Top Tips and Resources for Building Blog Topics Your Audience Will Love

Now that you have a blog, what do you do? Now it's time for the most important question in content marketing: What should you blog about on your company website? Topics and themes are essential for content planning. They should relate directly to your audience's problems and solutions.

Finding the right blog topics can be difficult and prevent your content marketing from taking off. It's time for you to start thinking about what topics to blog about. Here are some tips, ideas, as well as resources.

Quick Takeaways

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  A blog without a strategy and plan is a waste of time and effort.
  
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  You can create endless blog topics with the right resources.
  
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  Use resources to measure social media engagement and generate ideas.
  
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  Search both internally and outside for blog ideas.
  

Without a content strategy and plan, blogging is pointless

Bloggy for the sake of blogging is not a winning strategy. Your blog's primary goal should be to get new customers. This means that you need a solid content strategy. A content strategy is crucial to choosing the topics for your blog. It sets the tone for how you will deliver content to your target buyers and delivers the return on investment (ROI) you expect.

Content strategy is the foundation on which all topics can grow. If you don't already have one, create one before you start to think about topic creation.

Now it's time to plan your content strategy. The execution of your strategy is content planning. This is where you start the journey to learn what topics to write about and what formats to use. It also helps you to distribute and promote your content effectively.

Once you have a strategy and a plan, it is time to use your resources to decide what topics to blog about on the website.

Keyword Research Tools

Your organic search rankings are dependent on your blog. Most buyers will search Google for any type of information. Your content must be optimized for specific search terms.

Content marketers can use keyword research to find topics that will appeal to their audience. Keyword research can be used in many ways to help you decide what topic to blog about.

What is Google Auto-Suggesting for Searchers?

Google will immediately display auto-completes based on the most popular search terms.

By typing “healthcare data breach” into Google, you get a list of relevant queries.

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Although this is one way to find ideas, it can be tedious. Keyword Tool is a powerful tool that does all the work for you. It takes the keyword you enter and generates suggestions based upon Google search volumes. You can get limited information from the free version, but you can upgrade to pro for a much more complete list.

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Ask the right questions

Voice search is enabling users to ask questions during searches. QuestionDB is a great tool to help you capture search traffic. This tool is designed to collect questions about a topic and give you ideas for blog topics. Start with a broad phrase.

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Google Keyword Planner

You can also use Google's Keyword Planner to get more than just Google suggestions. You can use its features to get a lot of information about what your audience is searching online. Simply enter a phrase and it will return up to 800 similar phrases.

The best thing about the tool is its ability to provide insights on average monthly searches for the word and the level competition, which can be useful in helping you identify potential opportunities.

Google Trends

Google Trends allows you to find suggestions and also provides information about the trends over time. It is possible that certain topics are most popular at specific times throughout the year. You might notice a spike in searches related to data breaches during National Cyber Security Awareness Month in October. This is because there is more content being created and IT professionals are aware of it.

Trends can be used to compare topics and identify which topic is trending up. This knowledge will help you prioritize topics better.

Get blog ideas based on social media listening

There is buzz around any industry on social media. This buzz is what you need to tap into to find out what's gaining traction. It is important to identify the top topics that are being shared and what they are. These are some of the ways you can capitalize on social media listening.

• Follow hashtags: You have the option to follow multiple hashtags via LinkedIn. This gives you an instant view of what people are talking about. When you log in to Twitter, you will see the most popular hashtags displayed on your dashboard.
• BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo, a social media listening tool that is indispensable, is a must-have. It allows you to enter any keyword into the search box and it will show you the most popular posts related to that topic in just seconds. You can download the free version. However, upgrading will provide you with more insight.
• Facebook Analyzer: This BuzzSumo feature helps you identify trending topics. You can choose the date range to show what is happening right now or in the past year. Soon you'll see the posts with the highest engagement.
• Quora: Quora allows users to ask questions, and get responses. To get a better understanding of your audience's needs, you can look into Quora's question. The platform can also be used to test new ideas by asking questions and collecting the responses.

See the Competition

Your competition may have a strong blog that drives traffic to their site. You should first analyze the blogs of your three top competitors. You should determine the topics they write about, the quality and engagement of their blogs.

Next, you need to determine their ranking for these terms. This information can be gathered using a variety of tools. SEMrush is one option. To find out their ranking, all you need is their URL. This is however a paid tool.

Small SEO Tools Keyword Ranking Checker is a free tool that offers many of the same features. The tool will display the top 10 keywords ranking on your site if you enter the URL. You can also type specific keywords into the URL to see how these phrases rank. You will see the ranking of the page and the rank of the website among the 100 top results for the keyword.

