Coming up with great content for your WordPress blog can be hard. You have to find the topics that your audience will be interested in and then write a great post for that. But how do you find the specific topics? Is there an idea bank somewhere?
No, but there are plenty of ways to come up with content topics. Here are some of them:
Ask the Audience
You really need to employ this tip if you haven’t already. Feedback is extremely valuable and it can generate a ton of amazing ideas which your readers will actually love. It’s as simple as just asking or use other clever methods which can get you your answers.
For example, you can create a survey or a quiz, you can add another field to your subscription form, asking for the biggest challenge your visitors face and so on. All of these are not directly asking for ideas, but they will still get you a ton of useful stuff that you can use on your WordPress blog. Asking is the best method there is as you get the ideas directly from the people who will read your blog. There is also social media which makes it all so much easier.
Brainstorming
Gather your team and ask them to brainstorm with you about the best WordPress blog post ideas that can work for your website. If you’re a one-man operation, you can get some friends to talk to you. Talking to people, getting fresh perspectives and understanding why they have these ideas are all an important element of the process.
Brainstorming is so fun and exciting because of this exchange of ideas and because it can mean that you get to hear new things. It only requires one more brain and that’s it. You know your audience and yourself, so why not put that to work and find some fresh perspective.
Check the Comments
We all want to publish posts that get a lot of comments. It’s an amazing feeling when people actually appreciate what you have to say, your point of view and so on. People are caring about you. But, you can also get a wide variety of WordPress blog post ideas from the comments section. Just keep an open mind here says Geraldine Ames, a webmaster at Last Minute Writing and Draftbeyond.
Define the Audience
Of course, this is something you should do before you start your WordPress blog but if you need a little boost, you can define who your target audience is again. Learn who the content is intended for and learn all about that person. Think about what they are going through and what they might need from you. When you have this kind of picture in front of you, then you can write highly targeted content.
Take the time to understand this person and what their motivations are. Why are they on your website? Why do they read your free content?
Research Keywords
With defining your target audience, naturally comes the keyword research. When you know who your audience is, you can have a clear picture of what keywords describe their main pain points and maybe those keywords are the ones that will shop up in your content.
Use these keywords to generate more ideas with keyword tools. You can also use numerous keyword research tools like Moz Keyword Explorer, SEMRush, KWFinder and so on. All of these can help you generate great ideas based on the keywords your target audience is looking for and using in their queries.
Follow Social Media Conversations
The conversations on social media are an excellent source of ideas for your blog, similarly to comments on your WordPress blog or other blogs. You can just search for different questions and then see what the discussions on them are. People have plenty of discussions on their social media so this is an endless source of information for you.
You can also use Quora or Reddit which might be able to help you even more. People go there to ask questions and learn things. So, this is where you can learn about their pain points and get many ideas on what they will love reading about,says David Brosnan, a marketer at Researchpapersuk and Writinity.
Twitter is also a great place to start.
Google Auto Suggestions
Google predicts your queries as you type them in. This feature is a great sample of what people may want from you and you can quickly get a ton of useful blog post ideas for any topic imaginable. You can also beat the search rankings because you are writing based on what people want.
Auto suggestions will show up almost immediately and they will give you a list of different topics that you can use in your blog posts. This is a quick and easy thing to do and you can use it when you are in a pinch for time and need something to be done quickly.
Hire Someone or Host Someone
Being a one-man show is fun and has many perks but you need to let go sometimes and allow people to help. You can create a lot more ideas this way. Pay writers, allow guest bloggers to apply and so on.
Many websites use the model of sharing their ad revenue with writers and it makes sense. It’s effective, you don’t have to worry about ideas or writing and you can still have great content.
Interview an Expert
One of the things you can do when out of ideas for your blog is interview someone who’s an expert in your industry. Ask them some questions, especially if those questions are important in your industry. You also build your credibility and trust fairly easily.
Another version of an interview with an expert is a roundup of experts. Ask them all a few questions and see how they reply. This is even more interesting for your blog and it can bring you plenty of attention.
Use Trends
Trends are something that has a potential to help you go viral, but it’s not here to stay. This is easy fodder for new posts because in a few days or weeks that thing won’t matter, while it’ hot at the moment.
Use this when you want to get some of the viral traffic and attract fresh attention to your website or blog.
