One of the first recommendations we normally give to our customers is to introduce a blog to their website. It’s a cost-effective way of adding growth to your website, targeting additional keywords, and improving your conversion rates.
Whilst it’s a great addition to any website, and generally doesn’t cost money to run, one thing it does consume is time. You need somebody who is able to write consistently good content that is useful for your audience, on a regular basis.
But, how do you keep the blog ideas coming? How do you know that you won’t just run out of ideas after a few months of blogging about your company?
We’re here to give you some tips on consistently coming up with great blog ideas for your website.
#1 – Keyword Research
As we said above, blogs are a great way to target a more diverse range of keywords. So, in order to find out what keywords you should be targeting (and, therefore, talking about in your blogs), an initial session of keyword research can be really useful.
Not only will it give you an idea of an array of topics related to your business, it can sometimes unveil popular conversational keywords that already represent a blog title.
For example, when researching keywords related to content marketing, we saw that the keyword phrase “what is content marketing?” receives over 5,000 average monthly searches. Then we went and wrote this beginner’s guide to content marketing.
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#2 – Keep an ideas list
“Why would I keep a list of blog ideas if I can’t come up with any ideas in the first place?” we hear you ask. Well, the point is that if you’re anything like us, you come up with your best ideas at the most inconvenient of times. By the time you’re sat in front of your screen, staring at a blank Word document, you’ve completely forgotten all the fantastic ideas you had throughout the day.
Start making a list of all the ideas as they pop into your head, either on your phone, in a notebook, or a document accessible through the cloud. If you’ve got some creative minds in your office, give them all access to the ideas file on your server, and watch it grow.
You can take these ideas as they are, or expand upon them further. Which brings us swiftly onto our next idea…
#3 – Expand upon what you’ve already got
Remember that one blog article (new bloggers, keep an eye out for it) that seemed to garner a lot more attention than usual? Use that.
Check through your best content to see if you’ve left anything out, and then expand upon it. If you’ve actually been really thorough and left no stone unturned within your literary masterpiece (well done, you) then look at related subjects that can link back to the original.
As well, you can look to your content on the actual pages of your website for inspiration. If any part of your content could be expanded upon, write a blog about it and link between the two.
If neither of them works, you could try Tip #4…
#4 – Expand upon what other people have got
If you’ve checked through all your content and found nothing that can be expanded upon, try looking towards your competitors. We’re not saying you should go and steal their ideas, or straight-up copy their content, but you can use theirs to get inspired.
At Fifteen, we do it a lot without even realising. All our team members are subscribed to various blogs from people in our industry (in addition to receiving updates straight from the source), and it inspires us daily. By reading content from other people, you can learn more about different aspects of your industry, and apply that to your blog ideas.
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#5 – Listen to your audience
Nobody knows more about what your audience wants to read than your audience themselves. Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback, or to ask users what it is that they want.
Encourage comments and emails. Talk to your customers on social media. Scan through related forums, social media groups, and other online communities. Find anything that will give you an indication as to what your audience is talking about, and what questions they have.