Consistency is crucial in blogging. This means sticking to your publishing schedule and publishing quality content that is relevant to your target audience. It is, however, not always easy to find the right topic.
If you are like most small business owners, you struggle coming up with a stream of blog topics to write about. It gets much easier, however, if you start looking in the right places for inspiration. Today we are sharing 8 places to search for new business blog ideas and inspiration.
8 Ways to Create Business Blog Ideas You Need to Know
A great blog is a delightfully layered sandwich and each blog topic adds another layer of flavor for the person consuming it. A blog should be informative, fun (recommended, but not necessary), and engaging enough for the casual reader to sign up as a subscriber. To serve that subscriber, a blog also needs to be consistent. You’ve got to show up to deliver to that now faithful follower the goods you promised: your advice and information.
The one complaint we consistently hear from clients and other business owners is: “I just don’t know what to write about.” This tends to lead to one of two things:
- They write what interests them versus writing what their audience needs
- They just stop writing.
If you struggle with finding new topics to write about, try turning to one of the sources below for generating ideas and improving your blog content strategy.
1. Top Customer Queries
Your customers are your best source for finding new content. So start with what they are asking you for!
Write a series of ‘how-to’ posts on frequently asked customer queries raised in person or via phone and email. These blogs should focus on the how, why, when, and whom of your business. For instance, if you have just started a nanny business, the initial blog posts could be ‘things to consider while hiring a nanny’, ‘why a nanny is better than daycare’, and ‘tips for making your nanny stay’.
2. Other Blogs
Follow popular niche blogs in your industry as well as blogs of your competition to see what is being written. You can use these blog topics to inspire ideas for your next blog. Just be careful to not copy that content, but use it to inspire a unique perspective/experience on the subject that you can share with your readers.
3. Online Visitor Comments
If you have readers or followers that are willing to leave comments on your blog or social platforms, read those for inspiration! You’d be amazed what little nuggets you can find in some of those threads that inspire new topic ideas.
4. Current Trends
Is there something happening in the national or local news that relates to your business? Are there changes to your industries regulations or laws that impact your customers? If so, take the opportunity to capitalize on these opportunities to offer your expertise on the subject and educate your audience.
5. Keyword Phrases
If you are blogging, you MUST have a list of keyword phrases that are part of your blogging strategy, right? Use your list of keyword phrases to search for products/service similar to yours using Google or other tools like BuzzSumo. By using this method to find topic ideas, you know you’ll be targeting content that your specific audience is craving and needs.
6. Guest Posts
Do you know another blogger or expert that writes content that is valuable to your audience? Invite them to write a guest post for your blog! Not only is this an effective way to get new content for your site, it’s also a great way to expand your reach by asking the guest blogger to share the content (and your site) with their community of readers and followers.
7. Online Tools
Online tools are a great way to find out what is hot in your blog niche right now. Here is a list of free online resources you can use to search for ideas:
- Google Trends – See what people are currently searching for on the internet
- Google Keywords Planner
- Sign up on Q&A sites like Quora
- Use tools like Evernote to organize and save web content that’s interesting to you.
8. Real-life Conversations
One way to get the ideas flowing is to converse with others. Attend Meetup’s and participate in industry events and see what people are talking about.
Having a great blog that supports your business takes quite a bit of time and energy. But, if you use smart strategies and tools you can take some of the stress and effort out of the process to ensure that you are consistently delivering valuable content your readers need and appreciate.
How do you come up with new blog topics? Share with us in the comments below.
Comments are closed.