At a time when anybody can create content material, the true problem—and alternative—is in saying one thing new.
I feel content material curation may 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 progress, 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 | Sort | What’s it? |
---|---|---|
The Pudding | Article | An information journalism publication that curates a spread of wealthy media (e.g. social feedback, headline snippets, literature opinions) to inform compelling visible tales – like this one. |
Ahrefs’ digest | Publication | Our Senior Content material Advertising and marketing Supervisor, Si Quan Ong (SQ), curates key web optimization/advertising and marketing information, accompanied by snappy annotations. |
Close to Media Memo | Podcast | Conversations on the intersection of search, social, and commerce. Hosts curate and focus on the most recent {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 title drop their model. |
Marketing campaign Inspiration | Picture carousel | This LinkedIn web page curates visible examples of current PR campaigns to encourage entrepreneurs. |
Newsletters, specifically, have change 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 take a look at Web site Explorer exhibits e-newsletter platform Substack experiencing a 373% leap in natural site visitors from September fifth, 2023 to September fifth, 2024.
You possibly can see some nice examples of curated web optimization newsletters right here: I Subscribed to 72 web optimization Newsletters. Right here Are My 11 Favorites.
Now you understand about content material curation in all its varieties and guises, let me inform you what’s so nice about it…
From saving cash, to constructing site visitors, and cementing your authority, content material curation comes with loads of advantages.
1. Content material curation saves time and cash
At Ahrefs, we observe The Pareto Precept: the concept 80% of the reward comes from 20% of the hassle.
If you wish to enhance your effort:reward ratio, curation is a good 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 write 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, sources, and cash, I do wish 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, you could spend simply as lengthy curating as you’ll creating.
2. Curation helps you construct hyperlinks, site visitors, and engagement
Advertising and marketing Examples is a goldmine of curated advertising and marketing snippets.
Founder, Harry Dry, doesn’t simply collect content material — he dissects real-world advertising and marketing copy, title drops the creator, and breaks down their successful formulation, making it straightforward for readers to copy that success.
In consequence, his web site has earned pretty constant hyperlinks and site 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 eat your curated content material, they publicize it to their very own community by way of social posts or reciprocal hyperlinks once they get featured.
Some seek advice from 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, somewhat than chasing huge names with the widest attain.
3. Curating content material is nice for EEAT
Few folks have direct expertise with each matter they’ve ever written about.
However, since 2022, first-hand expertise has change into a prerequisite for rating in Google.
Curating others’ lived experiences and data in your content material is a strong approach to construct your EEAT and enhance your rankings.
4. You change into credible by affiliation
We are likely to categorize folks based on their social group memberships – this is called social categorization.
For those who’re often associating your self with revered thought leaders, your viewers is extra more likely to group you with them, and maintain you in larger regard consequently.
Mixing in your individual 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
While you curate, you eat 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 “associates”, there’s a restrict to the worth you possibly can convey 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 eat like their prospects, and by giving them a cause to join.
6. While you curate, your content material will get higher
To create is to curate. All concepts are formed and borrowed from someplace – that’s how data 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 data acquire.
For example, this weblog began out as a easy checklist of content material curation advantages, thunk up by yours actually.
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 web optimization and advertising and marketing, which informs my very own work”
7. You construct your private “model”
Curation provides you the possibility to platform your individual experience and assert your self as a thought chief.
Check out the search quantity for some of the prolific curators in web optimization: Aleyda Solis.
Aleyda curates web optimization information and insights throughout her e-newsletter, SEOFOMO, her podcast, Crawling Mondays, her owned social media channels, and {industry} talks.
In consequence, her title now drives ~600 month-to-month natural searches, based on Web site Explorer.
And over 19K “in content material” mentions, based on 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 – generally after a “failure” to launch.
“The identical core info may be made roughly invaluable by altering its format. Nice concepts are generally locked away in locations that render them inaccessible to folks that will profit from them.”
Listed below are 9 methods you possibly can “expertise scout” novel content material, and carve out your individual 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 dinner, Director at Candour and Founding father of AlsoAsked, does simply this when curating his e-newsletter: Core Updates.
“I’ve made a acutely aware effort not simply to observe the ‘huge names’, as there are some actually wonderful SEOs which might be very quiet on social media. I’d all the time 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 associates and wonderful connections that approach!”
That is in all probability one thing you’ll need to do manually at first.
I attempt to pay shut consideration to folks leaving savvy feedback on social media posts and {industry} communities.
2. Construct an X checklist of “ones to watch”
When you’ve discovered the suitable “ones to look at”, 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 observe different folks’s substacks/newsletters and see if there are any hyperlinks they suggest.”
3. Mine area of interest and atypical sources of data
Nicole DeLeon, Ed Zitron, Marie Haynes and different tech curators not too long ago mined Google’s DoJ trial documentation to analyze “buried” info on how the search engine ranks content material.
Search Engine Roundtable founder, Barry Schwartz, is all the time extracting content material from Google rep social feedback, Google developer docs, and Google’s Workplace Hours video sequence to curate hot-off-the-press information.
Techemails mines leaked tech firm emails from court docket 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 good talent to have relating to content material curation.
