Choose a Research Method and Add your Own Sources

Step 3 asks "How should NarraSEO research this?" You are choosing the main source of material, not the only one.

Whichever you choose, NarraSEO still applies your Brand Profile, your sitemap, your competitors, and its SEO rules automatically. Fact checking runs regardless. These are not switches you need to find.

The Four Methods

Web & SERP Research

Searches Google for top-ranking pages, questions, and competitor angles.

This is the default and the right choice for most articles. Use it for blog posts, how-to guides, listicles, and comparisons, where the job is to cover a topic at least as well as the pages currently ranking.

Custom Sources

Uses your uploaded files, links, notes, or existing content.

Use it when the material is yours and not on the open web: case studies, client documents, internal research, proprietary data, or content you are repurposing. This is also the method to pick when accuracy depends on your own numbers rather than what a search finds.

Youtube / Media Research

Turns a video or transcript into a structured article with key points.

Use it for video-to-blog work, podcast episodes, webinars, and transcripts. Selecting the Video-to-blog article type in step 2 recommends this method automatically.

News & Trend Research

Finds recent updates, trending topics, and fresh industry angles.

Use it for news articles, industry updates, and anything where recency is the point. It is the wrong choice for evergreen guides, where it will pull the article towards whatever happens to be current.

Uploading your Own Files

Available with Custom Sources and YouTube / Media Research.

Custom Sources Uploads

• Up to 5 files
• Up to 5 MB each
• Accepted: .txt, .md, .markdown, .csv, .json, .html, .htm, .rtf, .pdf

Youtube and Media Uploads

• Up to 3 video files
• Up to 25 MB each
• Accepted: .mp4, .mov, .webm, .m4v, .mkv, .mpeg, .mpg

Larger videos will not upload. Paste a YouTube URL instead, which has no size limit.

Adding Reference Urls

Both Custom Sources and YouTube / Media Research let you paste reference URLs alongside any uploads. NarraSEO reads those pages as source material.

For video research, this is where YouTube links go.

Reading a link you paste does not cost credits.

Notes

Uploads are used as source material, not reproduced. NarraSEO draws facts and structure from them and writes original text. If you need a passage quoted exactly, add it after generation in the editor.

Custom Sources works best with substance rather than volume. One detailed case study produces better output than five thin brochure pages.

You can change the research method at any point before you generate. Changing it does not lose your uploads.

If an Upload is Rejected

Check the extension against the lists above. A .docx file is not accepted for Custom Sources, so export to PDF first.

For video, check the file size against the 25 MB limit. Most real video files exceed it, which is why the YouTube URL route exists.