Content Creation & Web Copy
Social Media Marketing
Research tips by punkt & komma
Your guide to good content
Google, our best friend
How we do our research at punkt & komma
Don’t fret – ask Google. Indeed, there’s hardly a way to get past the dinosaur of search engines. For multiple reasons.
Why we ask Google:
So … how many tabs can you open in one window? Our tip: Less is more.
Why we ask Google:
- to find out which terms people search for
- to find out what other people have written on the topic
- to discover relevant sites for further research
- to look at images of places and things: That’s especially helpful if we can’t do our research on site, for instance, for a hotel on the North Pole.
So … how many tabs can you open in one window? Our tip: Less is more.
Wh-questions – which, what, who?
Let’s stay with Google for a bit – more specifically, the topic of wh-questions. Those are questions that people type into the Google search bar. For instance: “What should I cook today?” You can find out what these questions are with the help of a wh-question tool like SEOlyze. Just enter the keyword that matches your topic or company, for example, “family hotel”. Then select the desired Google version (Austria, Germany, UK, …) and it tells you what the Google community is interested in and which questions are relevant to them. The advantage: Hardly ever are users more honest than on Google. A free alternative is AnswerThePublic. Unfortunately, it doesn’t let you select “Germany”.
Tip: Based on the wh-questions, you can structure your text pretty easily: one question = one paragraph that answers it.
Tip: Based on the wh-questions, you can structure your text pretty easily: one question = one paragraph that answers it.
Inspiration: the old-school way
Print is cool! Even if we write web copy, grabbing an “analogue” magazine once in a while can work wonders. If only to get inspiration from the high-quality, journalistic writing style. Sometimes, we also browse through the pages of a magazine in our idea finding phase – to spark our creativity.
Between us: One of our all-time favourites among analogue magazines is “Servus in Stadt und Land”.
Between us: One of our all-time favourites among analogue magazines is “Servus in Stadt und Land”.
Not without social media!
Of course, in this day and age, thorough research has to include scouring social media. Which medium works best entirely depends on the topic:
- Facebook is great to find out more about opening hours, addresses and current info.
- Pinterest provides new and creative approaches to a certain topic – alongside visual inspiration.
- Review sites like tripadvisor or booking.com are a treasure trove for customer opinions, especially in the area of tourism.
- On blogs, we like to gather inside tips, for instance, about a city we’ve never been to.
Take notes!
We don’t always just start hammering away at the keyboard. Oftentimes, we start by gathering information – in the form of notes. They can take all kinds of shape. We may type the key facts into a Word document, or we may use the Notes App on our computer. Fans of handwritten notes grab a punkt & komma notepad and write down all important info there.