​While your experiences are valuable and your audience wants to hear about them, research is important when writing content. In an age where misinformation online is rampant, your readers depend on you to provide truthful information backed by facts and expertise.

Here are five steps to doing research when writing content:

1. Research Anytime
You likely had to write a research paper when you were in school. Your teacher probably had an outline of what steps to take to write this paper. The research was likely at the top of the list. While research can be the first step in the writing process, it doesn’t have to be.

Sometimes, while writing, you’ll encounter something you want to include more information about. The best step to take is to do additional research. That way, you can fill out your content and provide readers with answers to questions they may have.

2. Collaborate With Others
People are great sources of information when it comes to how to best market to them. One way you can do research is by collaborating with colleagues so they can share their experiences in the field. This is especially helpful when speaking with customer-facing individuals like customer service representatives.

Speaking of customers, you can also collaborate with them for your research. Based on conversations and data collected about your customers, you can create a representation of them called a buyer persona. It is useful when creating content as it outlines your ideal buyer and how to reach them best.

You can also go outside of your organization for this type of research. Reaching out to experts in your field not only makes for a great source of information but also builds relationships that can benefit your business. Perhaps this expert may ask to link to your content or allow you to be a guest blogger on their blog, both of which can benefit your search engine rankings.

3. Use Credible Sources
The modern market is saturated with content from a variety of sources. When doing research for your content, you need to make sure you use credible ones. For example, a veterinarian writing a blog about pet nutrition would be better off using scholarly articles about pet nutrition than another vet’s blog as a source of information.

If you’re looking for scholarly articles, a good place to start is by using Google Scholar. It focuses on academic papers and journal articles. That way, your search is more tailored to your topic of interest and credible sources about it than a traditional search engine query would be. Even if you do not use this tool, there are ways to check your source’s credibility.

An easy way to tell if an online source is credible is by looking at the URL. If it ends in .edu or .gov, it comes from an educational or government website. Those organizations have high standards to meet regarding the information they release. Also, those creating the content are highly educated experts in the fields they are writing about.

4. Organize Your Information
You may have spent a significant amount of time researching and collecting a great deal of information. Now is the time to organize your information so that you can easily refer back to it while you’re writing.

To start, you can create folders on your computer to store articles that you’ve downloaded. Then, create an outline of where you’d like each piece of information to go in your content. That way, your research is presented in a logical order in your content.

5. Cite Your Sources
While using your research in your content is encouraged, make sure that you credit the author whose information you’re using. If you include direct quotes, make sure that you indicate the person or source you’re quoting to avoid plagiarism.

Remember, citing sources doesn’t just apply to written sources. If you use a photo or other artwork, make sure to credit the artist. If you want to avoid these issues, there are websites with stock photography that meets copyright laws and standards.

Links Web Design is a Digital Marketing Agency in Bangor, ME, and Fruitland Park, FL.​​