Five Ways to Research for Your Content
Posted by Rhiannon Louise on July 10, 2007
Filed Under Writing for the Web
My guess is that if you want to provide a valuable online resource you’re going to want to provide unique and worthwhile content.
But researching facts, figures, statistics and opinions day after day for your articles, guides, reports and entries can seem like quite a startling task to get your head around when you’re starting out and contemplating how exactly you’re going to -
a) populate your website with pithy and desirable data and
b) continue producing worthwhile web based content on a daily or weekly basis…
But never fear – here are five ways to research for your content – they are tried and tested ways I use each and every single day and they will ensure your articles are factual, interesting, unique and that they provide value to your website!
Method One – if you’re after accurate facts then government agencies and official bodies are always the best places to start. You can search online for such organizations and entities and then make use of their online reports and pages of data to find what it is you’re looking for.
If you have a specific fact in mind then you can also try emailing the body most relevant and able to furnish you with that fact…
Naturally you should always cite your source if you copy anything from another location!
An example of a very useful resource for demographic, political and even geographic data on a country by country basis is the CIA World Factbook for example.
Method Two – contact experts in the field you are writing about and court their opinions and pick their brains. As long as you don’t target and stalk a particular person daily with demands on their time, you’ll find a well written, polite email directed to the right person to answer a specific question will very often get you a positive response.
If possible you can always offer the person in question a link to their own personal site in exchange for their time…
Method Three – if you want to know what the ‘real’ people think about something, get on relevant forums and read around. You’ll find many fantastic contributors on forums and often you can personally email these individuals and get assistance. Also you can take information from forums relating to what people are interested in and searching for and use the evidence to fuel your content
What’s more, you can also join relevant forums and begin asking questions yourself – you can even explain that you’re writing an article about a specific subject and you’d love any contributor’s help. If you then agree to publish your source’s name and possibly a link to any homepage they have or perhaps one back to the forum you may well get positive responses.
One word of warning though – there’s such a thing as a ‘forum freak’ – these people are obnoxious, argumentative and hide behind an avatar and a screen name to lambaste the world with their entries, just ignore them if your entries catch their eye.
Method Four – when your website readership is strong enough you can use surveys and questionnaires to court targeted opinion and feedback from your own readers.
This can also be a great way to find out whether you’re right on track and if there are any other areas of interest that you should be exploring to entertain or inform your loyal reader-base.
Method Five – for inspiration pop your keywords into Google news and see what in the world is happening and who in the world is talking about what you want to write about.
This approach may inspire the direction you take in an article, it might lead you to new sources of information about your particular subject and it will certainly ensure you are the most fully informed person about the subject matter in hand.
