In my last newsletter (here’s a peek, in case you missed it), I talked about how efficiency has played a huge part in helping me earn a solid income.

One thing I mentioned related to my efficiency was my streamlined research process for articles. I received quite a few replies to that newsletter asking me to dig deeper into my process, so that’s exactly what we’re doing today.

Let’s start by setting a little context: I focus almost exclusively on long-form content (blog posts and ebooks) for clients in the “world of work” space.

I write on both the employer and the employee side of things. Put simply, anything related to work—job searching, productivity, collaboration, leadership, employee engagement, human resources…you get it—is my bread and butter.

Honestly, having a niche has been one of the biggest time-savers when it comes to researching. Because I have a focus area, I know where to look for quality data and research. I’m in the loop on who’s publishing related reports and get a lot of relevant press pitches that include original data—and I’m able to repurpose a lot of it across different articles and projects.

But niche aside, there are plenty of other nuggets of wisdom I can give you to help you improve your own article research process. I’ll cover: 

• My typical approach to research and writing
• How I find subject matter experts
• How I find quality data and research
• How I keep track of research and experts

Whew. Okay. I can already tell this is going to be a long one so you might want to grab a snack or another cup of coffee. 😉

1. My typical approach to research and writing

In general, my writing process looks like this: 

• Put together a super loose outline with the main themes and topics to cover
   
• Conduct research or interviews to fill in the outline with relevant information
   
• Write the draft to pull all of that information together

When I finally get around to the actual writing part of the process, most of the hard work is already done. I have a document full of notes, facts, quotes, and figures—roughly in the order I want them. Now I just need to fill in the blanks and polish it up.

This approach can vary depending on the complexity of the piece, whether I need subject matter interviews, and what the client requires. But in general, my standard approach is creating a loose outline, brain dumping a ton of stuff into that skeleton, and then pulling it all together.

2. How I find subject matter experts

I often include quotes and insights from subject matter experts—that could mean psychologists, human resource leaders, career coaches, or anything in between.

Because I’ve written in this niche for quite a few years, I’ve built up a roster of people I can turn to (and I’ll talk more about how I organize them a little later).

But it’s nice to bring in fresh voices too, so I use a combination of the following methods when I need to find experts for stories I’m working on: 

• Posting to social media: I do this a ton, especially on LinkedIn (here’s a fairly recent example). I’ll give a few details about the story I’m working on and what type of sources I’m looking for. Those posts get a surprising amount of traction and I’ve found some excellent sources that way. 
   
• Searching LinkedIn: Yep, here we go with LinkedIn again. I’ll use the search feature to look for keywords related to my article topic (for example, “employee development plans”). I’ll filter to look at recent posts to see if anyone posting about that topic might be a worthwhile expert. I’ll also search related keywords and filter to look at people (for example, “employee development”) to pull up experts with relevant titles. If I find someone worthwhile, I send a connection request with a personalized note about the story I’m working on.
   
• Reviewing existing pieces: Oftentimes when I’m researching a story, I’ll come across other published pieces that related to my topic. If there are experts quoted in those articles, I dig deeper to see if they’d be worth interviewing for my own story—especially since I already know they’re willing to talk to the media. 
   
• Relying on platforms: There are resources to connect writers with relevant experts. I posted my fair share of Help a Reporter Out (HARO) queries back in the day with some moderate success, but I don’t know anything about the new product it was wrapped into. Help a B2B Writer is a great option if you’re looking to post a request and have experts come to you. 

3. How I find quality data and research

Oof. This is arguably one of the toughest parts—especially when it feels like every great statistic inevitably leads to an annoying statistic roundup post that took data from a 2006 study that has since been debunked. 

Needless to say, I’m not perfect at this and I deal with a lot of the same trials that I’m sure you’re struggling with. They feel inescapable at this point.

However, I have found a few tips and tricks that help me surface stuff I can actually use: 

• Searching Google Scholar for relevant academic studies and research
   
• Searching sites I already trust for related key terms (for me, this usually means a lot of McKinsey, Deloitte, Gallup, etc.)
   
• Adding “.org” or “.edu” to the end of my Google search terms (for example, “employee development plans .edu .org”)

When I find something good? You best believe I save it somewhere easy to reference so I don’t have to put in the work to dig for it when I need it again. And that brings me to…

4. How I keep track of research and experts

I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me to come up with a system for storing my expert contacts and reports. I spent way too much of my freelance career finding great stuff and then losing it all over again to the internet abyss.

But no more—because I have a big ol’ spreadsheet that is now my ultimate research companion.

It’s a Google Sheet with tabs for the following: 

• Source Database: This is a long running list of all of the experts in my network. It includes columns for their name, contact information, the date I last contacted them, and then several columns where I can select their expertise from a series of dropdown menus I (ahem, my husband) set up. 
   
• Story Sources: This is where I keep track of the stories I’m currently working on and the sources I’ve reached out to. There’s a column for the story name, the expert’s name, their contact info, and my deadline for responses. There’s also a series of check boxes so I can easily track if I’ve reached out, sent questions or scheduled and interview, received responses, followed up, etc. Tracking numerous sources for several stories at once is a pain, and this helps so much.
   
• Studies: This one is still a work in progress, but it’s where I drop links to quality studies and research when I find them. There are columns for the outlet, the name of the study or report, the link, the date it was published, and tags so I can easily filter by subject. 

This spreadsheet has been a life-saver and I highly recommend setting up something similar for yourself. I’ve also heard great things about Marijana Kay’s data vault for freelance writers if you’re looking for a solid starting point.

I could probably drone on about my research process for ages, but hopefully these highlights were enough to get your wheels turning about how you can make things easier for yourself.

I know firsthand that good research is the foundation of any good article—but getting the information you need can also be a major time suck. So, anything you can do to streamline that process is well worth the effort. 😊