25 Strategies To Generate Blog Post Ideas Today
by Ankit Singla
In this blog post, I’m going to share 25 techniques I use to find great blog post ideas.
The best part?
These techniques are so simple and actionable that even a newbie can learn them in minutes.
In short, if you are struggling to come up with topic ideas, you’ll LOVE this guide.
Let’s dive in:
1. Turn Questions Into Blog Post Ideas Using AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a freemium tool that helps you come up with the most asked questions about your topic.
Go to their site and enter your topic on the search bar to see questions you can write about on your blog.
How to use this method: Find lots of questions about your topic
The next page will show you different questions people ask about the topic.
You can toggle the appearance between Visualisation view or Data view (which is what you’re seeing now).
From here, you can use the different questions to come up with a post for each. Or you can combine different questions that share a similar theme and create a comprehensive post that answers them all.
To save all the questions and analyze each of them, click the download button in .csv format.
2. Turn To The News For Ideas
There’s no better source of information and blog topic ideas than the news.
Google News, to be exact.
Go to Google News to see the latest and trending events happening all over the world.
You can search for your topic using the bar to help you see the latest happenings in your field.
On the results page, you can see good topics to write about that might interest you.
Click on them to see the latest posts about each.
How to use this method: Newsjacking
Newsjacking is a method that lets you as publisher ride the wave of popularity that a topic has.
In the case of the example above, the first news piece talks about the “small” algorithm update.
In SEO, even the smallest of changes in the search algorithms can have a ripple effect in a website’s performance.
Therefore, you can use this piece as a jumping point on how they can SEO-proof their website amidst the algorithm change.
3. Find Out Trending Topics on Google
Similar to the latest news, writing about trending topics related to your niche allows you to piggyback on its wave of popularity in the hopes of driving more traffic to your blog.
One of the tools that lets you see the trending topics is Google Trends.
Upon typing your topic on the search bar, you will immediately see a graph that shows the trending score of the phrases.
The higher the graph trends to the right, the more popular it is, the more reason it is for you to write about it!
Using the same keyword, however, it’s not as popular a topic based on the graph above.
However, if you scroll down the page, you will see related and good topics to write about.
You can see related topics and queries about your topic.
This section shows the hottest topics relevant to your search according to search trends.
“Breakout” means that the search volume for this keyword are off the charts.
The rest shows the percentage score increase over a period. For example, under Related topics, “Johnny – Topic” has a +400% increase in searches. It means that it is more now than it was before!
However, not all results shown under this section are accurate.
In this example, “SEO” shows results from Korean celebrities with the topic as part of their name. Our intent is to find topics under about search engine optimization, so some of the results found here are irrelevant.
To show more results and find more relevant topics or queries, click on the link below each.
Here’s the screenshot below if we click “Showing 1-5 of 23 topics:”
It shows the next five most relevant topics.
How to use this method: Find the best trending topic
If you entered a broad topic as your search query for Google Trends, that’s great.
The tool will help you narrow down your search for the best topics about the subject.
Using the related search and queries, “Google My Business – Topic” has a +350% in search volume.
Using this information, you can write a post that connects the value that Google My Business provides to your site’s SEO.
Learn other smart ways to use Google Trends for Blogging.
4. Set Up Google Alerts
Since you cater to an audience, you might as well listen to what they have to say about the topic.
You can receive alerts straight to your email using Google Alerts.
Upon signing up for an account, enter the topic or keyword you want to track.
You can create as many alerts as you want for your topics.
Click “Create Alert” for this topic if you want to receive emails about the latest news about it.
You can add as many alerts as you want. Break down your blog topic into subtopics and track all of them.
How to use this method: Stay on top of the latest news
Similar to how you can use Google News, use the results as a jumping point for your next blog topics.
There will be times when the results for the topic won’t yield you interesting results.
However, the beauty of Google Alerts is that you will receive emails if something new comes up about your topic.
You don’t have to manually visit the news and look for the latest posts. Google Alerts will deliver the content straight to your inbox.
From there, find the best topics you can write about on your blog.
5. Use Google’s Keyword Research Tool
If you want even more blog topic ideas, you must hop onto Google’s keyword tool to unearth more keyword ideas and suggestions so you can brainstorm for more topics.
Enter the words or phrases that you want to search using the tool.
You can lump together as many topics as you want. For best results, they should all be related to each other to help you come up with good ideas.
After searching for the page, you will see the results organized into a table.
Focus on the “keyword (by relevance)” column since you want to brainstorm for topic ideas.
You may also want to consider the “average monthly searches” column so you can choose keywords that have high search volumes.
The higher the monthly searches, the more chances people will stumble upon your blog if it starts ranking on Google!
How to use this method: Search for topics that people search the most
You’d want to target related topics with the highest average monthly searches.
“Keto diet” has over 100K-1M searches in a month. While this sounds ideal, you want to focus on a more specific topic about keto diet.
It’s best to browse the results for granular topics.
Below are topics you can write about on your blog that’ related to keto diet:
The search volumes for the highlighted keywords may be fewer but they break down the topic into something more specific.
While search volume is important, you also want to create content that is highly targeted. Therefore, choose keywords from Keyword Planner keeping this in mind.
