HOW TO GENERATE CONTENT IDEAS FOR BLOG
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ---------------------------------------------------------- 1 2. Focus on localized content ------------------------------------------- 2 3. Look at your competition --------------------------------------------- 3 4. Use blog topic suggestion tools -------------------------------------- 4 5. Pick up trending topics from social media ---------------------------- 6 6. Conduct surveys & acquire statistics --------------------------------- 7 7. Interviews can be a great source for content ------------------------- 8 8. Follow threads of comments on relevant posts ---------------------- 9 9. Use your customer queries & feedback for ideas ------------------- 10 10. Quora can be a great place to find out what people want to know - 11 11. Google alerts could be a good way to stay updated ---------------- 12 12. Try to create topic clusters for your blog --------------------------- 13 13. Stick to a style that has worked for you so far ---------------------- 14 14. Conclusion ---------------------------------------------------------- 15
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
Introduction
Every blogger has good and bad days. If you have been running a blog for a while now, there surely has been a point where you have experienced a writer’s block. Finding topics for your business blog that will keep your readers engaged is not easy. To add to it, there are hundreds of other business bloggers writing about the same things the world over. How then do you stand out of the crowd? How do you write something that wouldn’t just be a repetition of what everyone else is already sharing? To answer these questions for you, we have a list of 12 tips that will make your life as a business blogger much easier. Follow these 12 tips to find engaging topics for your business blog: 1. Focus on localized content 2. Look at your competition 3. Use blog topic suggestion tools 4. Pick up trending topics from social media 5. Conduct surveys and acquire statistics 6. Interviews can be a great source for content 7. Follow threads of comments on relevant posts and find out what people are talking about 8. Use your customer queries and feedback for ideas 9. Quora can be a great place to find out what people want to know 10. Google alerts could be a good way to stay updated 11. Choose topics that answer questions - how, what and why 12. Lastly, stick to a style that has worked for you so far. Originality sells. Let’s get into the details. Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
1
1. Focus on localized content
Every business, however big or small, now feels the need to localize their marketing strategy. The best way to connect with your target audience from a specific market is to speak their language, literally and figuratively. Instead of writing business blog posts for a global audience, focus more on specific markets. There is usually very little accurate information on localized markets available online. Your blog posts could be useful to readers who are looking for more information on local markets. For instance, “5 Best Locations to Set Up Your Business in XYZ” could be an informative piece for someone who is looking for a good location to start a business in a particular city.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
2
2. Look at your competition
Blogging has become a competitive field over time. There are definitely other blogs that have a genre similar to yours. You can use these other blogs as a learning medium instead of looking at them as competition. Read their posts, go through their comments. Try finding out what they’re doing right and where they’re falling short. This information could be extremely useful for your own blog. This will help you look in the right direction and it will be much easier to find relevant ideas and topics.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
3
3. Use blog topic suggestion tools If you are running out of ideas or can’t find relevant content on other sources, let a blog topic suggestion tool help you out. There are a number of different blog topic generators that you can use to find suggestions. Here are a few blog topic generator tools that could come in really handy:
1) HubSpot’s Blog Idea Generator This is an online tool from HubSpot that asks you to enter a few nouns associated to your genre and generates 5 related blog topic ideas, for free. You can even unlock more suggestions with their paid plan.
2) Portent’s Content Idea Generator Portent’s blog topic suggestion tool is not just useful, it is also fun. You have to type in a few keywords related to your blog and the tool generates one suggestion at a time. Keep refreshing, and a new topic springs up every time. You can obtain a number of relevant suggestions by refreshing your search every time.
3) Moz Keyword Explorer This is another useful online tool for generating your business blog topic ideas. You just need to register with your email id and you can avail up to 10 free blog topic suggestions per month.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
4
4) Build your own blog This tool is quite different from the rest in this list. It does not ask you for keywords or suggest specific blog topic ideas. The tool just suggests some incomplete topic ideas that could spark your imagination. Although you may not find exactly what you’re looking for, you might still get some ideas.
5) Buzzsumo Buzzsumo is more than just a blog topic suggestion tool. It also gives you a lot of other useful information such as backlinks, sharers, number of Facebook engagements, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn shares. That is almost everything that could affect your blog with the suggested topic.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
5
4. Pick up trending topics from social media Social media today is a treasure chest if you know how to use it to your advantage. All important news and latest trends make their way to social media platforms before any other media even gets a hint.
