The main concerns many people express while starting their blog is the difficulty in finding good topics for the blog post. Indeed, it is a concern for even regular bloggers to find a steady supply of blog topic ideas.
Here in this article, I will show you the tools that you can use to generate a month worth of blog post ideas in any topic within a few minutes of work. Then, repeat the same process to find the next batch of blog topic ideas.
Method 1: Browse Through Question/Answer Websites
Most popular type of posts in any website would be “question and answer” types. “How to” posts are popular because when people search for solutions to their problems, they automatically reach you. So how do you find the best topics for “How to” articles? Browse through most popular “question & answer” websites.
Reading regularly through sites that provide answers to questions posted by readers will keep giving you a vivid idea of what people are really struggling with. Notice the popularity of many “how to” post and videos? That’s because people need solutions and when you can provide them exactly that, they will turn to you gain and again.
Here are the top Question & Answer Sites:
Yahoo Answers
Probably the most popular for certain topics, Yahoo Answers is an interactive, community-driven site that is strongly supported by many users. You can find almost any topic/issue here and you can grab a chance to take part and contribute too.
Quora
Quara is the place where you will find several enthusiastic participants answering generic questions. See some of the most poular questions to get an idea:
What can I learn/know right now in 10 minutes that will be useful for the rest of my life?
What are some of the most epic photos ever taken?
What does it feel like to be poor?
StackExchange
StackExchange is a network of question and answer Web sites on topics in varied fields, each site covering a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are subject to a reputation award process.
If you wish to build a good reputation, this site is where you want to make a connection. Provide a sensible, useful answer to a question and turn it into a post.
Visit the stack exchange website related to your niche, search for a keyword and see the frequently asked tab. Write a great answer to those questions and post to your blog.
For programming related questions, stackoverflow is the place to go, with nearly 5 million subscribers it is the “go to resource” for the developer community.
In addition to the big question answer sites, there are hundreds of forums in every possible topic imaginable. Search in google “keyword +forum” and you should be able to find a bunch of them.
Method 2: Research The Top Performing Content
What people find most interesting is what they also share the most. Check what contents these may be to get an inspiration. If car parts are what people share the most on, you may want to write about reliable stores in your area where people can go for quality and affordability.
Also take note of the headlines those popular posts have. That will give you ideas on how to word your blog post titles.
High performing contents are the ones that get to be read and shared for several reasons: interesting, helpful and shares substantial information. As you browse through posted contents, make sure to keep in mind these three things that will make smooth the progress of creating relevant posts.
One way to generate great content is to learn from high-performing content. Here are the tools that will show you the top shared content in any niche. Start by entering the niche name or the top blog names in your niche and find out what types of content get shared the most. browse through a list and you will most definitely get a bunch of blog post ideas yourself.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a wealthy source of information, this site features best-performing and most shared contents. While it is a paid tool, you can do a free trial to know how it can help maximize your site. Through its search box, you can type in network address called a URL or the topic itself. The result will show you which topic is performing the most making it social media share-worthy.
buzzsumo.com
Ahrefs Content Explorer
Ahrefs has a content explorer tool. You can compare current trends performance against those that were a trend 3 or 4 years ago. It can you help trace most shared niche-related content which you may feature on your social media page to help increase clickthroughs. You can also check competitor’s features and posts from which you may derive and write an enhanced version.
ahrefs.com/content-explorer
Method 3: Research Keywords
Researching the top terms that your target audience is essential for any website. Without understanding what they are searching for , how do you reach them? Writing posts based on keyword research data has an added advantage that you will quickly become the favorite of Google and it will send you targeted traffic. Give focus on long tail keywords and addressing common problems in your niche.
There are a number of keyword research tools. Here are the top list especially the free ones.
