How to Find Content Marketing Opportunities

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

In my opinion, content marketing is what propels your SEO campaign forward. Onsite SEO and traditional link building are still incredibly important, but without a strong content marketing campaign chances are your SEO will stagnant in time. Finding new content marketing opportunities is key to keeping your content marketing campaign moving forward.

Here are 5 ways to find content marketing opportunities:

1. Check out the industry blogs you read.
I read a few big SEO blogs every morning just so I can keep educating myself and stay up to date with what is going on in my industry. What industry specific blogs do you read habitually? See if any of those sites have put out a call for guest blogging submissions or if they might be willing to promote your latest white paper, e-book or webinar. It might not be easy securing a guest blogging site on a big, well-known and heavily visited industry blog, so don’t think it needs to be “go big or go home.” Chances are there are plenty of smaller industry blogs that would be a great content marketing opportunity for your brand.

2. Do a competitive link analysis.
While you should never allow the competition’s link building activities to completely dictate yours, a competitive link analysis is a great place to find content marketing opportunities for your own SEO and content marketing campaign. What blogs are your competitors writing for? Where is their content being syndicated? Scope out some of these sites and see if they are worth pursuing as a content marketing opportunity of your own.

3. Look for industry associations that allow members to post content.
When I’m looking for content marketing opportunities for my clients, I always look for big industry sites and associations (some of which they may already be a part of) that allow members to submit content to the site’s blog as a featured author, upload white papers and other resources and so forth. Getting the link from an industry association directory is a nice start (and good addition to your link profile) but there’s usually a lot more value to be had from that membership. A lot of times you’re sitting on top of a content marketing opportunity without even realizing it!

4. Develop a relationship with other websites and business owners.
A few months back I did an interview with link building expert Eric Ward and he posted a link to my interview on his site. That one little link sent hundreds of visitors to my blog (and still is even weeks down the road). Thanks to one interview I got a great piece of content for my blog and e-newsletter which my readers loved and he got some quality links, exposure to my social networks and introduced to my newsletter subscribers. I even plugged his own newsletter (because I think it’s a great resource) and sent new registrants his way. That one piece of content led to a variety of opportunities that I might have otherwise missed had I not reached out to Eric Ward expressing interest in developing a mutually beneficial partnership.

5. Submit content to industry conference websites.
A lot of big conferences will have a website and blog of their own, and sometimes these conferences will let presenters or speakers submit content to the blog. This is a great place to publish content that you know is going to be found and read by the right audience.