Every content starts with a topic. But when you’ve been making content for a while, choosing what to talk about can be a struggle. This is especially hard with B2B companies as more businesses enter the market and use content marketing to elevate their brand. Check out these tips on how to pick your topics for your manufacturing company’s content marketing strategy.

Whatever topic you choose, there’s a good chance that someone has already created some form of content about it. In other words, just because a company has already done it, doesn’t mean your company can’t. You simply have to do it better.

Create SEO-Rich Content and Value-Rich Content

When deciding the right topics for your content pieces, keep your target audience in mind. Likewise, find a balance between SEO-rich content and value-rich content. Categorize your content into two main buckets to help you think of topics in your strategy’s beginning stages.

As you are developing your marketing strategy and creating your content calendar, include a good mix of SEO-driven content and quality-driven content. Ideally, you should put in 30% in SEO-driven content and 70% in high-value topics that you want to cover in your industry.

SEO-Rich Content

SEO-rich content is optimized for search engines. For this type of content, your goal is to be in the top spot on the search engine results page (SERP).

However, it takes time for content to move up the ranks, making it even more necessary for content strategists to build up their SEO rankings. With this in mind, you can achieve this with the consistent publication of articles, videos, and social media posts that are searchable.

What’s important here is that you find topics with high search volume. It can be as basic as “What are plastics?” “What is shredding?” or any other subject that even people outside your industry can understand. By doing so, you can rank higher on the search engines, thus making your page more visible.

You can use tools like Google Keywords, Ahrefs, and SEMRush to help you gather data about the top searches. These sites also include data about the volume of your keywords and even let you spy on your competitors. Either way, it will help you develop content topics that will enable you to boost your SEO rankings.

Value-Rich Content

Your value-rich content is produced for your target demographic. They are not necessarily highly searched topics. The goal here is to provide valuable insights in industry-relevant matters, as well as actionable tactics.

For example, topics such as “How to choose the right supplier” or recent research findings are some examples of value-driven topics that your audience will appreciate.

With value-rich content, you can establish your manufacturing company as an industry expert that people can rely on for information.

Ideally, everything you produce should be both searchable and value-rich. However, SEO’s mechanics makes this challenging.

We know SEO and what it takes to get to page one. Increase your brand awareness and sales by partnering with the team that specializes in content creation for manufacturing and industrial companies.

Consider Your Content Types

Some topics are better for certain content formats. For example, for video content, you want to choose a topic that focuses on showing your logistics process or how your product is made.

On the other hand, if you want to publish a blog article, choose an easily digestible topic for the readers. Great blog topics include “Tips on Choosing the Right Supplier” and “Where to Find the Best Metal Fabricators.”

Pro Tip: Splinter your content pieces. Turn your videos into blogs or vice-versa. This will help you get the most mileage out of your content and make your marketing dollars go further.

Keep in mind that your audiences have preferences on the type of content they consume. Measure content performance accordingly and continue to produce content similar to what is performing well.

Stay Up To Date With the Industry Trends, Developments, and Other News

Relevance is also key in choosing the proper topics for your content. Likewise, this can also determine the value that you bring to your audiences.

What’s new in the industry? Are there certain topics that your company can take a stand for or against? These are some questions that can help you come up with relevant topics.

You can keep up with your industry’s pace by following other subject-matter experts on LinkedIn. Connect with online communities and subscribe to newsletters as well. By staying up to date, you’ll know what people care about at the right time.

As you apply these tips, knowing what to select for content topics will become easier. Plus, it will be easier to produce consistent quality content time and time again.

As the leader in industrial marketing, MFG Tribe has been helping Industrial companies from $2 million – $3 billion dominate their competition with the most aggressive marketing tactics that work in today’s competitive environment for over five years. Our strategy adjusts based on what’s most effective for YOUR company, and we only work with industrial companies. If you’re looking to set up your marketing efforts with the Industrial Marketing leader, schedule a discovery call today.