Brainstorming for content ideas can be tough. You easily get distracted and everything seems to have already been written! To make matters w...
Brainstorming for content ideas can be tough. You easily get distracted and everything seems to have already been written! To make matters worse, requirements to content concepts and titles have become much more complicated. With the growing importance of referral traffic, we now have to rethink title strategies and how they appear on social sites. If you're feeling strapped for content ideas, here are a few that can help.
Check your Comments Section
When you let people share and comment on your site, you could end up with some great blog post ideas. Your readers might ask for more information about a specific item you didn’t cover clearly in your first post, or they might share their own opinions about the topic, which could make your fingers itch to write. Reading those bits carefully could make your blogging much easier.
Check out the Competition
According to 2014 stats, more than half of all small businesses don’t have a website. As a result, your top competitor may not have a blog that you can follow. But that same competitor might be active on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The posts you find there could give you great ideas about topics you should cover.
If you grab an idea from someone else, be sure to tweak it or amend it or somehow make it your own. Stealing outright could get you in hot water, both with your competitors and with Google. But borrowing a good idea could help you to come up with the story idea that’s been eluding you.
Yelp Pages
People with reputation management problems are likely accustomed to the idea of using Yelp as an early warning system. When they see a poor review pop up, they know they must get to work generating content that either refutes or explains the complaint. But Yelp can also help you write blog posts about issues people either like or have questions about.
Read through your reviews and look for items that get a lot of mentions. Not all Yelp comments will contain blog gems, of course. Some might just contain complaints or random bits of praise you can’t build on. But, watching the comments closely could give you some great ideas for writing that will really resonate.
Targeted Keyword Research
And ofcourse, nothing beats good ol' fashioned keyword research. This is a fundamental part of the writing process, as it helps you find the right terms which will perform better on SERPs. But more than SEO, your searches can also help you to find out what people are looking for, and that could give you some excellent blog post ideas.
With Google AdWords‘ Keyword Planner, you can run a simple search on a topic you’re planning to cover. Your results page will give you keywords that are similar to the topic you’ve hit, but they come with just a few changes.
We'll soon publish an entire section dedicated to keyword research in the SEO process, so stay tuned!
Coming up with new content ideas is not easy. But if poke around and are receptive enough, with enough luck you will soon find great content ideas to go on your blog! Good luck :)
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