How to Use AI for Content Topic Research: Plan a Year of Content in an Afternoon

Traditional approaches? Forget them. Keyword research tools and "People Also Ask" sections are old news. You want to crush the competition? Peek behind the curtain and see exactly what your competitors are writing about.

Enter AI-powered competitor content analysis.

Feed a tool like Chat by Copy.ai your competitor's sitemap XML file. Watch it scan all their content URLs and extract their core topics. The AI then reverse-engineers a full content strategy, suggesting related subtopics and supporting keyword ideas.

Continue reading to learn about the entire process.

Leveraging AI and Competitor Data for Smarter Content Marketing

Generating a consistent pipeline of compelling, relevant content ideas that resonate with your target audience is a relentless challenge in content marketing. But what if you could tap into the proven strategies of your top competitors and reverse-engineer their successes? Enter the power of AI-driven competitor analysis.

Harness AI tools to analyze your competitors' content at scale and uncover valuable insights about the topics, keywords, and content types that are already killing it in your industry. This data-driven approach obliterates the guesswork in content ideation, letting you build a more strategic, efficient content roadmap.

Use an AI writing assistant like Copy.ai to mine your competitors' sitemap files for their most successful content. The AI identifies core pillar topics, suggests related subtopics and long-tail keywords, and even provides SEO metrics like search volume and keyword difficulty. In essence, the AI does the tedious research and surfaces actionable opportunities for you to prioritize.

But remember: blindly copying competitors is a losing strategy. Use AI-generated topic ideas as a launchpad for your own creative planning process. Critically evaluate those ideas against factors like:

• Alignment with your brand's unique value proposition and target audience
• Relevance to your current business goals and campaign priorities
• Realistic opportunity to rank for target keywords based on competition
• Potential to create a cohesive topic cluster and full-funnel content experience

Layer your own strategic insights onto the foundation of AI-powered data analysis to build a content calendar primed for success. Map out key content assets for each stage of the buyer's journey within a topic cluster:

• Awareness/Top-of-Funnel: Blog posts, social content, infographics
• Consideration/Middle-of-Funnel: Ebooks, webinars, case studies
• Decision/Bottom-of-Funnel: Demos, free trials, consultation offers

Integrate your content calendar with your email and paid ad campaigns for maximum impact. Take a holistic, data-backed approach to content planning to allocate resources more efficiently and ensure every piece of content is strategically working toward your overarching marketing goals.

How to Use AI for Content Topic Research

Here's how the process works with Copy.ai's Chat:

Step 1: I prompt our chat with thisthe AI: "Given this sitemap [upload competitor sitemap], and assuming the keywords are related to the URL slug, identify 15 topics my competitor is writing about related to go-to-market, sales, or marketing."

Step 2: The AI dissects the sitemap and delivers 15 core topics like:

• Go-to-market strategy
• Sales enablement
• Account-based marketing
• Content marketing for SaaS
• Etc.

Step 3: Next, I ask: "Assuming these words are pillar posts, give me 5 subtopics for each main topic for supporting posts." The AI generates 5 related subtopics for each pillar topic, crafting a full topic cluster.

Step 4: Finally, I instruct: "Given this pillar post topic and subtopics, give me 5 high-potential keyword suggestions for each post."

In minutes, I have a comprehensive list of keywords and topic ideas to prioritize—based on the proven content strategy my competitors are executing!

Step 5: From here, I dive into the competitiveness and search volumes of each keyword using an SEO tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush (we use Ahrefs). I get a clear picture of which topics are good to pursue and which are too lofty, based on keyword difficulty scores and ranking competitors.

The best part? This AI-powered workflow gives me a launchpad of concrete topic ideas that are relevant to my audience, based on real data about what my competitors are doing successfully. No more guesswork, and no more shooting from the hip!

Human-Led Strategy is Still Critical

AI-generated topics and keywords need a sharp-eyed content marketer to vet and prioritize them.

This process is a masterclass in critical thinking:

• Which topics are our current priorities and marketing goals?
• What are the killer content types and formats for each topic?
• How can we create content clusters and campaigns that hit like a freight train?
• How do these topics map to our audience's needs at different funnel stages?

Turning that raw list of AI-generated outputs into a cohesive content strategy demands marketing expertise, solid audience personas, and a deep understanding of your brand's unique selling points.

For instance, AI might spit out a broad keyword like "sales enablement tools." As a human marketer, I would prioritize creating pillar content for that topic if:

1) Our product/service dominates that area based on data/customer feedback

2) There's a realistic shot to rank high for that keyword against the competition

3) It's a hot topic for our target buyer personas at a specific funnel stage

The AI can't make those strategic calls for you. But let it handle the grunt work of data mining and keyword research, so you can zero in on what humans do best - creative thinking, strategic planning, and weaving data points into a powerhouse content roadmap.

Creating a Data-Backed Content Calendar

This is where AI-powered workflows clash with human strategic thinking.

For each core topic cluster, I'll map out:

• A pillar page or long-form blog post hammering the main keyword
• A supporting blog post for each high-value subtopic keyword
• Potential premium gated content like ebooks, webinars, or toolkits to be used as lead magnets

I'll stagger the publication of these content assets over time based on seasonal factors, campaign priorities, and our overall marketing goals for that quarter or year. The mission is creating a cohesive content experience that drags prospects through the entire funnel for each core topic.

With AI feeding me a steady stream of relevant topic ideas based on real data, my team can plan out a content calendar with more confidence and efficiency than starting from scratch. We're focusing on the right things instead of shooting in the dark.

AI prompts for content marketing are perfect for generating ideas to fill out your data-backed content calendar. Leveraging AI's ability to analyze competitor content, identify keyword opportunities, and suggest related topics, you can quickly build a comprehensive roadmap of content assets to create.

And this AI-powered process is scalable. We can loop through the process for every single one of our competitors to mine even more topic and keyword ideas. Feed the AI more data sources upfront, and our content strategy becomes unstoppable.

Final Thoughts: A Smarter, More Efficient Content Roadmap

As AI tools become more sophisticated and ubiquitous, savvy content marketers have a chance to embrace them as multipliers for our human efforts—not replacements. Leverage AI capabilities for data analysis, content mining, and automated research to offload tedious tasks and free up time for the strategic high-value work that still requires human judgment and creativity.

The innovative workflows outlined here represent just one way AI can streamline content ideation and planning. The possibilities are endless for using tools like ChatGPT, content mining, semantic analysis, and more to gain a strategic advantage.

At the end of the day, a content marketer's most valuable skills will be their ability to connect data points into a cohesive strategy, their audience insights, and their talent for creative thinking. AI is simply a force multiplier that makes those human skills even more powerful and efficient.

Combine AI's number-crunching prowess with our own strategic marketing minds to create smarter, more data-driven content roadmaps that are primed for success. As content marketing becomes increasingly important for businesses in every industry, finding ways to work more efficiently and strategically will be a major competitive advantage.

The future of content marketing is a collaboration between human creativity and AI-powered insights. Embrace these new tools as part of our workflow to focus on what we do best—crafting compelling stories, understanding our audience, and driving real business results with our content.