Google Keyword Planner
The Keyword planner is tailored for Google Adwords. Still, you can use this tool to discover topic ideas for your blog. This tool allows searching for a series of keywords showing status according to volume and popularity along with related or secondary keywords. The suggested secondary keywords are very useful in helping you uncover topic ideas.
https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner
GWT (Google Webmaster Tools)
Webmaster helps you locate keywords that drive you the most traffic; in particular those that lead to your site. It can also help you identify other issues troubling your site. When you have the keywords that drives the traffic, you can write on related topics to increase the traffic.
[image credit: frederickmdrocks]
Google webmaster tools
UberSuggest
UberSuggest is another free, extremely useful tool for content ideas. Simply type in a keyword for suggestions based on Google’s auto suggestions. You will get a bunch of long tail keyword ideas from this tool.
https://ubersuggest.io/
Keywordtool.io
Keywordtool.io is an awesome tool to uncover related keywords from google, youtube, and bing. The tool scrapes the suggestions shown by these search engines when you search for something.
It is excellent to discover low competition long tail keywords.
http://keywordtool.io/
Soovle
Soovle helps you explore keywords beyond just google. You can explore keywords from Google, bing and Youtube in a fun and easy way. Just search for a term and click on any one of the results to explore more.
http://soovle.com/
HitTail
Hit tail works by analyzing your existing traffic. Once you have installed their script, it keeps running in the background checking for keywords that will easily bring more traffic for you. In other words, it tells you topics to write about.
https://www.hittail.com/
Method 4: Simplify A Complicated Subject
A surefire way to create awesome content is to explain a complex subject in simple, easy to understand terms. Such articles soon will get referred all over and will gradually attract a huge number of visitors.
Here are some examples where the content very well explains a complicated subject:
The Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet – NerdFitness.com
Paleo Diet is a buzzword in dieting related blogs. This particular post explains the topic well
About Unicode and Character Sets -Joel on Software
One way to make a subject simpler to understand is to convert it into visual medium. Convert the content into an infographics or instructographics.
Here are the tools to build infographics/instructographics
Piktochart
Piktochart is a customizable editor that helps you create infographics in addition of pre-loaded graphics. It lets you upload and resize images and shapes to make them proportional using its grid lined templates. Doing so will make your infographics more presentable and engaging to readers.
Canva
Canva is a graphic design platform where you can get design tools, tutorials and templates that also has image library. Access is free but premium service is also offered for a fee. It has a ‘get started’ tutorial to help make the process graphic designing easy. There are also templates to create invitations, business cards, blogs, social media page and many more.
Whiteboard animation videos also make an interesting and appealing way to present complex subjects.
The most useful tools to create whiteboard videos include:
Videoscribe
A simple message or idea can come to life even if you don’t have the technical background; the app will allow you to easily sketch, place text and illustrations, add a narration or soundtrack.
Get Videoscribe here.
GoAnimate
Whatever your topic of choice is, there are thousands of useful backgrounds, props, images and the like in this drag-and-drop platform to make whiteboard animation easy for you. You can learn to adjust, change, delay or time a video easily and quickly.
GoAnimate
PowToons
Professional-looking instructional video site where you can get complete guidance to creating and customizing your video using a simple method. You can have access to all the essential animation tools that eases the process for you from beginning to end where the result is a video of an animated interpreter that is professional yet simple.
powtoon.com
Method 5: Participate In Social Bookmarking Websites & Communities
Social bookmarking and discussions websites are great for discovering great content. Most of these communities have a voting system so you get to see the best content on top. Not only you can discover great content, the discussions around them will be useful too. Zurb.com is an example although less popular. Check out List of Social Networking Sites or List of Virtual Communities with More Than 1 Million Users for a complete directory.
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is a discovery site where users can find, recommend, rate or personalize contents so that they accommodate your target readers better. It can be photos, videos or web pages that you find an interest in. You may even forward a request so that contents that you don’t find interesting are not shown to you.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/
Reddit
In order to help you locate the most talked-about contents, the site breaks them down as sub-reddits. You can easily find the most popular contents through its number of subscribers . Joining Reddit entitles you to involve yourself in discussions where, from shared opinions and viewpoints, a good topic could arise which you can then use as an article subject matter.
