Most effective bloggers don’t view blog posts independently but rather build an entire series or grouping of posts by TOPIC. Choosing topics should begin with keyword research.
Two free tools that everyone should have bookmarked are Google’sKeywordTool and Wordtracker’sKeywordTool. Use these tools to stay on the pulse of the keywords that relate to your site’s products or services – they will give you insight into which keywords are being searched for.
As you begin to identify the keywords that are “primary drivers” for your market, think about which of them relate to true areas of PAIN for your customers. This Venn diagram helps illustrate the relationship here between your keyword research, the pain points of your customers and what your blog posts subject matter should be written about:
Image courtesy of Online Potential, Inc.
Now you are probably saying “Yeah, I do this already” or “This seems easy enough for the first 3 months, but how do I keep finding topics over the long term?”
Great questions – lets go back to those keywords. One useful tip for those involves Google’s news alerts. Simply take your primary keywords and create alerts around them. We refer to it as “crowd-sourcing blog topics” and what will happen is that every day you will get numerous stories containing your keywords. Bookmark the most interesting stories for future research use and LOOK FOR PATTERNS. You will begin to notice things that come up repeatedly. Soon you will be able to identify target topics that are on the pulse of your readers issues and at the same time related to your primary keywords.
Other Powerful Tips for Great Blog Topics
Current Events – national holidays, important anniversaries and big news stories all offer an opportunity to tie your blog posts to searches and drive traffic. It’s almost impossible to effectively manage posts around current events or specifically holidays without an editorial calendar though – we will get to that soon.
Industry Events – while these can also be considered “current events” we separated them out due to the fact that the event itself might not be the topic that draws. The event schedules themselves and the list of speakers might be your ticket, so know what events are coming up, who is speaking and what topics they are covering. Piggy-back content off of these and often times you will see a surge in traffic associated with the event and as the buzz around the topic increases.
Interviews – if you feel as if one of the great thinkers in your space is completely unreachable, THINK AGAIN. Many times those people will be more than happy to make time for a quick Skype or phone interview, especially if you have devoted time to building the relationship. Do they have a blog? Register and comment. Ask questions, provide feedback and get your name in front of them. Follow them on their favorite social media venues and engage. Then, when you approach them for a few minutes of their time they will be more likely to reciprocate.
Book Reviews – similar to interviews, book reviews provide ready made “super topics” due to the popularity of the book you choose to review. Key here: don’t be afraid to have an opinion…step up and be brave! At worst people will find serious disagreement with you and comment on your post. Engagement is great and you should encourage it always. At best they will enjoy the review and share it with friends via Facebook, Twitter or other channels. You get the point.
What You Need to Know: by taking a little time to research and create effective titles, you will ensure that you’re not “shouting in the wilderness” and that people are actually finding and reading your posts. This will build that much needed trust and spread those social signals that are becoming more of a factor in our search rankings.
