10 Ways To Find Effective Blog Ideas
Apart from the social media boom, if there’s anything in the 21st century that has catalysed our transition to the internet, it is blogging. With more and more avenues and platforms open for people to express their opinions, there is a humongous amount of content available on the internet. Bearing that in mind, many websites have a blog section to engage users, and solve their queries.
While SEO and other ranking and optimization techniques are important considerations while writing a blog, merely using the right keywords isn’t enough to get the attention of your target audience. At the end of the day, what attracts readers is relatable content. Content marketing is one of the major traffic drivers to your website. Content that includes useful information, or solves their queries, or even entertains them. However, with thousands of blogs being written daily, it is natural to run out of topics to write on. But worry not, as here are some ways that will ensure that you always have an abundance of topics to blog about.
1) Read blog comments
This is by far the most effective way of choosing your next blog title. Forums, product groups, and even your own blogs have extensive comment sections, expressing different views. You can scour the comments to find out what your viewers are talking about and note down popular opinions that you can write on.
2) Talk to your colleagues
If you’re writing for a company or an organization, it would greatly help to talk to people in the sales and customer service departments. As they interact with consumers on a daily basis, they will be able to provide valuable insights. You could ask them about any recurring problems or specific subjects that consumers want to know about and go from there. You could also get an idea of any future prospects that your company wants to market, and include them in your blog as well.
3) Look at successful past ideas
While there is no point repeating content you’ve already written, there’s also no harm in revisiting the blogs and articles which got lots of views and were widely appreciated. Maybe you could use a subtopic, or compound on some of the ideas mentioned in previous successful blogs, and give it a different spin.
4) Do a guest post
There is no better way to connect with other bloggers and create a wider outreach than guest blogging. Be it collaborating with industry experts, doing podcasts, or publishing interviews, guest posts provide the perfect change from routine blogging. Thus, prefer reading guide to guest posts and other ideas on how you can publish your article on third party websites. In addition to this, the backlinks you create, and the network you build generates higher traffic to your blog.
5) Broadcast emails to consumers
Email campaigns also work wonders when you’re experiencing writer’s block. You would greatly benefit from drafting an email to your subscribers or users asking them to suggest topics they want information on, or want to read about. Not only will this offer different viewpoints, but it will also give you a better understanding of your target audience.
6) Check out competitor’s blogs
It is always sensible and prudent to keep an eye out on what your competitors are up to. There are chances that they may have covered some interesting topics that you never thought of. Naturally, you can’t write on the exact same topics, but what you can do is check the comments of the successful blog posts and glean ideas from them. It also helps to take an opposing viewpoint from what your competitor has put forth. This way, you not only provide a different perspective but also capitalize on a popular idea.
7) Find trending topics with analytical tools, social media
Get your research hat on, and browse social networking sites and forums to find out what’s trending in your niche industry. You are sure to find a couple of trending patterns and opinions; use them to your advantage in a blog post. Linking your site with analytical tools like google analytics provides you with a behind-the-scenes view of customer searches, query patterns, and trending keywords and topics.
8) To-do-lists, tutorials, and compilations
If all else fails, you could always write compilations of sources, statistics, data and put them in one place for users to read and refer whenever needed. Even tutorials and lists of ‘top 10s’, or ‘5 common mistakes’, will serve as good blog topics.
9) Keyword generators
Last but not the least you can take help of various keyword generator tools available in the market, and use them to find relevant and trending keywords in your industry. You can also set up or program these tools to send you weekly alerts of the most trending keywords in your field.
10) Stay Updated with the trend
It is always a better idea to stay updated with what the world is talking about. For example, recently the social media was flooded with post about 10 years challenge. There were many videos and blogs that were written about the 10 years challenge and all these content was loved by the mass. Thus, keep an eye on social media trends so that you can pick the best blog idea at right time.
Other than these methods, you could also look up sites like Quora, and Mashable to discern a wealth of information and key user queries to write your blog posts. Practices like brainstorming with colleagues, group discussions, jotting down ideas, and even using your personal experiences, can greatly assist you in writing relatable, engaging, interactive blogs that are not just SEO friendly but also highly popular with your target consumer base.
