‘What would I write about anyway’ is the single most common thing I hear when I ask a business owner about blogging. They are convinced there is nothing interesting to say about their industry, or that their customers don’t want to hear it.
It’s the one that always baffles me, because there’s always so much to talk about! But I’m a person who thinks in blogs – I’m always seeing ways to put information into blog posts no matter where I am. My friends find it a bit annoying! And since I know not everyone has the weird content brain I do, I’ve put together a beginner’s guide to generating blog ideas for your business, no matter what industry you’re in.
Your Clients
Your clients are a wonderful resource for blogs, and they’re right at your fingertips! Don’t worry, you don’t need to go and ask them what you should blog about (though you can if you want!). Instead, just ask yourself these 5 questions:
- What questions do you hear from prospects during initial sales meetings?
- When clients have been working with you for a while, what do they ask you?
- Why do they ask you those questions? What knowledge are they missing?
- What do you think your customers or prospects will need to know?
- What information do people need to know about what you do?
Try to remove any ‘process’ questions from these answers – like what your prices are, returns periods etc. All of that information is great, but it’s not blog material. Instead, you’re looking for things like ‘how can you help me with X’ or ‘How does Y work anyway?’
Believe it or not, that will get you a pretty decent list to start with. But since blogging isn’t all about selling your services, let’s look at the other options.
Your Competition
Another goldmine of ideas is your competition. Set yourself aside some time to do research, and get snooping! Find 5 of your main competitors, and peruse their websites. What kind of things are they blogging about that you could put your own spin on? What’s on their FAQ page that would make a good post? Hop over to their social media pages and see what they’re posting about and what their customers are saying to them. Are they missing anything that you could talk about? Look at what’s going on in your industry – could you put your own opinions into a blog? Again, this should give you a nice long list of topic ideas to get you started.
Web Tools
If all else fails, turn to Google! The internet is a bubbling cauldron boiling over with ideas and inspiration. These are a few of my favourite places to find ideas if you’re feeling stuck:
Google: Typing in each of your services or even your industry can give you some great article ideas (once you scroll past the ads).
The ‘people also asked’ box: When you search for something on Google, a box will appear a few results down titled ‘People Also Asked’. This provides a list of real queries people have put into Google that are related to your search. Look through them all – could you answer those questions in a blog?
Answer The Public: A great online tool for SEO and topic generation. Type in your keyword, and it will spit out thousands of genuine search results for you to use.
Hubspot: Hubspot is very much the hub of all things content marketing, so is it any surprise they have their own blog topic generation tool? Plug in some basic details and off you go!
These tools help answer the big question – what do my customers want to read about? With that knowledge, all you’ve got to do is answer their questions!
And if all that still isn’t enough, talk to your friendly neighbourhood copywriter! I offer blog planning and topic generation sessions starting at just £75, so you can crack on creating content all year long. Drop me a line and book your session today.