What Content to Write - Hot Topic or More Niche Related?

[BobGW]

Hi,

Just for example, say you've got a shoe store but shoes are a non-searched-for topic on the informational side. Say fashion models or teenybopper shoppers are both hot topics. Would you recommend writing an article - one of the site's five >2000 word articles on a hot area of the hot topics? Or would you just stick to shoes topics?

If you do write on the hotter topics, how does the shoe store owner write on these - they're out of his area of expertise? Does he need a content writer?

[mememax]

I've always been of the opinion that is preferrable to write more focused articles which may deliver less traffic but extra sales than broad article which only gets you traffic with high bounces just because after reading the article the users don't find anything related to continue on your site. You'll need to write always content which will attract your customer they may buy today or in a month buth you need to attract them.

If you're on shoes market maybe you may find interesting writing an article about Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and city who loves have many shoes and write a fun article about how to build your shoe inventory with less than 1k dollars. Or maybe something about link your shoes to your personality or your daily mood.

I think that when it comes to write new content you don't have to focus only on what is actually been searched but you should try also to create new trends of search. Users are bombed with lots of similar contents about top keywords, so you may consider write really different and original and cool articles on those ones or if you don't have ideas is better to write a cool different article and spread it thrgough fashion blogs, this guys loves about speaking about new ideas and trends so try to anticipate them or give them the original thing they can poston their site.

Always focus on best content, then your traffic will arrive both on keywords and your branded/direct traffic.

[Chris.Menke]

I think you may be looking at your topics too broadly and perhaps without enough creativity.  Who's never heard of the teenybopper who wanted to grow up to be a fashion model in high heel designer shoes? What shoe designer hasn't had a model who's little sister didn't want to grow up to be just like her? How many different ways can a teeny bopper save her dollars to buy those shoes she saw in the magazine at the grocery store?  What teeny bopper doesn't have an opinion on the shoes her mom has in her closet or on the shoes her aunt bought her for her birthday? And what writer, worth their salt, couldn't write a tear-jerking, funny, or uplifting piece on any of those topics that that target audience that they wouldn't share among themselves?

This is the best part about Google freeing us from the oppression of the "keyword" and letting relevance be more categorical and thematic. Google's listening less intently on what we have to say about ourselves through our content and more so on what those in the social world are saying about us.  This frees us to be more creative in the content that we create for our clients and lets us think more about creating content that our audience will engage with.

I think you're better off today writing about topics that are tangentially related to your niche and about ways your audience relates to those topics.  I think audiences today are becoming dead tired of copy that has any scent of SEO and that they are more likely to click through to and engage with that which is fresh in it's perspective. Learn your audience, write stuff that they're going to like, and don't forget your back channels to algorithmic visibility--like structured data, authorship, co-citation, UGC, and, oh yeah, links.