Writing blog posts can be a great way to improve your site’s ranking in the search engines. At the same time, engaging articles can motivate your audience to visit your site again or to make a purchase. Blog posts should definitely be part of your marketing strategy. But how do you come up with great ideas for your blog? What to do if you suffer from writer’s block and just don’t know what to write about? Not to worry, I’ve got your back: in this post, I’ll discuss 11 ways to come up with ideas for blog posts.
What does your audience want?
You should always make sure to write something that your audience, potential visitors and customers care about. In coming up with new ideas, it makes sense to consider the opinion of your audience.
1. Check out blog posts that perform well on your site
Log into your Analytics account to see which of your current posts have the most visitors. These are the posts your audience likes best. Can you write more about these topics, choosing a different approach, in a new blog post?
Make sure to check the comments of these well-performing blog posts. Which questions do your visitors have? And could you answer these in a new blog post?
2. Keyword research
Keyword research is probably the best way to figure out what your potential audience wants to read about. Which terms are people using when searching for information online? Doing keyword research should be at the very core of every content strategy. You’re writing blog posts because you want people to read them. It makes sense to optimize for terms people are searching for and to use the words your audience is using.
You should really invest in doing an in-depth keyword analysis. However, I can imagine that you don’t always have the time to go all in. Please do check Google Trends when you have to find a topic you want to write about. Check whether you are focussing on the right terms.
For example: should you focus on pet nutrition or pet food in your articles? Google Trends is pretty clear about this one: please focus on pet food.
3. Customer reviews
If your customers have left reviews about your product or service, that could be a great inspiration for a new blog post. Read through their reviews. Are there any questions they ask about your product or service? What comments are made very regularly? Could you write a post to explain more about that specific aspect of your product or service?
4. Ask your audience
Ask your audience what they would like to read. Occasionally, send out a survey (by email) or via a pop-up on your website. You can also ask people on social media. Be careful not to make the survey too long. Just a few questions in which you ask people about their preferences for content on your website. And perhaps let them to suggestions about what they would like to read on your blog.
You can also talk to people in real life. Perhaps you go to events in your niche and meet potential clients there. Ask them what information they are looking for, or what information they would need to buy your product or service. That could really help you to figure out new topics to blog about.
What do other people write about?
Next to focussing on your audience and figuring out what they want to read, you can check what other people and other websites are writing about. Getting inspiration from other websites is a great way to come up with new ideas for your blog!
5. Other websites
Checking out your competitor’s websites is a great way to get inspiration for a blog post. I would recommend taking a look at what topics your competitors are writing about, and try not to read the entire article. Just browsing through the title is sufficient. If you just check out the title, you’ll have a topic, but you’ll be able to make the story of your own. Once you’ve read the entire article, it can be difficult to come up with a different angle. And the last thing you want to do is copy your competitor’s content. You’re better than that!
6. Social media
Check out what topics are trending on social media. What are people – in your niche-passionate about on Instagram, X or TikTok? Could you make a longer article out of that?
7. Use research/ data from (scientific) studies
A great way to come up with ideas for blog posts is to check out research and data from studies. If you have a marketing agency and write a lot about new marketing tools, you could check out websites that publish statistics on media usage. And make a great article out of that. But even if you sell clothes or shoes, you could write articles about innovations in new materials for instance. Don’t forget to properly link to the (scientific) article when writing your blog post!
Current events
Another great way to get inspired to write new articles is to use current events as topics for your articles. Can you link current events to your product or service? Would take make sense.
8. Seasonal topics
Try to think of topics that are relevant at a certain time of the year. Posts about the holidays in November and December, posts about cleaning up your house in early spring. If you sell clothes, you could for instance write something about summer festivals – and what clothes to wear – right before the start of summer.
Writing about topics that are relevant in a certain season is brilliant. People will want to read the things they care about in that specific season. They’ll search for that information as well.
9. Days Of The Year
Check out the website Days Of The Year regularly. This website collects all the funny, bizarre and nice holidays the world has. There are days available for every niche. March 20th is International Happiness Day, while August 2nd is Coloring Book Day. If you have a food blog, you might want to do something with deviled eggs on November 2nd.
10. News
Follow the news and get inspired by everything that’s happening in the world. Can you link the news to things you normally write about on your blog? Could you find an angle that’ll give a different perspective on the news and ties in with your product or service?
Writing about newsworthy things is a good way to draw attention. People like reading about the news and about things that are happening right now.
11. Use experiences from your own life
Did you visit any events lately? Or talked to anyone in your industry? Personal encounters often lead to inspiration. In your line of work, you probably meet plenty of people. These people could be clients, partners or competitors. The conversations you have with these people could perhaps be turned into a blog post. So, think back: what did you last talk about with your competitor?
How about ChatGPT?
Making ChatGPT write your entire blog post is a bad idea. We’ve seen Google punishing sites for creating content with AI. So, I would not advise you to do that. That doesn’t mean, though, that you can’t use ChatGPT to come up with new ideas for your blog. Make a list of topics you’ve already written about and ask ChatGPT to come up with some new ideas. You could also make a list of titles and ask him to come up with new blog post titles. ChatGPT could be a big help to come up with new ideas and to come up with a specific angle to make your article stand out from all the other articles on the internet.
Pick a topic and go!?
All set! You now have 11 ways of coming up with new topics. You’re good to go. Right? Writing can be hard. I’m not going to lie about that. Coming up with a topic for your new blog post might seem like the hardest part of writing a blog, but it’s not. Writing a compelling introduction, structuring your thoughts into something coherent and closing off with an inspirational conclusion. It’s a pretty complicated process. Stay tuned here on the Progress Planner blog, with more tips and tricks on how to make writing easier! You can do it!