The Best Content to Create For the Road Cycling Audience Based On Their Reddit & Organic Search Behaviour

Key Takeaways

Top ranking searches and topic categories for Road Cycling on Google Search and Reddit between Jan. 2021 to Oct. 2022: 

Keywords

• “Cycling” is the primary search term when compared to “road bike” or “racing bike”.
• Search interest spiked for cycling for a brief period during the months of July and August 2021, likely due to the 2021 Summer Olympics. 
• When comparing July 2021 to July 2022, “cycling” as a search term decreased in popularity by 14%, in the United States. 
• “Cycling” and “road bike” as search terms are most popular in the States of Vermont and Colorado.

Google Search

• Hardware, Health, and Guide related search queries are most popular for searches including the keyword “cycling” on Google, ranking at 37%, 25%, and 18% of share interest respectively.
• Hardware driven searches focused on value centered topics and specific bike parts such as "road bike for beginners", "which road bike is best?", and “are road bike tires tubeless?” indicating that these customers are early in their consideration life-cycle and looking to understand more. 
• Health-related search queries focused on road cycling’s impact with searches such as "what cycling does to your body" and "which cycling is good for weight loss", suggesting that customers are interested in a more active lifestyle and want to use road cycling to achieve that. 
• Within “guide” based search queries, 30% of search interest focused on queries looking for advice on how to improve their riding ability, such as “cycling for beginners” and entry level advice for riders just starting out. 
• Riders who are new to road cycling search for topics that help them get started in guide based searches. 

Reddit

• On Reddit, the most popular content topics were “community”, “hardware”, and riding”, taking 41%, 34%, and 24% of share interest respectively.
• Within “community” category,  “humour” focused threads, where members poke fun at stereotypes, took 41% of interest share. 
• Within the “hardware” and “riding” categories, “bike parts” and “ride photos” ranked highest with 28% and 35% of interest share, respectively.

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Amongst Road Cycling related search terms, "cycling" dominated in comparison to the alternative wordings "road bike" and "racing bike".

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Cycling related search terms had a seasonal spike during the months of July 2021 and August 2021, likely due to the 2021 Tokyo Summer games being hosted in those months. 

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In the United States, when comparing the same search terms as the previous slide,  “Cycling” still leads as the favoured search term but search term popularity from July 2021 to July 2022 decreased by 14%.*

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Within the United States from January 2021 to October 2022, “Cycling” as a search term was most popular in the states of Vermont and Colorado. 

Opportunity: Look for influencers in these areas to amplify and support the Road cycling community. Additionally, support or sponsor popular circuits that are popular on Strava or similar apps. 

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Although far less popular than “cycling”, within the United States from January 2021 to October 2022, “Road bike” as a search term was most popular in the states of Vermont and Colorado. 

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The most popular questions being asked on Google about road bikes are related to hardware, health, guide, gear, location, purchasing and social.

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Within “hardware”, “bike parts” and “comparison” based search queries occupied the majority of searches with 33% and 32%, respectively.

Opportunity: Hardware based searches often look for parts and follow the process of comparison through price point and capability. Therefore, try creating content to show comparisons for each bike part in order to reduce decision fatigue among prospective customers. 

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Within “health” based searches, “fitness” related queries occupied the majority of interest at 40%. Users heavily focus on the impact that road cycling may have on their body..

Opportunity: Create content that focuses on beginner-friendly ride circuits that help riders understand the impact of elevation and trail access. Another possible addition is focusing on particular cities and posting content specific to that area to help beginner riders know where to start. 

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Within “guide” based searches, riders who are new to road cycling search for topics that help them get started and how to improve their riding ability, occupying 21% and 30% of interest share, respectively. 

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When analyzing search intent within each category, “hardware” related queries tend to focus on specific parts of the bike or the capability of particular frames. In contrast “health” and “guide” related searches leaned towards opinions, embedded in informative long-form content. 

Opportunity: When creating content, have a clear understanding of how you want to structure it, whether bite size or long-form and start gearing each piece of content towards these categories. I.e. “Cycling Fitness 101: The Health Benefits of a Cycling Lifestyle”

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“gear”, “location”, “purchasing”, and “social” related searches were used less frequently and were typically more specific, focussing on a particular item or topic such as cycling shoes, location-based searches or how to find sales.

Opportunity: Aggregate this information into guides like “What To Know When Buying Your First Road Bike” and ensure these topics are covered.

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The most popular topics on Reddit about road bikes are related to Community, Hardware, and Riding.

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Within “Community” based topics, 41% of share interest was classified into “humour” related threads and “celebration” themed posts occupied 23%. 

Opportunity: A core focus of community-themed threads is members sharing their experiences in different ways. One way to engage users would be to launch a campaign that highlights stories of riders and their achievements in road cycling.

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Within “Hardware” based topics, “bike parts”, “NBD: New bike day”, and “pricing” lead at 28%, 27%, and 18% respectively. Hardware-themed threads are very focused on singular topics and often seek advice or feedback from community members. 

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“Riding” themed threads are entirely focused on highlighting aspects of subreddit members’ rides. This is seen in “Ride Photos” occupying 35% of thread topics. Other topics highlight screenshots of the circuit they took (16%) photos of rider videos (16%), and riders photo’s, (14%)

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Humour: Members of the subreddit post various topics poking fun at common cyclist stereotypes, carelessness within bike infrastructure, and wholesome content. 

Community

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Bike Parts: Active members post pictures and questions based around specific bike parts. In some cases, members seek advice on bike servicing and price comparisons. 

Hardware

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Ride Photos: A simple but consistent thread topic found across multiple cycling-focused subreddits was users posting highlights and interesting moments from their different rides. 

Riding

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