If you’re considering writing some blog posts on your business’ website, chances are you’ve heard of some of the benefits of blogging.
Blogging is a form of content strategy that can drive traffic to your website and create warm leads for your business that will hopefully eventually become customers. And all for free! Sounds great, right?
However if you’re just starting out in the world of content creation, you may feel a little stuck at step one – what should you be writing about anyway?!
In this post we’ll talk specifically about blogging for business, and how you can find ideas and topics to write about that will be beneficial in the long term. So read on for how you can brainstorm and find content ideas for your business’ blog!
Revisit your Frequently Asked Questions
If you already have a website, chances are you have some type of FAQs page. And this is a great place to start to look for content ideas. Are there questions, themes or topics that your customers and potential customers are always asking?
You may have answered their query in a short paragraph in your FAQs. But is there more to it? Can you expand on these topics in some way to create longer format blog posts that will really give people the information they’re looking for? If so, you’ve got your first handful of blog content ideas!
Gather Ideas from what your Customers are Saying
Similar to the first point, listening to your current customers is a goldmine for blog content. You may feel like you’ve addressed what they’re talking about, but if they still have questions, there could be room to expand upon what you’ve already written.
Think of blogging like a deep-dive into a very specific topic. Is there an aspect you could cover in more depth? Or is there a new topic that keeps arising you haven’t written about before? Keep your ears sharp and the ideas will flow!
Expand on your services or business offerings
It’s likely you’ve already got a services page on your website, or that you talk about what your business offers in some depth already. If you can create content that relates to what your business offers in a deeper way, that is a great blog idea!
Think of blog posts as complimentary to your other website pages and what your business already offers. If you’re a physiotherapist who offers injury management, remedial massage and exercise classes, could you blog about walking tracks in your area, low-impact exercises for knee pain or how to stretch properly before exercising?
Remember that a large part of blogging is creating useful, helpful content. You might feel like you’re giving away lots of information for free, but you’re simultaneously positioning yourself as an expert and industry leader.
Double Down on Past Popular Topics
This tip is helpful if you’ve been blogging for a little while or even posting on your businesses social media channels. It can be worth checking your analytics to see if there’s certain posts or topics that were more popular. Popularity can look like more engagement, higher traffic numbers to blog posts, or even more questions asked about that topic.
If you’ve found a topic area that has gotten a greater response than others, run with it! This is a sign that people are curious and would like to know more. Create more content around that topic and share it with your audience.
Keep in mind that this can also relate to different content ‘styles’. For example, you might find that ‘top 10’ posts do well, or content that has a localised angle to it.
Bonus: Use ‘Answer the Public’ to Brainstorm topic ideas
If you haven’t heard of it, Answer the Public is a free online keyword tool that enables you to search for a topic and find hundreds of streams of thought around that idea. Try it here – simply enter in a topic, such as remedial massage. The tool will bring up hundreds of search queries that you could literally use almost any as a blog post idea!
You may want to choose one that you know your customers would be interested in reading about.
Need more help with your blogging and content strategy? Check out our Masterclass – it contains the step-by-step lessons to creating SEO optimised and engaging blog posts.
