Coming up with creative blog post ideas consistently is a struggle every blogger faces, including seasoned pros like myself.
After 15 years of professional blogging experience, I want to share my proven system to quickly generate DOZENS of content ideas to populate your editorial calendar.
These techniques have helped me churn out several posts per week, keeping my readers engaged and site traffic steady.
I know how frustrating it can feel when you hit a mental block. Staring at a blank screen not knowing what to write about next.
This guide will help you BLAST through writer‘s block and uncover amazing topic ideas with little effort.
Let‘s start with…
Contents
What Should You Look for in a Good Blog Post Idea?
Before diving into tactical idea generation, it‘s important to understand what makes an idea "good" for a blog post.
After publishing over 500 articles, I‘ve learned that successful blog topics have a few key elements in common:
Relevant to Your Niche and Audience
The ideas you choose need to be highly relevant to your blog‘s overall niche, target audience, brand, and existing content.
Generating ideas completely outside your niche may not resonate or attract your current readership.
For example, if you run a popular travel blog, an idea like "Beginner Woodworking Tips" would seem off-brand and attract the wrong audience.
According to Neil Patel, a top blogger and digital marketer:
"Relevancy is one of the most important ranking factors for SEO in 2024. Google wants to serve users the most relevant, high-quality content."
So carefully pick ideas relevant to your niche that would interest your target readers. Avoid going too broad or straying from your core topics.
Has Solid Search Volume
Another characteristic of a good idea – it has good search volume.
That means people are actively looking for information on that topic and keyword in search engines like Google.
Higher search volume indicates stronger reader interest and opportunity.
Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, and Ubersuggest can help you gauge monthly search volumes for different keyword ideas.
Look for topics with over 1,000 monthly searches as a good starting point. The higher the better.
According to a Backlinko study, ~70% of searchers only look at results on page 1 of Google. So you need enough volume for your content to have a chance of ranking.
Fits Your Content Style and Strengths
Determine whether an idea naturally lends itself better to certain content formats – like a detailed how-to tutorial, insightful roundup post, engaging listicle, etc.
The format should fit your natural blogging style and play to your writing strengths. This results in much better content than forcing an idea into an unsuited format.
For example, an idea like "Causes of Pet Anxiety" would work better as an in-depth guide rather than a quick listicle.
Provides a Unique Take
A common content mistake beginners make is covering the same talking points and angles as competitors.
Make sure your idea offers an original, unique perspective that educates readers further on the topic.
Per the Content Marketing Institute, ~56% of companies say creating engaging content is their top challenge.
Do extensive research beforehand to uncover angles that add value vs. regurgitating what‘s already out there.
Now let‘s dive into my personal toolkit for efficiently uncovering great blog post ideas that check all those boxes…
4 Simple Ways to Uncover 100+ Blog Topic Ideas
Over the years, I‘ve compiled a set of my favorite idea generation methods. I still use these regularly to brainstorm batches of topics quickly.
Let‘s cover them one by one:
1. Leverage Keyword Research Tools
For me, dedicated keyword research tools are the best place to start when sourcing new content ideas.
These tools analyze search engine data to surface valuable, high-potential keywords and topics you can turn into blog posts.
They provide key datapoints like search volume and competitiveness to help validate topics.
Here are some of my favorite free keyword tools I recommend:
Ubersuggest – Simply enter a seed keyword or topic and Ubersuggest will automatically find hundreds of related keywords, along with their estimated search volumes and cost-per-click data from Google Adwords. It also shows keyword difficulty scores to gauge competitiveness.
KeywordTool.io – Offers similar functionality to Ubersuggest. Lets you search for keyword ideas and filter them by search volume, CPC, and difficulty. You can easily export results as a .CSV file.
Google Keyword Planner – As a search leader, Google‘s free keyword research tool can provide excellent suggestions tailored to your geo-location. You can filter ideas by average monthly searches to find high-volume keywords and topics.
Once you‘ve compiled a master list of keywords, thoroughly vet them to find ones that:
- Have high search volume (at least 1,000 monthly searches)
- Align closely with your niche
- Have relatively low competition
Then you can create compelling post titles and angles around those keywords.
Pro Tip: Pay attention to questions people are searching for as well – these make great blog titles!
2. Dissect What‘s Working for Competitors
One smart way to uncover proven ideas is studying what your competitor sites are writing about successfully.
Use free tools like BuzzSumo and Ahrefs to analyze your competitors‘ sites and see their top-performing content.
Look for common themes, topics, and formats they tend to cover a lot of. These are winning ideas worth emulating on your own site.
Just make sure you put your unique spin on it with original commentary, data points, and recommendations tailored to your readers.
According to Orbit Media, studying your competitors can increase blog traffic by 611%. So this tactic can really pay dividends!
3. Monitor Relevant Forum Discussions
Online forums like Quora, Reddit, and niche communities where people discuss topics related to your industry are absolute goldmines for content inspiration!
Look at popular threads and subreddits related to your niche. Observe which questions get asked frequently.
These paint a clear picture of your target audience‘s pain points and burning questions – things they desperately want to learn more about.
You can create posts centered around comprehensively answering and explaining those audience questions in more detail than a forum.
Including real questions from forums adds a nice human touch to your articles too!
4. Stay on Top of Trends and News
Consistently monitoring the latest trends and news developments in your industry leads to timely, popular post ideas.
Google Trends shows you rising keyword searches over time so you can jump on trends early.
BuzzSumo‘s Viral Content tool lets you uncover the most shared trending stories gaining social traction.
Covering relevant trends can help you attract search traffic from people looking for info. But don‘t just report on the news – provide your insights and expert advice around the trend.
According to MuckRack, ~44% of journalists turn to social media to get story ideas. So keep your ear to the ground!
Optimize Blog Topics for SEO Success
Now that you‘ve brainstormed a solid list of blog post ideas, the next crucial step is optimizing them for SEO success.
Pick 1 primary keyword or keyphrase that the focus of your entire post will target. This should form your SEO-optimized title.
Do in-depth keyword research on this primary phrase using my favorite tool – SEMrush‘s Keyword Magic Tool.
See monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, Google‘s suggested bid price, and other handy data for your main keyphrase.
In your post body content, focus on providing information highly relevant to your primary keyword. But also naturally work in related keywords you uncovered during research.
According to Moz, posts targeting a primary keyword have 36% higher organic CTRs on average.
Use a top SEO plugin like Yoast SEO to further optimize your post for on-page elements. This will maximize your search rankings and organic visibility over time.
Now for my favorite part – it‘s time to start creating awesome content!
Get Writing High-Quality Blog Posts!
Finding the right blog topics is step one, but all that matters is executing on those ideas with useful, engaging content.
Leverage this guide to quickly generate piles of quality blog post ideas.
Then use tools like SEMrush, BuzzSumo, and Yoast SEO to create SEO-enhanced articles optimized for search and social.
With a rock-solid idea generation strategy, you‘ll attract more organic traffic, leads, and loyal readers over the long-term.
So put these tips into action and eliminate that pesky writer‘s block for good!
I hope you found this guide helpful. Let me know if you have any other high-level blogging questions. I‘m always happy to help out!