Also, keep an eye on the topics that gets the most number of votes.
reddit.com
Method 6: Conduct Surveys
Surveys are great in two ways. You can create a survey to understand the stand of your audience on a certain topic and then publish the results.
For example, Suppose your niche is food and recipes. Then you can ask your audience to fill a survey like this:
Did you ever stopped cooking a delicious food item because you were worried about your health/fitness?
Do you check the calorie values of the recipes here before preparing them? Yes/No
Collect the responses and publish the results with an analysis of the responses.
Another way to use surveys is to ask your users what they’re struggling with. Ask them for three challenges they’re facing Ask them what topics they would like to know more about. Directing even one question to a few customers can lead to great content inspiration and ideas.
Survey tools you can use:
Google Consumer Surveys
For a very minimum fee of $0.10 per set question or $10 for a set of 100 questions/answers, you can run the survey by schedule – weekly, biweekly, monthly or quarterly. You can also set this according to your audience’s demographic profile e.g. social class, age or gender to get a better topic idea.
Google Consumer Surveys
Qualaroo
Qualaroo is a tool that may be set to appear as a screen popup your readers can answer while on your site. Through it, you get a glimpse of your readers points of view which in turn can be used as content topic.
Method 7: Checkout The Latest Trends
Understanding trends is important for posting relevant articles. If you can find unique angles to new trends, making the article popular is easy.
The latest trends will tell you what people are interested in. From there, you can get a thought of what to write on. How people react to a new update on popular social media sites like Facebook, for example, will bring you an idea.
Here are the resources to find the latest trending topics:
Google Trends
When it comes to trending topics in any given business or industry, Google Trends could be your most versatile tool. Simply choose a region, time frame and category from the drop down list. From there you can go deeper exploring to find out what drives the most visits. Use search phrases or keywords related to your business.
Probe through its search for subjects that made the most noise within the week past. When you select a region, time frame and category for a certain subject, Google Trends presents the result through graph illustration along with related search terms associated with the topic.
https://www.google.com/trends/
Twitter Trending Topics
Next to Facebook, Twitter is probably the next most popular site to visit if you want the latest buzz. Surely you are familiar with hash tags and the more there are on a certain topic, tells you enough that it is the latest trend. For writing thoughts, check out the latest and most talked-about hashtags right on the Twitter homepage – you may customize this according to your location or who you follow.
LinkedIn Pulse
Another popular network that shows the latest trends similar to how Twitter works. Because LinkedIn is network that connects people from different field and line of work, there is an increased chance of pulling diverse contents.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/
HARO (Help a Reporter)
Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is an online service set up for journalists to quickly gather feedback from the public. It is designed to enable journalists to connect with people who have expertise or experience in particular issues, so that journalists can obtain valuable advice and quotes for stories they are covering
That is one side of it. The other side is you can see the type of topics journalists are writing about. That will give great pointers on current trending topics
http://www.helpareporter.com/sources/
SlideShare
A top destination for professional contents from which you can browse for the most popular topics relevant to what you may wish to write about pertaining to a certain interests. You may choose to stick to your particular industry and from there find popular content ideas.
http://www.slideshare.net/popular/
Method 8: Content Curation
Content curation is another important strategy for any content expert or marketer that wants to build trust and become a go-to source for great information in your space. You discover the top content in your niche and share it with your audience. Perhaps you can add your own take on the discussion too.
For example, you can share a weekly summary of the top tools, news or stories in your niche. Read a lot and do it regularly. Content curation is an excellent strategy to build a regular following to your blog.
Now for content curation, you need some tools. One is to subscribe to all top blogs, magazines and newsletters in your niche. Then install a bookmarking tool. As you read great posts, book mark them and later curate them to a post.
