How to Curate Content for a Blog Post

If you curate content for a blog post, you take pre-existing content from the web and collect it. Much the way a museum curates artifacts, you decide what would be useful to your visitors and collate information on the topic in one, handy location: your website. As well as creating a valuable resource for visitors, curating content lets you add your content to the mix. And commenting on the topic helps you share your brand and perspective. 

Excellent curated content demonstrates authority. It’s an opportunity to create a valuable, shareable resource that is good for visitors, can boost traffic, and allows you to put forward your unique take on a subject. Learning how to curate content for a blog takes practice, but it can boost traffic and ranking when you focus on the customer experience.  

While curating content can give you a break from creating 100% original content, it still requires work. Creating curated content well will keep people from bouncing away from your site. It can inspire downloads, shares, and subscriptions. Check out how to curate content for blogs to streamline the process and offer better curated content to your visitors. 

Identify the topic 

Some topics will already have well-curated content freely available across the web. If you can find a useful topic that has not yet been exhausted, this is the sweet spot. Remember that curated content can include other blog posts, as well as industry news and relevant research on the topic. 

Make sure to be specific about the subject. This will help you stay focused. Your visitors will love you for this. Being specific will also help you know when you’ve curated enough. We recommend getting this down in writing before you begin curating. You can always adapt your curation once you’ve started, but it’s helpful to track changes you make to the original plan. 

See also 6 Powerful Tools to Quickly Find Blog Topic Ideas that Convert

Identify the goal of your curated content

Identify what you want people to learn when they’ve visited your content. Like knowing your topic, this will also help you keep your content curation on track. If an element is not working towards your goal, reconsider it.  

Create a clear CTA 

Your blogs should always have a goal. Make sure that you know this before you start. What do you want people to do when they’ve viewed your blog’s curated content? 

Many bloggers know what they want visitors to do but forget to tell them. Ensure a call to action to encourage people to share, subscribe, download, leave a message, or any other action you desire.  

Include original content

If you think you can curate content for your blog and leave other kinds of blog creation for your competitors, please think again. Curated content is useful, but people want to know that you have something original to share, too. It’s possible to curate more than you create, but it’s wise to be wary about doing so.  

You can include original content in a curated content blog post. You may decide to take the opportunity to give your insight. Or you might share a personal product or service relevant to the curated post. 

Schedule curated content for your blog

Ideally, most business websites don’t want too much curated content to appear in sequence. It’s good to vary your content types. By scheduling your blog posts, you can use your curated content most effectively.

One way to use curated content as part of a broader marketing effort is to schedule it like a buffer between campaigns. Rather than going from one major campaign to another, a  curated content blog post can help ease the transition. It can be a very useful resource as well as giving the visitor some ‘breathing’ space. 

Keep your eyes (and apps) open for content 

As you curate content for your blog, you may find it helpful to use an app like Evernote or Google Docs. These apps help you grab content wherever and whenever you find it for re-use later. Apps like these are beneficial for collating content from various sources for you to organize at a later date.  

Consider your curated content sources 

To keep curated content fresh, it’s an excellent idea to use various sources. If all your content seems to come from the same place, that may come across as ‘cheating.’ Curating implies that you research, investigate, and interrogate content to bring back the best of the best for your visitors.  

Don’t forget to share your sources when you put together your curated content. By giving credit where it’s due, you demonstrate trustworthiness. As well as making it clear that you’ve put in the effort to research the content, you could make valuable links between you and reputable sites.  

Share your curated content blog posts 

As a rule of thumb, spend as much time sharing your curated content as you spent putting it together. Spreading the word via your mailing list, social platforms, and other elements of your network will help boost your ranking and get your curated content to those who want it most.  

With regular maintenance, curated content can be valuable, evergreen content. Once you’ve created the post's structure, you can always update it and re-release it to get new eyes, shares, and likes. 

Those who retweet or otherwise repost content on their social media feeds already curate content. You can do so intentionally to show the world what your brand stands for. If content fits your brand’s image and voice, consider re-sharing it for your followers.  

Analyze results to improve your curated content 

Just as with other types of blog post, you want to measure the post’s activity after publishing it. See how well it is performing compared to other curated content posts and your other content types. Use Google analytics to see how long people look at your curated content and consider whether it is achieving its objectives.Think about how you could improve it for better engagement and retention. 

You can also ask your visitors what they think of your curated content. You can ask if anything is missing and request feedback on how to make it better. Being direct shows you care and can give you excellent quality information to make changes that matter. Learn your lessons to improve currents posts and make future curated content blog posts even better, too. 

Conclusion

We know it can be challenging for businesses to create quality, original blog content week in week out. A curated content blog post can be helpful if you find yourself in a dry spell creatively. By using pre-existing content to create something of value, you can give something useful to your visitors. It can also be a source of great ideas for future blog posts, refreshing the spring of your creativity.  

Knowing how to curate content for a blog is an excellent addition to your content creation and marketing skillset. It can get you out of a jam or give your visitors’ a deeper dive into a topic. It’s worth learning how to curate content well and seriously consider including this as part of a wider content marketing strategy.