Ruth Adeyemi If you are a blogger, then I’m very sure that you have at one point in your blogging journey fail to show up when expected. But first, I want you to understand that coming up with blog post ideas is one of the challenges common to bloggers in any niche, coupled with the pressure of building consistency through your content.
I mean, I get it; blogging can be difficult at times, and trying to show up consistently can become so frustrating that you might want to give up completely.
Chances are you’re reading this post to learn how to come up with blog post ideas and how to do it consistently so that you will increase your website traffic, organic search, engagement, return on investment (ROI), and so on.
Blogging has never been a walk-in-the-park but with good strategies, you can become a pro at coming up with ideas and creating contents that will appeal to your target audience consistently.
The challenge of content consistency is something that can be effectively dealt with forever.
Yes, you heard me right!
With a working strategy that includes all the right tools and resources at your disposal, this particular hiccup will soon be a thing of the past.
In this post, I shared working strategies that several bloggers have used and are still using that will improve your productivity, help you come up and create valuable blog content for your audience.
READ TILL THE END – I HAVE 40 BLOG POST IDEAS FOR YOU
How to come up with blog post ideas
1. Figure out what your audience wants.
This step is unarguably the first and most important step in your journey to coming up with great blog post ideas. To come up with a blog post at all, put into perspective its relevance; that is, it must cater to the needs of your audience.
Once you’ve figured out what your audience wants and needs; what they’re searching for, then you can go ahead with every other means to come up with blog post ideas.
2. Keep a post or content idea bank.
Your post or content bank could be a handy notepad/journal, a shareable folder on your phone, Pinterest board, file on your computer, or any other recording (hardware/software) material, which you keep for storing ideas and most importantly, your bank should be something you can easily access anywhere!
The benefit of keeping a content idea bank is that you don’t have to gather the ideas all at once (trust me, this can frustrate you on various levels and you can get inspiration blocks easily due to pressure); you get to collect them bit by bit.
So, as you go about your daily activities and come across an idea that is beneficial to your audience, you can store them in your bank whenever and wherever. This way, coming up with a blog post is one step easier because you will have a reservoir of ideas.
3. Get to know your audience (1)
ASK QUESTIONS!
Your audience are not the only ones that should ask questions, you need to also hear from them. Communication is a two-way street.
When you effectively figure out what your audience needs, you can create blog posts that will answer and satisfy them. There is an adage in that says ‘he who wears the shoe, knows where it pinches’
For example, it is not enough for me to know you are hungry, I also need to be able to know what food you would love to eat, if you have any allergies or health requirements. All these additional information will help me serve you better and satisfy you.
The same is applicable here. Ask your audience what they would prefer for a better service. Get to know them beyond the niche level; know their pain points, weaknesses, common challenges and know where you can help.
Interestingly, there are several ways to ask your audience, some of which are:
● Creating a survey – While creating a survey, keep in mind that you need the answers provided. You also don’t want to bore or overwhelm your audience so that there won’t be any reason for them not to give those answers.
Data from SurveyMonkey shows that survey abandon rates increase for surveys that took more than 7-8 minutes to complete with completion rates dropping anywhere from 5-20%.
So, what to do?
Keep your survey questions simple and straight to the point.
You can create free surveys using the platforms; SurveyMonkey, Zoomerang, and Online Surveys.
● Quiz – They’re a great way to interact with your audience. The best part is you don’t need a big budget to organize or create a quiz.
As with a survey, you need to make sure the quiz questions are not too long and boring because the responsiveness of your audience depends on these factors.
4. Get to know your audience (2).
Pay attention to the comments of your audience!
Should they be asking questions, know that they need more information on that topic. The questions they ask in the comment sections can be the pain point you will address in your next blog post. As a blogger, don’t limit the platforms where you get to know your audience to just your blog sites, you can check out the blog sites of others in your niche and read the comments.
If at all there are no questions, it might be contributions or gratitude which will help you pinpoint the posts that are of value to your target audience from the ones that are not.
You can also engage in communities where your audience is already active; listen to their comments and discussions.
5. Check your email letter clicks.
If you already send out email letters, reviewing and tracking the clicks to the links embedded in each mail is another way to see what your audience is interested in.
If you’ve not been sending out email letters to your audience, then you need to start now because it is one of the ways to build a personal relationship with your audience. This is crucial and advantageous to your brand and helps increase engagement with your brand.
Check out the advantages of email marketing HERE: 5 Great tips for your next effective email marketing campaign.
6. Leverage your personal experiences.
You should never run out of blog post ideas when you have personal experiences. Tap into an unending stream of ideas with your personal experience that applies to your audience.
Good reasons you should consider your personal experiences to help in coming up with post ideas are.
● They are original.
● They are unique.
● They are more engaging.
● They make your brand more humanized.
● They are relatable.
● They make your audience feel more connected.
So, why not?
This one is pretty simple. First, you search other blogs (competitor blogs) in your niche, especially blogs that cater to your type of audience, and subscribe to their newsletters.
This is an easy, free and harmless way to stay abreast of updates in your field and learn from your seniors in the industry (almost like a kind of long-distance mentoring).
Have trends, news, discussions that apply to your niche delivered directly to your inbox. Finally, use the topics covered in these emails to generate new content ideas.
