Even if you’re very familiar with online and content marketing, you may not have heard the term ‘content tree’ before. But, if you’re one of those people who have difficulty coming up with content ideas for your niche, understanding how they work could really help build a strategy. Simply put, content trees are a way to structure content and organize it through a parent-child structure where you start from a root topic and work your way through branches and leaves, further focusing your content into different categories. Let’s take a closer look at how they work and how you can benefit from them.

The Content Tree in Action

Let’s start with a simple example of a content tree in action. Let’s say that you want to talk about weddings. Weddings would be the root or the core of your content tree. Then you could have different categories, like clothing, venue, reception, etc. These are the branches. Then, for each branch, you can go further and further in detail with each article idea becoming the leaves of the content tree.

For instance, your clothing branch could have articles on how to find the best wedding dress, how to find a cheap wedding dress, or what wedding dress mistakes you should avoid. The venue branch could have articles on how to find the perfect venue for your wedding or some articles on how to book one. The reception article could give you tips on things like entertainment, how to plan the reception, how to hire entertainment, etc. You could also have a food branch where you would discuss things like catering or how to buy a wedding cake, for instance.

The Benefits of a Content Tree

One of the biggest benefits of having a content tree is that it allows you to focus on your content creation process. You will also be able to clearly see if you’ve already covered a topic before and what you should write about next. It gives you greater visibility and control over your content.

How to Create Your Own Content Tree

There is much software that will allow you to create a content tree, but at the bare minimum, you can always do it on an Excel spreadsheet. You can organize it by having a column for branches, one for the leaves, and another one for the different platforms where you intend to publish your content. If you don’t have too much content yet, this can be an easy way to organize it.

The other way to create a content tree is by using a CMS that has the option. This will also allow you to have a clear idea of what pieces of content you have published under different categories.

One simple way to come up with a root for your tree is to find the biggest problem your clients are trying to solve. You can then have different pillars addressing different ways to solve these issues and different subtopics that will become the leaves of the tree.

If you’re an online marketing agency, for instance, the main issue is getting more visibility. The branches can be different marketing methods, and the leaves can be different tactics and tools that you can use to implement each method.

As you can see, the idea behind content trees is pretty simple and straightforward. If you aren’t using them already, they could help organize your content and run more efficient campaigns.