10 ways to find unique blog post ideas

Running a successful blog is no factory business, or you may treat it like one. But the thing is that you're looking for a loyal audience - a bunch of people who swear by your blog content. With these goals, you can't run your business blog like a workshop - you've got to be more personal. Make them devour your blog posts like cheesecake - surprise them.

The foundation for good SEO blog content starts with some robust blog posts. Let's learn how you can find fresh-new blog content ideas:

1. Collate Customer Challenges

The best of blog topics stem from customer challenges - here’s how to find them:

Do a quick brainstorming session with customer-facing teams in your company. This will help you take notes of some of the most persisting industry problems.

Create a product feedback form and send it to existing customers. The strategy will help you understand product-related challenges and create relevant educational content.

Make a list of common search queries in your niche. Pop these in a free keyword research tool like Ubersuggest to get the search volume of each of these keywords. A list of high search-volume terms will give you a fair idea of common audience problems.

Once you have a bucket-list of customer problems, you can think of a variety of post ideas.

2. Look for Stories

Online audiences love stories - look around, and you’ll find lots of story ideas:

Stories of milestones that your business achieved in the past few years. Talk about key account wins, successful campaigns, and business strategies.

Another way is to curate stories from your customers. Your customers could talk about their business, and it’s stories of ups and downs.

Employee stories work well to showcase your company culture. Such anecdotes give a peek into behind-the-scenes of your business and come across as interesting content for both prospective customers and employees.

Share case studies of how your business helped customers. Case studies are living proof of the merits of your services. Take a look at this example:

This way, you can make use of different types of stories to entertain your audience while also showcasing your worth.

3. Gather a List of Top Resources

Whether you're planning content for a B2B business or a B2C one, you'll find a list of best resources in your business niche. These resources could be thought-leadership blogs, videos or podcasts. Put them in a Trello board or a spreadsheet and refer to them whenever planning a new content piece. You can even subscribe to the best of industry newsletters.

Finding authority sources isn't tricky; you can use a tool like Feedly to find industry sources or simply export a list of top-ranking URLs from Google's search results.

Source: Feedly

Make a list of some of your key competitors and see how you can find topic ideas that are unique in your niche. In the words of Finn Cardiff, CEO of Beachgoer, a popular beach gear brand:

"My #1 tip to finding blog post ideas would be to check your competitors but improve on them. You don't want to be left in the dust as another copycat. Find a post your competitors have made that's not great, and make a better version. And don't fill it with fluff - either. Pack it with as many exciting details as your readers desire."

A list of resources can work as a ready reckoner for your blog content needs.

4. Find New Topics From Existing Ones

This is a cool technique to find engaging new topics:

The first is to create a new topic from the sub-topics of an existing blog post. Create five to six offshoots of your current blog post, and provide in-depth information to your readers.

The second vital way to create new topics out of existing ones is to marry two subjects and create a single idea out of it. For instance, instead of doing a post that includes a list of tools, you could consider making a list of tools and strategies. Or, pick up two distinct niches like law and SEO to enlighten a specific audience - take a look at this example post:

This way, you can create different permutations and combinations of existing pieces of content for different audience sets.

5. Track Online Conversations

Numerous online conversations are happening daily. You can track relevant social media updates by following industries’ specific hashtags on channels like LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. For instance, if you're looking for conversations related to marketing automation, then you could follow hashtags such as #marketingautomation, #chatbotmarketing, and so on.

Browse through comments on your business blog and the blogs of competing sites - comments and suggestions from readers are great writing prompts for your next blog post idea.

Join the relevant industry groups on Facebook and LinkedIn. Participate in some of the conversations to find new ideas.

You can even create Google alerts of some of the prominent keywords in your niche, and this will help you track the latest conversations related to your industry.

Tracking online conversations gives you a pulse of the market, so you can understand what your audience wants to consume.

6. Follow Industry Trends

Industry news and updates are fantastic sources of new blog post ideas. Here are some places to explore the latest trends in your niche:

You can place common keywords in your industry in the Google search bar, then click the Google News tab. It will give you the latest news in your niche.

Use the Google Trends tool to compare the value of various niche topics. The free tool helps you understand the relative popularity of different topics. Gauge your items to see which ones are worth investing in and which ones aren't.

Follow the top influencers in your industry and see what they're sharing - most influencers share trending content, and that's where you'll find some awesome content ideas. You can use an influencer marketing tool like SocialBook to find and follow the right influencers.

7. Pull Out Top Performing Content

A terrific way to figure out what's working best for your blog is to visit your Google Analytics account. Have a look at the top-performing blog posts, and make a list of the top 10 percent of your blog content.

The strategy will help you to analyze topic clusters that are doing well.

Look at ways to upgrade this content and make it relevant to the current times.

Find attractive new topics that fall under the category of your high-performing blog posts.

Performance analysis helps in becoming more audience-centric to your blog ideation strategy.

8. Use a Piece of Research

Whether it is a study conducted by your in-house team or a leading industry publication, original research offers a variety of cues for creating blog post content.

Draw an inference from some of the key takeaways of the research to create a well-informed blog post. State-of-industry blog posts are great for audiences looking to draw insights from a report. Take a look at this example:

Create comparative posts about how the current state of affairs is different from previous years.

Industry surveys offer tremendous value, and you can pivot several blog post ideas based on a piece of original research.

9. Curate a Round-up Article

Curated pieces and round-up articles are fun. They take less time and yet generate lots of valuable information.

You can query experts on a platform like HARO to curate a round-up of expert tips. Here's an example of an expert round-up:

A cool way to create a round-up is to pick up popular posts from the industry and your own blog. This will give the audience different pieces of information in a topic cluster.

Curate a list of popular resources: tools, blog posts, ebooks, videos and infographics. This is again a very good way to offer more insights in a single post.

10. Share an Opinion

You must have come across opinion pieces while reading a newspaper. An opinion is essentially a rant on a current news or industry trend.

An opinion piece is usually a short 800-word article about your point of view on a burning issue. So for instance, as a content marketer, let's say you don't like the idea of publishing long-form blog content, and with enough reasons; you can go out there and create an opinion piece about it.

Here is a similar example of an opinion piece:

When you take a stance that's different from how the majority perceives an issue, you'll attract many eyeballs. And yes, you might even go viral. An opinion piece is an underused blog type, but a useful one for your blogging calendar.

Over to You

Stay inspired and keep your blog readers glued - that's the success mantra for any business blog. Be a little observant and persistent, and you'll enjoy the blogging process as well as the outcomes.

Abhishek Talreja is a passionate writer and an experienced content marketing expert. He has contributed to top marketing blogs and works with international companies to help them earn online visibility and reputation. He is the founder of Prolific Content Marketing.

Website: http://prolificcontentmarketing.club

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Abhishekt5

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhishek-talreja-b6152710/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abhishek.talreja1

Email: [email protected]

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