In the early stages of creating content, you may rely on your own mind and skills to generate new ideas. While this can work to begin with, there will inevitably come a time when your topic reserve runs dry. At that point, you might look to the professionals and wonder how they manage to keep churning out one original article after another.
The answer is that they use a system, which provides them with the tools and resources they need to consistently post compelling content. Your approach here depends on which strategies most effectively meet your needs, so feel free to experiment using different methods. That said, let’s discuss how to come with new blog topics quickly and easily.
Article Breakdown
Keep an Idea File
As you begin to research titles and topics for your blog, it helps to have somewhere to store those ideas so that you can return to them later. An idea file is also convenient for quickly capturing thoughts when inspiration strikes. Moreover, you can use it as a steady source of content whenever you’re stumped.
There are various apps and software that you can use to digitize and streamline this process. Notion, for example, allows note taking on any device with attachments and other useful features. They even have a free content calendar template made specifically for bloggers.
Another useful tool that you can use is a concept map maker. This type of software works as a virtual whiteboard for efficiently putting together ideas while maintaining an organized overview of the bigger picture. What’s great is that you can also collaborate with others on your team to create content together through these tools.
Determine What Your Audience Wants
Ensure that you understand what kind of content your readers want from you.
Start by considering the problems they might want to see solutions for. What are they most interested in getting advice or guidance on? You already know the general theme of your blog, so use that as a steppingstone if you’re struggling. For example, assume you’re running a blog primarily focused on healthy living.
In that case, your audience is probably expecting information about diet, exercise, sleep, and other aspects of health and wellness. So, simply pick one of those areas and go from there. Let’s choose fitness. You can head over to a site such as Ubersuggest and enter that as a keyword.
On the left sidebar is a “keyword ideas” tab. You can select that to generate suggestions. Each result is associated with a set of data, including details such as the average number of times that term is searched in Google each month, and the estimated competition for your chosen keyword.
You can use this information to get a better idea as to whether the content you’re planning on posting aligns with your audience’s preferences and will bring you the results you want to see.
Check Your Competitors
You can learn a lot from the successes and failures of your fellow bloggers. Exposing yourself to the kind of content you want to see on your own website is useful for several reasons. Not only can you use it as a source of inspiration and ideas, but also to identify trends and see how readers respond to specific topics (by looking at comment sections).
You can stay on top of the content being published in your niche in a number of ways, including:
- Using a feed reader such as Feedly or NewsBlur to subscribe to your blogs of choice
- Signing up to your favorite publishers’ newsletters
- Setting a time in your schedule for catching up and reading designated blogs
While you shouldn’t hesitate to emulate ideas that you believe will be successful, it’s important to sufficiently iterate on the content. Your version should be an improvement that is more unique and valuable to readers.
Ask Your Audience
Speaking of readers, there’s only so much you can assume about them from a distance. Directly getting in touch with your audience can bring a wealth of additional information for you to use when coming up with new blog topics.
There are numerous ways to make this happen. Among the simplest are asking newsletter subscribers to reply to your emails or fill out a short survey related to your content. You can also ask your followers on social media or start a private community on Discourse, Circle, or whichever chat platform your audience prefers.
Delivering the exact content your readers ask you for has the added benefit of showing that you care about them and are genuinely interested in solving their problems, which greatly improves your public image.
Use Targeted Searches
Not every blogger has a community of readers who they can ask for topic ideas. This is essentially nonexistent when you’re just starting out. In any case, you can ask the internet instead with targeted searches.
Start by thinking about the types of questions your audience would be asking with regards to your topic. You can make this easier by looking through discussion hubs such as Quora and Reddit. You can also use social media platforms like Twitter to find out what people are talking about on a particular subject, especially when it comes to current trends.
In doing so, you can come across an abundance of ideas and inspiration for your blog. It’s one situation where throwing yourself down an internet rabbit hole is actually productive.
Build on Existing Content
You don’t necessarily have to focus entirely on creating new topics. Take a look at your analytics history and pay attention to your most successful publications. Those that still bring a steady stream of readers are worth considering.
Think about how you can expand on this content, be it with a follow-up or a new and improved version of that article. Either way, building on existing articles is a strategy to keep in mind during dry spells.
With a solid content creation system in place, you’ll always have something new and unique to write about. All that’s left is to get started!