For efficient content curation use these tools:
Feedly
Your subscription to Feedly will be useful in gathering contents, title inspiration, and for discovering topics other writers write about by using keywords.
feedly.com
Diigo
Diigo lets you keep track of articles by highlighting and bookmarking them for effortless retrieval later on. The tool allows insertion of notes to curated contents. Diigo is compatible with most mobile devices too.
diigo.com
Try a bookmarking application with tags for properly organizing the information. This will prove helpful in the collection and later curation of posts.
Method 9: Use Topic Generators
Sometimes, as a writer, all you need is to have a title and you can come up with a significant post. This is where topic generators can help you with title methods that you supply with keywords related to topics you generally write about.
Content Idea Generator
This tool provides numerous ideas for just about anything that will make a site attract visits be it blog, tweet, podcast, etc. Simply supply your information through a set of questions and suggestions are generated in seconds.
Portent Title Maker
New title suggestions come with details why they would make an interesting read.
https://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker
ContentIdeator
This tool generates a minimum of 5 titles for each keyword entered. It’s that simple!
http://www.contentforest.com/ideator
Blog topic generator by HubSpot
This is another simple to operate tool that allows up to 3 keywords and 5 titles will be generated.
http://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator
Tweak Your Biz
other than generating topics, this tool helps categorize the results making it easier from a writer’s point of view because the result could be as many as 340 ideas for content.
Inbound Now’s Blog Title Idea Generator
If you seem stuck and can’t come up with a perfect title, you will find this tool helpful. A mere click of a button is all you need to do.
https://www.inboundnow.com/apps/kill-writers-block/
Infographic Idea Generator
If your niche is about cars, simply type in cars and topics appear instantly – informational, geographical, statistical, process or comparison – for free! You may use the titles for infographics or for a popular blog post.
klock.work
Link Bait Title Generator
If what you wish to have are click-bait suggestions, you will find this tool unique. Just sort well and you will surely craft a read-worthy piece.
http://www.contentrow.com/tools/link-bait-title-generator
Method 10: Keep Track Of The Trending Hash Tags
Hashtag (#) is so popular today be it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram or Vine as it categorizes and makes contents more visible to the world. Some of the most used hashtag optimization solutions are the following:
Hashtagify.me
for easy-to-find tags for your target audience that could result to clicks and conversions. You may utilize the hashtags you find relevant to your posts so that you increase the chances of earning potential visitors. Often, it is through hashtag clicks that conversion happens provided you can come up with topics that people will find not only motivating but useful at the same time.
http://hashtagify.me/
RiteTag
RiteTag provides an easy understanding of hashtag use and analysis so you can take advantage of its relevance to your topics.
RiteTag will help you discover more about any hashtag by analyzing it’s usage and returning the relevant information in easy to understand charts. RiteTag provides a list of trending hashtags on its site that you can use to take advantage of in almost real-time.
https://ritetag.com/hashtag-search
Method 11: Read A Lot And Read Regularly
Just as people learn from your posts, you are likely to discover thoughts and ideas by reading other works as well. This you must do on a regular basis. Other than popular magazines, books and blogs, here are other useful sources.
Newsletters
Try searching for something related to your niche by using a certain keyword. Add “newsletter” to it and you get up to 6 results. Subscribe and you get niche-related newsletter on a regular basis.
Google Alerts
Set up alerts for certain topics that your customers care about. See what’s being published. Look for gaps in the information and create content to fill them.
Online Magazines
Find the sites in your industry that publish all the latest news, trends, tips, and everything else your readers love. Look for the articles with the most engagement: comments, shares, views, etc.
You’ll get a feel for what’s popular and what the hot topics are. Create content on those topics, and try to either bring a different viewpoint or expand on what’s already been discussed.
A good place to find magazines in your niche is alltop.com
Readers’ comments
Most published materials are followed by readers’ comments. From these comments, you may pick a thing or two (or even more) to write about. A certain reader’s question, for instance, can become a writing chance by providing a content that answers it.
[ Image Source: socialmediaexaminer.com ]
With these tips, you are sure to have enough topics to last you more than a month. Topics that are appropriate and applicable to the times, and most of all, the kind that people will look forward to reading and wanting more of.