When you first start blogging it feels like you’ll never get through that enormous list of topics you want to write about. But after posting 3-5 times every week you can quickly run out of ideas after a few months.
For those times when inspiration doesn’t want to hit, we’ve put together a list of our three favorite tools to help you find the best, and most relevant, blog topics.
1. Google Adwords
It’s amazing how much you can find to talk about on your blog when you use Google Adwords. The Keyword Planner Tool doesn’t just help you see how many people are searching for relevant topics, but it also gives you the exact terms people are searching for and comes up with related words and phrases.
How to use Google Adwords:
To research around your topic type your keyword, or a few phrases, e.g. ‘fashion’ into the Keyword Planner Tool and click search for a list of keywords.
Chances are you don’t want to suddenly change your blog to be about street style, but you might scroll down and find that ‘British fashion’ has 100 – 1,000 searches every month.
Queue a series of blog posts about the ‘best of British fashion through the ages’ or ‘hottest British fashion designers in 2018’.
Top tips for using Google Adwords to find blog topics:
It can be really helpful to write down a few keywords that grab your imagination and then type these into the Keyword Planner Tool again. Typing in ‘British fashion’ then brings up terms like ‘70s fashion’ ‘eighties fashion’ and ‘1920s fashion’, which could help you form a series on British fashion through the decades.
Answer the Public
Answer the Public is a fantastic visual tool to help you find blog topics. It’s based around questions asked all over the internet, and can help you answer frequently asked questions. This is an especially good tool for advice and expert blogs, e.g. Mum blogs.
How to use Answer the Public to find blog topics:
To begin type in the area you want to research, e.g. ‘summer vacation’. Answer the Public then splits the questions into what, where, are etc. If you see anything you like here click it, otherwise scroll down for more detail.
You could click something like ‘summer vacation for toddlers’ to find results related to this term. These might be things like ‘where to take your toddler on summer vacation’.
Top tips for using Answer the Public:
Answer the Public is most useful if you’re looking for general questions. It’s great if you want to take a few ideas and then brainstorm around them to add your own personal take to the topic, while still answering useful questions.
3. Ask your readers
One of the simplest ways to find blog topics is just to ask. It might seem like cheating but even if the topic has been written before, what your readers are looking for is your take on a subject.
Everything on the internet has already been said – but it hasn’t been said in your words and from your point of view.
How to ask your readers for topic ideas:
Opening up a dialogue between you and your readers can offer some amazing insights, and will help them feel more involved with the blog as well.
Try adding leading questions to the bottom of your blog posts, or answering comments on social media or your website with your own questions. You could also use Instagram’s new Q&A function, which is a fantastic way to see what people want you to write about.
Top tips for asking your readers:
When asking your readers what blog topics they want you to write about don’t feel like you need to know all the answers. Blogging can be a lonely job, as you don’t have a team around you to brainstorm with, so make your readers your community!
Got lots of blog post ideas already? Sign up to download Proof Content’s content calendar and create a schedule to keep your writing on track. And if you think of any great tools we might have missed – let us know in the comments below.
THE AUTHOR: Charli Hunt
Charli launched her business, Proof Content, six years ago while at a university. Proof Content has experience turning websites around by providing content marketing and SEO strategies that work. With over 150 freelance content writers and experienced editors, Proof Content can handpick a team of writers with the skills required to meet your needs. From building small websites for startups with 10 pages to rewriting 5,000 pages of content in four months we will provide the solution. And if you’re just looking for one-off projects, including evergreen content, PPC ad copy, newsletters, social media posts and more, we can also help.