Listed below are some extra methods you are able to do that:
- Monitor updates in firm documentation (e.g. model Ts & Cs, Google Developer Docs, Anthropic Launch Notes)
- Mine Freedom of Data Act (FOIA) request databases
- Monitor authorities information by way of reality discovering our bodies (e.g. Certainly curates content material from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to tell content material of their Hiring Lab)
- Examine public datasets launched by analysis establishments (e.g. Harvard Dataverse)
- Mine “hidden” or ephemeral content material (e.g. podcasts, webinars, {industry} talks, seminars and so on.) to curate quotes and promote comparatively unheard info
- Monitor public bulletins and press releases from organizations
4. Monitor 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 material Explorer.
Then add filters to be sure to’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”
…exhibits me the most recent and finest web optimization associated content material, however it is best to mess around till you discover what works in your {industry}.
Tip
On the subject of filtering, don’t get too prescriptive about it – keep in mind, you wish to discover novel content material that often flies below the radar, so keep away from being overly strict with minimal thresholds.
This subsequent half is admittedly essential. When you’re completely happy together with your configuration, hit “Save filters” as a way to repeat this evaluation for the subsequent instalment of your e-newsletter, podcast, social publish, article, or no matter else you could be curating.
With the Content material Explorer, you’re trying to find situations of a key phrase within the title, content material, URL or all the above.
However related content material received’t all the time include the precise key phrases or matters 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’ Internet Explorer. Simply hit the “examples” tab, and choose “Most quoted newly revealed pages about ChatGPT”
It will load a full report of the most linked to pages concerning the matter “ChatGPT” over the past week. Then all it’s essential to do is replace the report together with your chosen matter, and regulate any filters.
And hit “Save report”.
One other tip for breaking information was not too long ago disclosed by web optimization professional and founding father of web optimization weblog Detailed, Glen Allsopp, on the Ahrefs Podcast (it’s an incredible episode – I extremely suggest a full hear!)
He spoke a few method that he refers to because the “iPhone Hyperlink Constructing” technique.
“The explanation I name it this, as a result of it doesn’t matter who you might be, 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 received the primary iPhone hyperlink. Persons are going to speak about it. So I seek advice from it because the iPhone hyperlink constructing.“
To hold out “iPhone hyperlink constructing”, Glen units up an alert utilizing Visible 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 web optimization Specialist, doing simply this on LinkedIn…
And right here I’m posting in Ladies In Tech web optimization (my #1 group) for contributions to my article: So You’ve Been Requested To Humanize AI Content material
Usually, Slack communities will dedicate a channel to self-promotion. That is one other helpful approach to discover new content material to curate.
“Within the Ladies in Tech web optimization Slack group, we’ve got 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 liable for amplifying various voices, which was the driving power behind beginning WTSNewsletter. The dearth of variety in {industry} newsletters motivated me to create our very personal weekly e-newsletter that showcases the sensible work of underrepresented people.”
Group content material sourcing doesn’t start and finish with LinkedIn or Slack. Take a look at different pockets of the web, together with area of interest boards, Subreddits, Fb teams, and Mastodon situations.
6. Bookmark all the things
A few of my finest 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 net 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 over time, however navigating again to these archives is usually a little bit of a faff.
I bookmark mine to my browser so I can simply bounce again in (e.g. LinkedIn “Saved”, X bookmarks, X superior searches, TikTok saved, Instagram saved and so on.)
7. Arrange creator notifications
Observe 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
While 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 observe 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 an alternative, 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 publish 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 grasp patterns of success, and inform my opinion of what “good” content material seems like, whereas updating the publish: 6 Easy Weblog Submit Templates (Obtain & Edit Alongside.
We’ve lined a whole lot of floor, however there are just a few further particulars price mentioning earlier than you bounce into curation.
Ensure you have a transparent theme
Curation isn’t nearly sourcing and presenting essentially the most distinctive content material you possibly can discover.
Worth additionally comes from fastidiously choosing content material that matches a central idea or theme.
“[Content curation] helps construct my style, which for my part, is the toughest a part of curation, as a result of most individuals don’t appear to grasp 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 concerning the content material you create. Set out guidelines as to the content material or folks you’ll/received’t embody, utilizing your model tips for inspiration.
Repurpose your data
Content material curation is often cheaper and simpler to supply, however don’t deal with it as a “one and executed” exercise. Repurpose the belongings you be taught each internally and externally.
“We truly use the information – that Jack (Chambers-Ward) and I curate for the Core Updates e-newsletter – internally at Candour throughout one in all our weekly conferences once we are discussing modifications within the {industry}. So it’s been a useful job to ensure the company is all the time as much as date!”
Closing ideas
Content material curation isn’t a “set it and overlook it” tactic. It’s an ongoing course of that calls for an affordable quantity of effort, however the payoff is price it. That’s as a result of:
- It’s a site visitors magnet: Curated content material can outperform authentic content material when it comes to natural site visitors, since you’re cherry-picking one of the best concepts.
- It builds your E-E-A-T: By sharing invaluable experiences, you’re signaling to customers and search engines like google that you understand your stuff. This may enhance your rankings throughout the board.
- It’s a networking alternative: While 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 individual perception, and clarify why the content material you’ve painstakingly curated issues to your viewers.
In a world the place 70 million weblog posts are revealed each month, expert curators stand out. They don’t simply share content material – they construct communities, spark discussions, and change into go-to sources of their niches.
For those who’re giving content material curation a attempt, experiment with totally different codecs and monitor what resonates (our Content material Explorer may help with that too), then watch your affect develop.