Use this lightning fast channel to keep yourself updated. Follow relevant and active pages on social media. These pages will surely publish content that is relevant to your niche and can give you great ideas for blog topics. The faster you can act on it, the better though. Because things get viral in no time nowadays and you need to grab the opportunity before too many people get to it.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
6
5. Conduct surveys & acquire statistics This will require a little extra effort on your part but can be really useful and authentic. Conducting surveys among consumers on products or services that are relevant to your business blog will bring you a lot of useful data.
Before actually going for a survey, decide what information you need for your blog. Make sure to ask the right, relevant questions. Try making the responses short by using multiple choice questions. This saves you the time you would otherwise spend on reading the responses. Aim at collecting as much information as possible. Also make sure the responses are received from genuine sources.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
7
6. Interviews can be a great source for content Another way of getting useful and meaningful content for your business blog is by talking to the experts in the field. If you can manage to get an interview scheduled with an industry expert, you could learn a lot yourself and share that knowledge with others through your blog. In fact managing to schedule one interview per month would mean you have at least one blog topic sorted for every month. What’s even better is that the information you gain will be authentic and valuable. This could be a good learning experience too.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
8
7. Follow threads of comments on relevant posts Have you ever seriously read the comments on your blog posts? Or on any other blog for that matter?
The comments and feedback from readers can be full of important information. You could learn what people like to read and what they look for in a business blog like yours. So pay attention to those comments. Try and find out useful comments and constructive feedback that can help you cater to your target audience better.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
9
8. Use your customer queries and feedback for ideas Yet another great place to gather ideas for your next business blog topic, is the customers’ feedback and queries on relevant websites and e-commerce sites.
Visit some competitor websites and see what the consumers have to say. Both positive and negative feedback could give you great ideas for your business blog. A query on shipping process could be an inspiration for a blog post on “How Your Business Can Save Time and Money on Shipping”. From positive customer feedback, you could write something like “10 Things That Will Make Your Customers Stay”.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
10
9. Quora can be a great place to find out what people want to know
Quora is one place where people post questions on everything under the sun. The chances of finding answered and unanswered questions relevant to your industry are very high. You can write engaging blog posts to answer such questions and people would definitely find this useful.
To promote your content, you can also answer the questions directly on Quora and share the link to your blog with your answer. This is a great way of driving more traffic to your blog.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
11
10. Google alerts could be a good way to stay updated
Google Alerts is a very useful tool for all bloggers. To keep yourself updated on recent happenings in your field and changes taking place world over, there cannot be a better platform.
Google Alerts simply requires you to type in certain search terms for the topic that you want to track and activate alerts for these topics. Every time there is something new on Google, related to your search, it will send you email alerts with the updates. This is great for keeping track of recent trends in your niche.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
12
11. Try to create topic clusters for your blog Creating quality content based on one particular theme is considered to be good for both search engine rankings and for gathering a loyal following. Topic cluster, or writing several posts revolving around a common theme, will also be great for finding more topics for your blog. When you have a theme in mind, it is easier to generate ideas based on it. So you can determine your area of expertise and consider it as the theme for your blog. You can write posts on various related topics to create a topic cluster. As you have some authority on these topics, the quality will be great and you will be able to get a loyal following of people who are really interested in the area.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
13
12. Stick to a style that has worked for you so far There may be a lot of other better looking business blogs that may seem more appealing to you than your own. But remember that your followers are reading your blog because of the way you have been writing it so far. Your originality is your USP. Looking for inspiration from other blogs and learning from them in the process is all good. But do not give up on your identity as a business blogger, which is the very essence of your blog. Keep your writing style unique and distinctive, improving over time wherever possible.
originality sells
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
14
Conclusion
There are innumerable sources to get ideas for blog topics today. We have listed 12 of the most useful ways to find new topics for your business blog. You can come up with more innovative ways of finding topics with the help of these 12 tips as you learn during the process. If you are looking for content writing solutions or need assistance with your blog, check out Narrato. Narrato is great platform offering high quality content for marketers and bloggers. From finding you engaging blog topics to actually writing content for you, we have all your content marketing needs sorted.
Content Collaboration & Workflow Management https://narrato.io/
15
