impressed by content material mined from interview transcripts and bookmarked social media content material, utilizing Claude AI.
Reverse-engineer profitable content material formulation
I fed ChatGPT examples of top-performing blogs to know patterns of success, and inform my opinion of what “good” content material appears like, whereas updating the put up: 6 Simple Blog Post Templates (Download & Edit Along.
We’ve coated a whole lot of floor, however there are a couple of further particulars price mentioning earlier than you soar into curation.
Be sure to have a transparent theme
Curation isn’t nearly sourcing and presenting essentially the most distinctive content material you’ll be able to discover.
Worth additionally comes from fastidiously deciding on content material that matches a central idea or theme.
“[Content curation] helps construct my style, which in my view, is the toughest a part of curation, as a result of most individuals don’t appear to know the idea of “curation”, i.e. choosing the right, or what suits a theme. They only appear to shoehorn each article on the web.”
Construct your exclude checklist
Be discerning in regards to the content material you create. Set out guidelines as to the content material or individuals you’ll/gained’t embody, utilizing your model pointers for inspiration.
Repurpose your information
Content material curation is normally cheaper and simpler to supply, however don’t deal with it as a “one and finished” exercise. Repurpose the stuff you be taught each internally and externally.
“We really use the information – that Jack (Chambers-Ward) and I curate for the Core Updates e-newsletter – internally at Candour throughout considered one of our weekly conferences once we are discussing adjustments within the {industry}. So it’s been a useful activity to verify the company is at all times as much as date!”
Remaining ideas
Content material curation isn’t a “set it and neglect it” tactic. It’s an ongoing course of that calls for an inexpensive quantity of effort, however the payoff is price it. That’s as a result of:
- It’s a visitors magnet: Curated content material can outperform unique content material when it comes to natural visitors, since you’re cherry-picking the most effective concepts.
- It builds your E-E-A-T: By sharing invaluable experiences, you’re signaling to customers and search engines like google and yahoo that you realize your stuff. This may increase your rankings throughout the board.
- It’s a networking alternative: Whenever you share others’ content material, they discover. We’ve constructed relationships with {industry} giants just by that includes their work on our weblog or weekly digest.
Nice curation is about including worth. You possibly can simply reshare content material verbatim, however you’re lacking out on a invaluable alternative so as to add your personal perception, and clarify why the content material you’ve painstakingly curated issues to your viewers.
In a world the place 70 million blog posts are published every month, expert curators stand out. They don’t simply share content material – they construct communities, spark discussions, and develop into go-to assets of their niches.
For those who’re giving content material curation a attempt, experiment with completely different codecs and observe what resonates (our Content material Explorer will help with that too), then watch your affect develop.
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