You can also look at the FAQs of your competition to get inspiration. This can be done manually or you can use a tool to do it quickly. FAQ Fox. You can also enter a keyword and the websites you want to search. To find the most relevant topics and questions, select generic.

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BuzzSumo can be used to see what's hot with your competitors. You can search for a topic by entering a website instead. You'll be able to see a list with the most popular posts from these websites.

Aggregators and Idea Generators

After you have exhausted all of the above tools, it is time to look for an idea generator or aggregator. These sites are simple to use. You simply need to enter a keyword or phrase and the site will autogenerate a bounty ideas.

Tools for Auto-Generator

HubSpot's Blog Topic Generator

You can enter three words and you will get five blog ideas.

Generator for Hoth Blog Topics

This generator requires more details, such as keyword data, desired outcomes and pain points for your audience. Industry information and target demographic are also required. The generator then gives you numerous headline ideas.

Impact's Blog Title Generator

Please complete the sentence “Blog about …[TOPIC” This tool will then provide you with headlines. You can insert relevant phrases to get new ideas.

Create a blog post idea generator

To create a list of ideas for your content plan, you can use up to three terms (mostly nouns).

News Aggregators

A news aggregator tool will allow you to access the most important stories in your industry. There are many options. You can first use Google Alerts to get the best Google News results every day. It's free, and it can spark ideas. You can also use tools such as Feedly to organize and filter information, which will give you more content ideas.

Create content topics based on National Days or Seasonal Events

There are special days each year that focus on specific topics. Take a look at these events and days to find the one that is relevant to you. We'll be using the example below of data breaches in healthcare. Healthcare IT is a topic that spans many months, weeks, and days. These are the topics you should identify and post with the hashtags for that special day.

The season can also inspire you with timely topics. These events could be connected to the industry conferences that your company attends. Write blogs or give attendees a preview of the event if you have such a connection.

There are also opportunities for national events that will be trending. These events can be used to position your content. The Super Bowl, for example, is the most watched sporting event of the year. Although your company might not be directly involved in football, there are likely connections.

You'll be able to use a trending hashtag for any of these events.

Be your own inspiration

Blog topics don't always have to come from outside your company. If you have published content, your content analytics can help you identify topics that you should blog about. This exercise will allow you to determine your rank and how high you rank. This should be measured and tracked with a keyword masterlist.

The document should contain keywords that you rank for, want to rank for, as well as search volume, competition and keyword mapping. You should start by determining where you rank for each keyword. You can then update it each month to see if you are improving or decreasing in rank.

Check out where you rank currently

Google Search Console can help you find out more. You will find the phrases that rank you. Then you can determine if these topics could be further developed with additional content. For greater SEO value, create blogs that are related to these topics.

Find out what users are searching for on your site

You can also look at the search tool on your site to gain insight. Look in Google Analytics to see the Behavior > Site Search > Search Keywords section. The most searched terms by website visitors will be displayed. This information can help you to develop topics that your audience wants.

You can find ways to repurpose posts with high engagement

Google Analytics will display the pages that have the highest number of views. Blog posts are most likely to be found within the first 10-20 results. To find the most popular topics, you can also look at the average time the page was viewed. Once you've identified the most popular content, you can decide how to repurpose it for blog posts.

You could also update the blog with new data. Alternately, you might use a different format. You can also take a popular blog topic and make it an infographic post.

Write Opposite Posts

Flip your content to present information in a different way. Let's take, for example, a post on “Best Practices to Avoid data Breaches” that is very popular. The opposite could be “X Mistakes Companies Make in Data Security.”

This way, you're not repeating the original post but are repositioning it in order to attract more viewers. You know that it contains valuable content that your audience requires.

For blog ideas, use both internal and external feedback

There are many resources that you can draw on to help you with your blog ideas. You can draw inspiration from your customers and colleagues. Encourage collaboration between departments other than marketing to create content ideas. These people have a lot of knowledge that you can absorb. Every day, sales team members meet with buyers and can share details about their concerns and what they think about the competition.

You can get insights from subject matter experts and product owners about why certain products are made and how they impact your customers. Your customer service team can communicate directly with customers to update you on their successes and frustrations.

Also, look to your customers to inspire you. Send out surveys to get their feedback and be in touch with them. You can also create user groups to allow them to interact and share their needs. You may also be seeing customers interact with your brand via social media. Be attentive to this and be ready to respond.

Keep Listening

These resources can help you decide what topics to blog about. They all share one thing in common: listening. Listening to all sources is essential for content marketers. You need to be aware of the needs of your audience, industry landscape, competitors, and your own data analytics in order to develop topics that produce real results. These things will help you create topics that are both meaningful and engaging.

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