Are you overwhelmed with all the content you need to create for your website? Content buckets are here to help! Are you having difficulty finding the best way to engage people and keep them returning for more? This blog post will discuss how content buckets can help you create engaging, quality content in less time.
What are Content Buckets?
Content buckets are a way to group similar pieces of content together. Content creators can use content buckets to keep track of their work, and content editors can use them to easily find and organize pieces for publication. Content buckets can be used for a variety of purposes, including grouping content by topic or genre.
How do you Write a Content Bucket?
In order to create a content bucket, write content that falls into that bucket. Once you have a few pieces, use a keyword or phrase to label the bucket. This will help you and others find the content later. You can also add a description of the bucket’s content, as well as any other relevant information.
Content Bucket Examples
With content buckets, you’ll have a goal for that bucket that satisfies a specific need of your audience or reach for your brand.
1) Product Highlights
60% of shoppers looking for beauty products, read reviews first every time. (Source)
Featuring your products and services in the form of content is one strategy. You can use this bucket to show your audience what you offer them.
You might include a mix of product descriptions, videos with testimonials or customer reviews, and helpful tips for properly using the products.
Here’s how to use product highlights in your content strategy:
1. Identify your top products or services
2. Create a content bucket for each one
3. Write a short, catchy headline for each one
4. Write a brief product description
5. Use product images where available
6. Add social media sharing buttons
By following these simple steps, you can ensure that your products and services get the attention they deserve. So what are you waiting for? Get started today!
This content is only helpful if it will appeal specifically to your target market– so think through who would benefit most from these sorts of posts before creating any!
2) SEO Content (Evergreen)
Find more statistics at Statista
The SEO content bucket is a series of content designed to rank on the search engines. Evergreen content is content that is not time-sensitive, doesn’t expire, and will stay relevant over time.
Some examples of evergreen content are:
– Blog posts with helpful tips and advice for your target audience
– Tutorials on how to use a product or service
– Numbered Lists (best of, tips, products)
3) Interactive Content
A May 2022 survey of U.S.-based marketers revealed that 50 percent had hired content creators to produce educational materials, while 40 percent said they used such professionals for product testimonials, unboxing videos or reveals, and giveaways or challenges. – Statista
Interactive content increases engagement. It’s a collection of quizzes and polls that encourage the visitor to engage with your content. This bucket can be great for gaining subscribers to your mailing list.
Even better, interactive content is free. You only need some survey questions and a few minutes to create the quiz or Poll.
Paid software options (SAAS) can help you level up your interactive content game.
4) Video Content
Your video content bucket can contain videos that inform or entertain. Think of this bucket as your blog’s “TV Shows” section.
This bucket should contain various videos with an array of lengths, topics, and styles to keep your audience engaged.
Repeat after us: Marketing is not the only department responsible for creating content. https://t.co/SbeTTGDfZc pic.twitter.com/XFqPYPwKDj
— Sprout Social (@SproutSocial) September 23, 2021
The number one thing you need to remember when creating video content is that it must be valuable, informative, or entertaining to work correctly on your site. Remember: nobody wants boring videos!
5) How-to Content
You can think about how-to content like recipes; it has ingredients and steps, so viewers know what goes into making something (or cooking something).
How-to content performs well on Youtube and Google.
My specialty is how-to content. I create tutorial blogs and videos that teach bloggers, small businesses, coaches, and real estate agents to grow their businesses online.
I do this by providing my audience with step-by-step instructions on how to build out a website or figure out what platform is best for their monetization strategy.
6) Contests and Giveaways
One content bucket that is ideal for social media is contests and giveaways. This type of content is perfect for building community and increasing engagement on your page.
A giveaway can be something as simple as a creative contest. For example, invite people to submit their best photos with the hashtag #Summer22. Or it may be more involved, like a year’s worth of gift cards from Starbucks in exchange for taking pictures at different stores around town every month.
Contests are easy to set up through platforms such as Rafflecopter, which operates beautifully and seamlessly across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
7) User-Generated Content
User-generated content is another type you can create for your space, and it can work well on social media.
This content could be in a video or photo series where people submit things with their twists.
A great example would be submitting pictures from an event they attended wearing something specific (or even not) – this offers engagement potential as users will want to know more about what other prizes are available, who else submitted photos, etc.
This content also creates a sense of community among those who participate!
8) Motivation and Inspiration
Popular across blogs and social media channels is the mindset, motivation and inspiration bucket. This bucket is where you find articles, videos, stories, and more about the positive things in life.
It’s crucial to balance this with other buckets, such as bucket one (real-life struggles), because it will help people who need encouragement know they’re not alone.
Inspiration may come from a story of someone overcoming adversity or just an article on how to achieve their goals; motivation might be an inspirational video series like “Lose Weight Fast.”
I like to use Canva to find motivational quotes on Pinterest, blogs, and social media channels.
9) Case Studies and Stories
People love to hear a good story. The storytelling bucket allows you to take real-life, authentic stories that motivate, inspire, or direct visitors to a solution.
The story shares the problem and ultimately offers your product or service as the answer to the problem.
When used in a sales funnel, expert bloggers know that stories often take the buyer on a journey.
Tales of how other people overcame the same problem a visitor has or is currently dealing with can be very influential.
Case Studies are usually more clinical and cite specific evidence, often in numbers showing improvement in a particular area.
10) Tips
The tips content bucket contains top strategies in a particular area. For example, if your niche is travel, you could create a series of top tips related to packing, cruising, traveling with kids, credit card travel hacks, and more.
