If you’ve been staring at a blank screen for hours trying to think up blog-worthy topics to write about, don’t fret. One of the most challenging aspects of content marketing is coming up with blog ideas. Here are a few simple ways to find inspiration and generate compelling topics your audience will love.
- Use Google Alerts. This free service lets you select a few keywords for Google to monitor. Once there are any relevant links, you’ll get them delivered straight to your inbox. Compile your favorite articles as a source of future inspiration.
- Think of interesting people you’d like to interview. Do a Q & A. There must be a few people who you’d love to gather insight from. Think of industry leaders, interesting bloggers or someone with a unique experience to share. Make a list and reach out to them with a friendly email. While not all of them will agree to an interview, it’s really a win-win for both of you: you’ll both be able to reach new audiences and link back to each other’s websites.
You can get creative and spin this into more than one post by doing a podcast, or a two-part blog post.
- See what’s trending. BuzzSumo is a great resource for tracking trending topics and for performing a bit of research. You can search for articles relevant to your niche and BuzzSumo pulls up a list of the most popular articles and shows how many times they’ve been shared.
You can click on highly-shared articles and examine what topics they cover and what made them so successful. BuzzSumo also tells you what articles are popular within a specific website.
- Check out what competitors are doing. The old saying, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer,” applies here. While your competitors are not necessarily your enemies, it’s always good business to know what your competitors are blogging about and how they go about doing it.
This is especially important if you have similar audiences. Are there some blog posts that inspire you? Jot down a few ideas and then make them your own by catering them to your audience and your product or service.
- Read, read and read some more. Subscribe to the top blogs within your industry, subscribe to blogs you simply find interesting, read local newspapers and magazines and simply absorb as much information as you can. The more you read, the more inspiring topics you’ll come across. Make sure to jot down a few ideas whenever inspiration strikes.
Keep Your Audience in Mind
It’s easy to get carried away when trying to brainstorm interesting topic ideas and forget who you should be really thinking of — your audience. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience. What burning questions do they have? What are their hopes and goals and interests? The most interesting blog topic is no good if your audience doesn’t care about it.
By following these five tips and planning ahead to create a content schedule, generating new, relevant and interesting topics will be a breeze.
If you need help with blog writing and adding content to your website, send us a message and let us know how we can assist you.