8. Website of competitors.
Your competitors’ blogs are great places to gain access to post/content ideas. The idea is not to copy and paste. It is to serve your audience better.
When you get to your competitor’s website, all you need to do is find out what topics they’ve covered that you haven’t and note down the ideas. Use your SEO magic and tweak them to suit your audience’s consumption better and maintain originality.
9. FAQs.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are great reservoirs of blog post ideas. They reflect the needs of your audience and serve as a host of more insights that will enrich your knowledge of what they are searching for.
Some FAQs pages to check out are.
● Wikipedia
● YouTube
● Amazon
Upon searching for an idea or a keyword on Google, the result pages show top-ranking posts on that subject. When you scroll down to the bottom of those results, you’ll find related searches to your initially searched idea or keyword. These related searches are what people search for too. From there, you can come up with an idea or two or even more for your blog posts.
You can also use Google autocomplete to find out what questions your audience is asking about a particular topic.
11. Industry statistics.
Industry Statistics capture information and provide readily available insights used for targeting purposes, such as gender, age, geographic location, communication preferences. This information will make you aware of the activities of your audience, which will further serve as internal data with which you can make informed decisions and write well-informed and helpful blog posts.
12. Employ quotes.
Quotes are excellent inspiration for blog post ideas. From inspirational to statistical, educational, testimonials, and even humorous, you can choose different quotes.
For some, reading through quotes has a way of sparking ideas to write on. You can easily employ this method.
Inspiration hits in the strangest of places. You can also follow some of the well-renowned figures in your niche on their social media accounts, attend their webinars and live sessions.
13. Follow trends.
Trends are easy ways to come up with exciting post ideas. You could browse through trending topics or activities at any time and identify hot ideas for your next blog post.
When you follow recent trends, you end up giving value when it is most needed.
14. Psychology blogs.
Psychology blogs write on various topics, cutting across different niches. They serve as excellent sources for content ideas.
15. Competitor’s YouTube channels.
You can approach YouTube channels as you would Google search: type in the subject you’re searching for, and several suggestions would come up. You can get ideas from the suggestions’ topics and within the videos’ content.
In addition, when you watch a video, there will be related videos on the sidebar for you to consider as well.
16. Podcast.
The title and content of podcasts can be a rich source to get blog post ideas. You can check out podcasts of influencers in your niche and coin a good number of ideas from them.
17. Refurbish your old contents.
Scan through your old content and draw ideas from the topics and content.
You can bring to life again some of them which contain outdated information, or you can create ideas that buttress a leading point from your previous posts. Either way, refurbishing your old content is a way to go!
18. Pinterest suggestions.
Pinterest also works just like Google search. When you type in the search box, suggestions pop up, and you get to see the top searches related to the search you are making. And there! You’ll have a lot of ideas in your bank.
40 Blog Post Ideas That Will Increase Your Website Traffic
Having listed how to come up with blog post ideas, here’s a compiled list of blog post ideas that cuts across all niches to get you started:
- Address some common questions that people ask you (related to your niche).
- Curate statistics that your readers are interested in.
- Inspirational quotes for your niche.
- Share a behind-the-scenes(BTS) moment.
- Review a product.
- Write on an industry myth.
- Write on the biggest happening trends in your industry.
- Present a solution to the problem of your target audience.
- A list of FAQs.
- What helps you to be creative.
- Teach tips and tricks.
- A list of things you wish you knew before you started.
- Tips that didn’t work for you.
- Hacks on relatable tasks in your industry.
- Interview a thought leader in your industry.
- Profile customers/readers.
- Make a list of tips and tricks that you’ve used and have worked for you.
- Write on ‘must-read’ books for trending subjects in your industry.
- Explore and explain productivity tips in your industry.
- Write about the challenges you faced in your business and how you overcame them.
- Create a guide to something in your industry.
- Do a Q&A session.
- Highlight your takeaway from an industry event you attended physically or virtually.
- Make a list of influential people in your niche and highlight what they do to make them stand out.
- Write on your predictions of the future in your industry.
- Create a list of needful resources in your niche.
- Write on a popular misconception in your industry.
- Share a routine.
- Write on the best piece of advice that you’ve ever received and how it has helped you.
- Interview an industry influencer.
- Compile a list of movies that are related to your niche.
- Compile a list of advice from top industry experts in your niche.
- Curate a list of your favorite podcast channels on a relevant subject.
- Share your insights about popular trends in your industry.
- Highlight tips that can improve the efficiency of your target audience.
- Profile your best customers.
- Share a list of skills that will be in demand in your industry in the future.
- Make a list of events people in your industry should attend.
- Share a list of productivity tools/apps and how they work.
- List top influencers that inspire you.
While it can be challenging to come up with blog post ideas for blogs or social media content, this post has armed you with tools and resources that can help you build a working system. The working system ensures you have a productive blogging journey and great website traffic growth. The hope is that you make good use of the system.
Note that after coming up with the blog post ideas, there are still a lot of steps ahead before you can be able to create a fully optimized SEO-blog post.
STAY TUNED for our next blog post on SEO-writing for a more detailed explanation of the SEO-writing process.
English
Coming up with blogging ideas on a regular basis can be a challenge, so it’s good to know that there are strategies that can make this considerably easier. Great resources shared here!
Thank you, Michael!