I love a good “tips” listicle post. I start with a blog such as “99 things to do in Vegas on a budget” and then break each down as an individual pin, social post, and sometimes video.
Canva Pro has excellent templates for lists, social stories, and Instagram posts.
11) The Glossary
The glossary content bucket is a way to give visitors information about the meaning of words, phrases, or concepts that might be less familiar.
For example, if you have an audience in real estate, you could create definitions for terms like escrow, dual agency, and appraisals.
12) Events
The events content bucket is excellent for creators who host or share information about events in their niche.
For example, a real estate agent might post about events in a particular area for the holidays.
A course creator might share info about their educational events and events hosted by colleagues for cross-promotion and collaboration.
13) Podcasts
Podcasts can make for a great addition to a content bucket strategy. In addition to sharing information about other podcasts, share your content in the form of episodes. You can also host interviews with influencers and experts that have an audience related to yours.
This content is an excellent way for you to gain exposure on their channels and get valuable feedback from someone successful in fields related to yours.
14) Press Releases
If your business creates launches or other newsworthy events, press releases can be a content bucket you add to your marketing plan.
You can create and publish press releases on your website or push them to other media channels.
I’ve used press releases for new hires throughout my real estate career, new listings and closings, and when my real estate team changed brokerages.
15) Live Streams
Some businesses might share live streams that provide updates about progress in whatever field is related to their company or organization. This bucket can be an extension of blogs or newsletters sent out by email.
Live Streams can be how-to events, seminar-style content, Q & A, virtual parties, and anything else that makes sense for your audience.
16) FAQs
Another bucket of content can contain a series of frequently asked questions. These can be typed up on a blog, recorded on a podcast, live-streamed, or shared as small posts, videos, and stories on social media.
FAQs can be related to your brand, product, and services or to the niche and audience you serve.
Response posts are also popular for answering frequently asked questions on your blog.
17) Longform Content
Longform content covers a topic in-depth. It can also be an hour-long video, for example. Longform content is ideal for informational blog posts that often rank on Google.
Consider more than 2000 words of long-form content.
In a blog, Longform content consists of a title, intro paragraph, paragraphs with headings (h2/h3), rich media, and internal and external links.
I often turn my long-form content into lead magnets using Canva. This content helps build my email list for building sales funnels.
18) Pillar Posts
Another blog framework that is ideal for your content buckets is the pillar post. Also referred to as a skyscraper post (coined by Brian Dean), it’s generally a 3000 – 5000 word comprehensive guide.
19) Income Reports
Many bloggers enjoy sharing income reports. For example, Here’s a blogger’s income report that I created on video.
Here are some examples:
- Here’s what Youtube Paid me for 1,000,000 Views
- Niche Site Report: How Much I Earned in May
- Profitable Podcasts: What I made in my first year of podcasting.
20) Testimonials
It’s easy to share testimonials as part of a content bucket. Testimonials can be written, be audio sound bites, or transmitted over video.
Reviews and testimonials can be collected and displayed on Facebook, Google Places, as endorsements on LinkedIn, or gathered on a 3rd party platform like Trust Pilot.
I have clients using BOAST to help them with their review collection process.
I use Canva testimonial templates to create image testimonials.
21) This vs. That Comparisons
Product comparison content is popular on many channels, from blogs to Youtube. This vs. That comparisons are a great way to talk about your product, service, or offer compared to another.
For example:
- Why I Like this Product Better Than the Competitors (What You Get)
- How This product is different than That product?
- This software vs. That software: Why That is the better choice for newbie bloggers.
22) Roundup Content
Roundups are a content bucket for using other experts to create a list of items related to your topic.
These can be anything from lists or tutorials on setting up something new in email marketing like an autoresponder course or articles that have been popular lately, and valuable to your audience.
The best thing about roundup content is it’s easy to do. You don’t need any special skills beyond being able to write well enough!
If you have been growing an email list, you can send a poll to your audience using an email platform like Mailerlite.
The Poll sends a list of questions. You collect the answers and create a blog post (or video/podcast) sharing the overall results.
It’s a best practice to include links back to websites or social channels of the people you quote in your blog.
If you let the contributor know that you referenced them, they may share the content with their audience, expanding your reach.
23) Rants
Hopefully not particularly hostile, rants can be a great way to reach an audience with an opinion.
I know a content creator who achieved a large following by ranting about real estate politics.
People either strongly agree with his rant or disagree vehemently, all finding him quite polarizing.
And it works.
Your rants don’t have to be negative, as much as they do need to be strongly backing up a specific opinion in full expression.
People love to disagree publically, and this blogger uses that fact to his advantage.
I’m not a fan. But, that being said, I’m aware of him, which proves that publicity is publicity, period.
23) Niche Content
Niche content buckets contain a particular type of content only valuable to the visitors.
For example, I have a real estate business in Las Vegas. Therefore, one of my content buckets contains real estate market reports.
I create these for the entire Las Vegas Valley as well as for hyperlocal areas within the area.
Another type of niche content I create is IDX pages. These are property pages related to specific real estate types by features, price, and locality.
You might be an artist that creates galleries on your website using a digital portfolio.
If you are thinking of buying PLR articles for your content buckets, read this article first.
In Closing,
A content bucket strategy can help you create a flow of content creation throughout the year.
Content buckets feature products and services and help take your visitor on a journey towards a particular goal.
Once you identify your content buckets, creating content will become much more manageable.
