Imagine the scenario: you’ve committed to blogging because you realise the value of creating great content for your business, you sit down to start a new blog post and are suddenly faced with a difficult question - what do I write about?
Perhaps one of the most difficult challenges of content marketing is generating blog topics and ideas. Often, the largest amount of time is spent trying to come up with the topic rather than writing the blog post. However, there are many resources and tools available to help you fill your content roadmap with blog topics and ideas for the weeks and months ahead. The following are our seven go-to tools and tactics to generate blog topics of value to your audience.
1. Online enquiries
Your online enquiries and customer emails can contain a treasure trove of potential valuable blog post ideas. Analyze the most frequently asked questions across the last 6-12 months and generate some content ideas based on these queries. Not only can this help to discover angles for blog posts but you will also be creating live content that may help future prospects with similar queries.
2. Keyword research
Another way to discover the questions that people are most frequently asking about your products or services is to conduct keyword research. Use a free tool such as the Google Keyword Planner to quickly discover an array of potential content ideas based on the searches your target market are performing on a monthly basis.
3. HubSpot Blog Topic Generator
If you are new to blogging, the HubSpot Blog Topic Generator can really help to create an initial selection of blog titles for your content roadmap. This free tool provides a multitude of generic blog titles based on the keywords entered. Remember, the tool is an automatic generator which uses an algorithm to return results, so you may need to alter the results to meet your needs.
4. Research shareable content
Often, producing the most innovative and engaging blog ideas requires a simple analysis of content that is currently being shared. Tools such as BuzzSumo deliver insights into the content related to your products, services and industry which has received the most traction and engagement on social media (e.g. Twitter re-tweets, Facebook likes and shares).
If a frequently shared post offers “20 Ways to Reduce Business Packaging Costs” for your speciality, could you improve on this and create the “ultimate guide” on this topic featuring “40 Ways to Reduce Spend on Packaging Supplies”?
5. Forums and social media
Any online conversation about your industry, products or services can serve up valuable insights into the topics that your target audience are most interested in. Examples are industry forums, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, Twitter hashtags, questions on Ask.com or Quora.com.
6. Learn what’s topical
Keeping up to date with news and stories from your industry is another great way to generate content ideas. Perform a Google News search using keywords related to your business to learn about recent or upcoming legislative updates, incidents or success stories in your area which may form the basis of a blog post.
7. Competitor analysis
Competitor evaluation and analysis is important in terms of your content marketing efforts. Inspiration for your next blog can come from checking in on your competitors’ blogs. Great content ideas can also come from analysing the strategies of businesses in the same niche as you but who operate in a different geographical market.
By using a combination of all of these tools and tactics, you will quickly be able to fill up your content roadmap with lots of impactful and creative blog ideas for the coming weeks and months.
What are some of your top tips for generating ideas for content?
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