Increase your blog traffic and provide valuable content to your audience
In a previous post, I talked about 12 reasons why it’s worth having a blog on your website.
But having a blog isn’t enough. You want a blog that’s delivering valuable content.
To create valuable content, you need to know where to look for great ideas that answer your audience’s questions and relieve their pain points.
Here are 15 free ways you can develop better content ideas for your blog and increase traffic to your website today.
#1 Consumer Questions
When you have a business, you’re going to get customers asking questions and voicing their challenges.
These challenges might be around the use of the product itself or they may be around any discomfort they are feeling in everyday life.
Transform what’s causing them problems into opportunities to discuss on your blog.
If it’s a reoccurring problem you keep hearing about, that’s even more reason to create a blog post so others can benefit from the information as well.
This is a huge way to provide valuable solutions-oriented content for your audience.
#2 Develop a different angle on one of your popular blog posts
Look at the content on your blog that’s getting noticed.
For example, maybe if you’re focused on personal growth content you decide to do a listicle around the “30 Best Apps to Help You Stay Organized in Your Busy Life.”
You could also take a more personal angle for a follow-up post.
In the follow-up post, you could do a review of your personal experience with some of those apps and what you chose to try out as well as the results.
Simply focusing on what’s popular with your readers and taking a different angle is a way to build out your blog post content and provide great value.
#3 Scan your social media post comments
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram where you have social profiles can be good places to look to see what your audience is saying about your posts.
Which ones are the most liked?
Do you consumers relate? Do they have anything else to add as a comment on your post?
Between likes and comments, this all goes into research around the type of content your audience likes or doesn’t like reading.
It helps guide you around topics you should be talking more about or expanding on further on your blog.
#4 Consider writing from the opposite/negative perspective
Negative headlines get a lot of attention. They trigger strong emotional responses which lead to higher clicks.
“Media reports with negative news or statistics catch 30% more attention.”
Take a blog post you created from a positive angle and then rethink it from a negative perspective.
For example, instead of an article having the title, “10 Things Mentally Strong People Do” change it to “10 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do.”
Did the word don’t interest you a little more to click?
If it did, you’re not alone.
Simply taking a current blog post and writing it from an opposite perspective can give you interesting and new content still relevant to your audience.
#5 Do a news recap roundup
Creating a blog post that includes all the important news from your industry can be valuable for your audience.
Think about it. It’s tough to find time in the day to read multiple articles from various platforms.
Having one article with top headlines all in one place would help save your reader time and save them from searching elsewhere.
This type of blog post could be a planned piece of content you do once a week or for longer posts, once a month.
Simply write a listicle with all the popular headlines and a short summary. Then be sure to include links to those detailed stories as well.
#6 Collect statistics and data
Write a blog post with important statistics. I did it in this article highlighting the 5 important SEO statistics you should know in 2023.
Providing data from credible sources is valuable.
Everyone likes a good statistic that’s truthful and informative.
Creating a blog post of important statistics in your industry is absolutely a value-add for your reader.
It shows you are paying attention to what’s new and staying informed on what’s relevant and important for your consumers.
#7 Interview an expert
Some of the most interesting blog posts have been ones that contain interviews with an expert.
As a digital marketer and SEO geek, I want to hear firsthand from other experts what technologies are useful and most beneficial to create effective content.
It’s also sometimes a way for me to find out more about an expert outside their field and an opportunity to find out if we have other things in common.
These blog posts can be presented in a question/answer format which makes it easy to scan as well for your audience.
#8 Conduct a survey
Hubspot provides a nice list of 18 totally free online survey tools.
By conducting a survey with your audience, you can discover what topics they want you to blog about more.
You do this by collecting information first.
Look at what’s most popular on your blog, what industry trends are taking place, and what you know about your target audience.
Come up with some questions based on these findings and then pick a tool to best get your survey created and distributed.
You’ll end up with some first-hand consumer research pointing you in the right direction of what you should write about next.
Your Competition and Peers
#9 Check out your competitor’s blog for topics
Look at what your competitors are writing about. I promise it will spark ideas.
But don’t copy the same exact blog post. You want to be original. Put your own twist on the topic by adding your personal experience.
Use your competitor’s blog as a way to brainstorm ideas and then tailor the content to you and your business.
Checking out what your competitors are doing keeps you informed about what others are saying in your industry, and it’s also a way to avoid having blog post writing block for sure.
#10 Look at your competitor’s customer comments
Going along with looking at what your competitors are blogging about, go ahead and take a look at what consumers are saying in the comments.
These comments usually appear after the blog post or they could be comments you see below your competitor’s social media posts.
Looking at what consumers say can give you a clue about the content they want to read.
You can get a peak into if they agree or don’t agree with the content. Sometimes consumers reveal their ongoing pain points in the comments.
Use these comment sections to fuel new content.
#11 Scan LinkedIn and what your peers are saying
Another valuable place to spark good content ideas is on LinkedIn.
See what others in your industry are posting.
I find helpful ideas on there regularly around digital marketing and copywriting practices that I like to blog about and apply to my freelance writing business.
With LinkedIn being the largest professional network online, you’re missing out if you don’t have a profile and aren’t checking it weekly.
Search Online
#12 Google keywords
At a basic level go on Google and research keywords in the niche you want to write about.
For example, I typed in “email marketing.” This was my result below.
From this very basic search, I already have a few clues outlined in red about what I could research further and write a blog post about.
Topics like:
- Types of email marketing
- How email marketing works
- Steps to take to start email marketing
- The effectiveness of email marketing
Doing a basic search on Google is a starting point for you to get ideas around writing your next blog post.
#13 Look at the top-selling books in your niche
Another way to get the ideas flowing for your blog is to go on Amazon and search for books related to your niche.
I typed in “SEO” and then scanned the titles of the books that appeared.
When I click on the book title, “How To Get To The Top of Google”, there’s a longer description of what to expect in the book. Right away I’m given ideas like “free ways to appear on the first page of Google” and “how to transform your blog into sales.”
If you’re lucky and have a kindle subscription, many of these books you can read for free.
The titles and contents of these books can give you ideas of what to research more in-depth to create a blog post of your own.
The ideas are really endless from doing this alone.
#14 Check out the most relevant courses in your niche
Udemy is a great place to go online to check out online courses and get ideas for content in your niche.
I typed in “digital marketing” in the search button and right away there are over 10,000 results.
Scrolling through the courses and clicking on their descriptions, I see ideas for future blog posts.
Ideas like “how to build your digital marketing strategy” or “x ways to promote your business.”
These are all great top-line ideas that I can research further to create blog posts.
#15 Utilize free online tools
Answer the Public is probably one of my favorite free online tools to get writing ideas.
Another publication I started writing for recently is centered around parenting. So when I type this keyword into the search bar, I’m directed to a landing page showing me search volume, search difficulty, as well as additional search information.
What I’m really interested in are the questions people are asking online about parenting.
What’s cool is digital thought leader Neil Patel and his team, not only developed a way to collect all these most-asked questions in one place, but they did it in a way to make it easy to read and digest the information.
Their visualization wheel charts are so easy to follow. I can see right away if something is searched a lot or a little as well as more detailed topics related to parenting.
These parenting questions consumers are searching on Google give me multiple ideas of what I could write about for future blog posts.
