Thinking about how to find blog post ideas can feel like a daunting task. But if you’re building a brand with a blog, the reality is you need to pump out the content. You need ideas, and ideally… good ones. Dreaming up something to write about isn’t hard, but not all somethings are worth writing about.
But how do you identify which topics are valuable enough to include in your blog? In this article I have some tips to help you identify good content ideas and help get your creative juices flowing. Read on!
What Makes a Good Blog Post?
The best ideas are where your interests and the interests of your target audience meet. A problem exists and with your blog post you seek to provide the answer.
This means that it’s crucial to define who’s your ideal reader and what are their pain points and problems.
If you need some help defining your target audience, check out this blog post.
Once you have your ideal customer in mind, you can use these tools and tips to help you uncover ideas that get people clicking.
Seven Ways to Find Blog Post Ideas:
Blog Post Inspiration 1: Answer the public
“Discover what people are asking about”
Answer The Public is an amazing resource for honing your ideas and zeroing in on what your audience wants. Simply enter in a topic or product and you’ll be presented with a plethora of useful data.
Let’s say you’re building a blog about chocolate (…mmmm chocolate), ATP will show you the kinds of questions people are searching for online.
The results will cover the 5 Ws:
- Who
- What
- Where
- When
- Why
You can use these results to create your blog post topic based on the things people are searching for. For example:
Result: Why chocolate is good for you = Blog post: 10 proven health benefits of dark chocolate
Result: Where chocolate originated = Blog post: The fascinating history of chocolate
Result: Are chocolate labradors dumb = … Blog post: Ok, you might have to filter out a few suggestions.
Blog Post Inspiration 2: Check the competition
Checking out what your competition is up to is another useful way to zero in on your next blog post idea.
Of course, the idea is not to copy what others are doing, but to see what others within your industry are talking about to identify gaps in the content which you can fill.
Grab a pen and paper and browse through the topics that are out there. What can you create that is better than what others have already done?
Blog Post Inspiration 3: Buzz Sumo
We can’t talk about competitor analysis without a tip of the hat to BuzzSumo. It’s a research tool that will show you what content is working, trending, and being shared.
“Use our content insights to generate ideas, create high-performing content, monitor your performance and identify influencers”.
If you haven’t use Buzz Sumo before, it’s well worth a look!
Blog Post Inspiration 4: Social media
Have a look at pages within your industry and join Facebook groups. See what is being liked and shared.
Follow your favourite bloggers on social media and see what content is resonating with their audience. This is a great way to find out what kind of topics are on trend.
Blog Post Inspiration 5: Google it
You probably know this one, but it is a simple trick that is worth a reminder: enter a topic on Google’s search bar and see what suggestions come up.
For example, if you write about blogging, entering a term on Google will provide you with several ideas on what to write about. Try a few terms and see what comes up.
Blog Post Inspiration 6: Read
See what’s hot and what’s not. Subscribe to popular blogs within your niche and find out what content is connecting with the audience. Comment threads are a great place to explore.
Blog Post Inspiration 7: Keyword research
Dig into the data around what people are searching for, and how likely you are to rank for a particular keyword. A bit of keyword research will help you dig into a niche you can compete in.
Don’t fear keyword research! It may seem a bit intimidating if you are new to SEO, but these days there are many tools that make keyword research a lot easier than it was.
Check out this article for more: How to Do Keyword Research in 5 easy Steps
Bonus: The Passion Post
Having said all of the above, don’t forget that there’s always a place on your blog for the pure passion post. Just because your idea doesn’t tick all of the boxes, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write it.
Maybe it’s not on trend, so what. Maybe you’ll start a trend. Maybe no-one is searching for it. Your keyword research tool isn’t giving you any useful data. It’s a pretty obscure topic, but you really want to write about it. Go for it.
Share it around and see what happens. Maybe you’ll stumble upon an topic people didn’t even know they wanted to read about.
Conclusion
So there you go, these are 7 tools and tips to help you come up with blog post ideas.
Try them and see which is the one that resonates the most with you. Start a notebook or a spreadsheet where you can brainstorm ideas. The goal is to come up with your own system to help you find ideas when you are feeling stuck. Hope these help!
