Blogs are the best way to help your SEO while offering value to your followers. A great article can draw in brand new customers and influence your audience to make choices. Educating consumers and positioning yourself as a thought leader are guaranteed ways to build a strong following. So, with all of those wonderful outcomes in mind, where do you start? Coming up with some dynamite blog topics is the first step. You may already have a few at the top of your mind now. But what do you do when your creative well runs dry? Here are nine methods for consistently generating great business blog topics.
1. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes
Start off by reminding yourself who you are writing for. If you have a buyers’ persona, now is the time to pull it out. All of your topics need to be something that will be interesting to that buyer. Think about what their pain points are and what questions they may have. Blog posts are also great to address common misconceptions or concerns that you know they may have.
2. Check out your competition
Routinely checking out your competitions’ blog is good practice and can spark your creativity. Investigate how much interaction they are getting from their posts to decide if people are interested in that topic or not. Also, consider how you could go further in depth or run with a specific idea from one of their blogs.
3. Build your toolbox
The worst thing you can do is just write about what you want to write about. If you are writing a blog for a heating and air company and you think that writing about the material ductwork is made out of would be fun, resist the urge. What you find interesting as someone who works in the industry won’t necessarily appeal to your audience. Use Google alerts, news aggregators and content discovery tools to find out what people are typing into their search bars for inspiration on what to write on, even if it seems boring to you. Get creative with different approaches and spins that offer valuable information while including those hot keywords.
4. Connect with influencers
Influencers (non-celebrities who feed content to a dedicated group of followers) are the future of marketing. Placing your content into the hands of influencers in your market is the best thing you can do for your business. They have a trusting group of followers that will take their word for your company. Sales advertising and language will work with influencers because they want to improve the lives of their followers. Their name is on the line with anything that they recommend. Your content must be accurate and valuable for them to even consider putting their name on it.
5. Poll your team for ideas
Every part of your team experiences a unique side of your industry. Those who communicate daily with customers will have a different understanding of your business than those who work in the field or manage your accounts. Don’t overlook your team as a valuable place for blog topic ideas. Depending on the size of your company, you may not have time or resources to hold a weekly or monthly brainstorming session, but you can still gather ideas. Create a weekly email chain for a time-efficient and convenient way to catch ideas as people have them. You can also put up a vision board dedicated to blog inspiration where people can pin up other articles or write down their own ideas. If you don’t get a lot of response, you can offer a small incentive like a free cup of coffee for the person with the most blog ideas each week.
6. Use social media
It probably goes without saying that you keep abreast of social media to know what is on your audience’s mind. While you may not see a ton of direct questions about your industry, you can get a feel for what is important to people. Work on connecting the things people interact with your industry.
7. Comparison articles
If you have hit a writer’s block, you can always churn out a comparison article. Comparisons are great because they do what consumers are already doing in their own mind. Compare two popular products or two things that are similar yet have a few unique differences. Another great thing about comparison articles is that your title is naturally a keyword. “What’s the difference between X and Y?” “Differences between X and Y?” “Why should I buy X over Y?” All of these are phrases that a consumer would search. There’s your SEO booster from the start!
8. Timed brainstorming session
Step out of the norm and break out some good old-fashioned paper and pencils. Create a web of ideas on paper to jog your creativity. Putting a five-minute time limit on this exercise is another great way to churn out ideas and block out your inhibitions (that little voice that says “That’s a dumb idea”).
9. Update an older blog post
If you are still stuck, look back over your old blog posts. Note which topics did well and others that no one responded to. Do any of the articles contain information that isn’t true anymore? You can update your old post to create a new post and remove any misleading information from your site.
