Fact: Businesses that blog get 55 percent more site traffic than those that don’t.
Fact: Consistent, relevant blog posts do more than showcase your expertise for potential customers. Businesses that publish content regularly have 434 percent more indexed pages. The more indexed pages you have, the better your site’s chances are to appear in search results.
Fact: Coming up with fresh topics for next week’s blog post – and the week after that – can be downright daunting.
I don’t have a stat, but I’m willing to bet “topic-itis” is the number one reason why so many blogs go silent after that first flurry of posts. There’s a honeymoon period right after you launch your blog. You have a list of important things to share with your audience. The ideas are flowing and the blogs are posting.
Then it happens. You come down with a case of topic-itis. Your mind is blank. You can’t think of a single thing to blog about. Is there a cure? Yes. Better yet, blog topic-itis is preventable.
Don’t panic: How to find fresh blog topics
First, having a plan goes a long way toward ensuring your blog posts happen regularly. Start by mapping out your content marketing strategy and defining the role for your blog. From there, build a content calendar with realistic timelines for creating each post – including a process for generating topics well in advance.
<Related: The case for content marketing: How to make it work for your small business>
Plan in place, there are five key things you can do to build and maintain a steady topic pipeline for your blog.
1. Go exploring. Here’s where to look.
Cultivate your curiosity to keep the ideas coming. The best advice is to put a little structure into the web surfing that you likely already do on a daily basis. Carve out 30 minutes each day to explore what’s out there related to your field, your focus, and your competition.
Then, be an active participant in what’s happening in your industry, whether it’s financial planning or plumbing. Join online communities, follow key influencers, and set up Google Alerts on key topics. If you need a news aggregator, Feedly offers a user-friendly option. You choose the topics and sources, and then check in for a one-stop look at your customized feed. Not only will you keep your news feed up to speed, but you’ll also find plenty of inspiration for blog posts.
Ongoing competitive analysis is also critical for content marketing success. Make it a practice to check in on the types of posts your competitors are producing and what’s resonating based on your target keywords. Buzzsumo and Ubersuggest are tools that can help you analyze competing content. Just enter your competitor’s blog site url or your keywords. The results will show you the content that’s driving visits and getting shared.
2. Unplug and blogstorm.
Once you have tailored information organized and coming in, the next step is synthesizing it to fit your content marketing strategy and business objectives. Just as you set aside time to review information, set a regular time for brainstorming.
Traditionally, brainstorming is thought of as a group activity. And, while that’s definitely a good option, practicing individual brainstorming is essential for formulating your ideas. In fact, research shows that brainstorming on your own may be more effective because you don’t get caught up in worrying about what other people think.
Identify the time of day when you’re at your most creative. Maybe you get your best ideas early in the morning or maybe you’re a night owl. It’s different for everyone but if you experiment with it, it shouldn’t be hard to find your peak idea hour. When you do, it becomes a matter of scheduling some distraction-free time to do some blog brainstorming, also known as blogstorming!
Minimize distractions during your blogstorming time as much as you can. Hide your phone so there’s no temptation to check your texts, social media, or email. It also helps to get away from any office or home distractions. Whether that’s the park or the local coffee shop is up to you – as long as it sparks your creativity.
A helpful brainstorming technique to try is mind mapping. Take a sheet of paper and write an idea in the middle of the page. Draw a circle around it and then start adding related ideas as they come to you. Connect them back to your original circled idea with lines. When something feels like a separate, stand-alone idea, give it its own circle. Each mind map is free-form and unique. (Of course, there’s an app for mind-mapping if old-school pen and paper don’t work for you. Look for MindNode in your app store.)
The purpose of mind mapping is to capture everything you think of, without making judgments about quality or applicability. After you get the hang of mind mapping, you’ll likely walk away from a single brainstorming session with several viable blog post ideas.
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3. Seek questions.
Customer questions are a go-to source for blog topics. Based on what your clients are asking about, you should be able to develop several solid blog posts that share information and offer guidance. Don’t stop with just the questions your team is getting directly. Tap into the comments section on your site, related community sites, and even your competitor’s web content.
The auto-complete feature in Google and Bing is another source for understanding the types of answers people are looking for. When you type the beginning of a search query, check out the suggestions that the search engine serves up based on common search inputs. Go one step further by using a cool, free tool called Answer the Public. It compiles auto-complete data and presents it for your topic areas via a data visualization of the different search questions.
Questions give you a jumping off point for post ideas on how you can share insights, create detailed how-tos, and differentiate your point of view. Look for opportunities to tie in and explain recent industry developments or headlines to further showcase your expertise.
Extra idea: Add Quora.com to your regular info sources. If you aren’t familiar, Quora offers a forum for people to post questions and get answers about anything. When you’re stuck for topics, take a look at posted questions related to your niche for inspiration. (You can also answer questions directly on Quora. When you do, be sure to include a link to additional information on your website to drive traffic and potential leads.)
<Related: 4 Don’ts, 9 Dos: How to create blog posts people want to read>
4. Tell a story.
When it comes to topic ideas, there’s no better source than the stories that you have collected. More than anything your blog readers want to make a human connection. By sharing a story, you instantly bring a personalized element to your business and your products. There are unlimited possibilities.
- Write about your entrepreneurial journey
- Write about a success or a failure
- Share an “if I knew then what I know now” story about what you would do differently if you had the chance
- Tell a customer’s story
- Share a behind-the-scenes story about why you developed a particular product or service
- Write about what inspired you along the way
Through regular storytelling, you’ll uncover topics that you can easily turn into full-blown case studies or downloadable white papers that enhance your content marketing strategy.
<Related: No more FOW: 10 tips to help busy small business owners write with ease >
<Related: Cultivating creativity: 3 resolutions to get fresh ideas flowing >
5. Capture your light bulb moments.
Most importantly, establish a process for capturing your topic ideas. They’re likely to strike at inconvenient times – in the shower, on your commute, at a sporting event. Jot them in a notes app on your phone, text them to yourself, or carry a small notebook. Whatever you do, don’t lose a thought when it crosses your mind just because you don’t have time to explore it right then and there.
Do the same with things that inspire you – pictures, articles, or quotations. Set up a repository on your computer or pin items via Pinterest as you come across them. That way, you have a ready-made idea file when it’s time to develop your next set of blog topics.
Be sure to give each idea its 15 minutes of fame. Don’t feel like you have to jam every insight into a single post. Think about creating a series of posts about an umbrella topic or pull a point from a past blog that you can expand on to create a new post.
<Related: 4.5 reasons to outsource your blog>
Keeping your blog fresh and relevant is key to your content marketing strategy. Prevent blog topic-itis with a solid plan to keep your idea pipeline flowing. And, when you’re in a pinch for a post, Write Hand Ann can help you blogstorm, write a post or two, or execute your blog plan end-to-end. Blog on!