6. Find How Easy It is To Rank For The Keyword
Similar to the Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest is a tool that helps you brainstorm for keyword ideas and find more information about each.
However, unlike Keyword Planner that shows the range of searches a keyword gets in a month, Ubersuggest shows the average search volume of the post. This variable is crucial if you want your content to drive more traffic to your blog.
From the homepage, type of keyword or blog topic you want to search for ideas.
Once you’ve entered the keyword, it shows you its overview.
What’s more important is the information you can find below it:
To unearth more ideas, click on the “View all keyword ideas” button.
Scroll down the results on the left side to see more keyword ideas.
Aside from the keyword’s search volume (VOL column), a factor you need to look into is the SEO Difficulty (SD column).
Basically:
The lower the score, the easier it is for you to rank for that keyword.
By targeting keywords with low SEO difficulty scores, you can increase your chances of ranking high on search results.
Thus, you can drive more traffic to your blog!
How to use this method: Find low-hanging fruit keywords!
Keywords with relatively high search volume and low SEO difficulty scores are considered low-hanging fruits.
They give you the best chance of ranking on search engines with the least amount of effort!
In the example below, it’s hard to ignore these low-hanging fruit keywords:
All three have relatively high search volumes and low SEO difficulty.
Creating content for these keywords can help drive more traffic to your blog, assuming that you can create compelling posts.
7. Use Keyword Revealer
Keyword Revealer is similar to the UberSuggest above since it shows keyword difficulty for each of the topics or keywords.
But a cool feature about this tool is it provides additional data to help you choose the best ideas from the list.
Upon logging in, enter the topic of your blog which is serves as the seed keyword.
The tool will then search for hundreds of keywords that you use to brainstorm for blog topic ideas.
To get more specific topic ideas for your blog, click on the “Filter” button to open the drop-down window.
Let’s try finding keywords with certain modifiers. To do that, type “best” on the Keyword Search bar.
You will see the results here:
It shows you keyword phrases with the word “best” in it.
To determine the difficulty of the keyword, click “Evaluate.”
Here are the results for “best white sneakers for men.”
“Social Presence” helps you measure up the social shares of each post ranking on the first page of search results.
“Keyword Search Trend” shows you a line graph of how popular a keyword is through the years.
How to use this method: Simplify keyword brainstorming
The features above are available on the aforementioned tools.
However, Keyword Revealer has something that others don’t:
Keyword Brainstorming.
Go to the Keyword Brainstorming page and enter your seed keyword there.
Once done, you will see this:
The tool will create a visual representation of your topic and its corresponding subtopics. Clicking on the subtopics would show you even more blog topics.
Use the keywords here to come up with topics for your blog.
8. Look For Topic Ideas on Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo lets you find the most shared content about your topic. Using the results, you can come up with your own version of the content since people love sharing it.
By association, you should soon generate lots of shares for your posts and acquire more traffic!
After logging in, type in the topic to find the most shared posts about it.
You will see the results organized from the most shares to the least.
How to use this method: Write about topics that people want to share
Check out the most shared posts and figure out why that is the case.
Why do lots of people share it?
How is the post written? Or is it in a different format (video, audio, etc.)?
What subtopics does it cover?
The idea here is for you to create a much better version of the most shared posts.
The fact that people share the posts under this topic means that you should do the same for your blog!
But in this case, take the best elements of each post and replicate them on your blog post!
9. Use Social Animal
Similar in a lot of ways to Buzzsumo, Social Animal not only lets you find the most shared posts about your topic but you also get insights about the topic.
Upon logging in, enter your topic on the search bar.
You will see the results below that’s similar to Buzzsumo.
It tells you how long your title should be, how many words your post should have, and other factors to help increase the impact of your post to your desired audience.
How to use this method: Research for effective headlines and create better ones
What makes Social Animal different is the ability to analyze the headlines of each post.
On the result, click on the weighing scale icon of the post with the headline you want to analyze.
A window appears and breaks down the information about the headline.
The details here will help you understand what makes the headline work. These also explain the hundreds and thousands of readers and shares of the post.
Scrolling down the bottom of the screen, you will also see the title broken down into different word balloons. It describes each word used and their synonyms in case you want to create an article similar to this one.
10. Search For Questions on Quora
This premier Q&A site is a treasure trove for blog topic ideas. Search your topic or keyword on the search bar and find the most asked questions.
Upon logging into their site, enter your topic on the search bar.
Click on “Search” to find questions about your topic. You can also choose “Topic” if you to see results from a more specific topic.
The results should be enough to help you come up with topics that answer a specific question or a combination of different ones.
How to use this method: Find questions with the most answers
The great thing about Quora is that the cream rises at the top.
What I mean is:
The best questions get the most answers.
This makes your job much easier because everything you need to write about your post can be seen by the answers of others.
If you click on one of questions, here’s how the page looks like:
11. Find Even More Questions Using Serpstat
Serpstat is an SEO and content marketing tool to help you conduct your research and develop your digital campaign.
For the purpose of brainstorming blog topics, however, Serpstat has the Search Questions feature under Content Marketing.
How to use this method: Find even more questions about your topic
Enter the topic on the search bar after logging in.
Then click on Content Marketing > Search Questions to see more questions that you can use as fodder for your blog content.
Similar to AnswerThePublic, use the questions for inspiration into writing a brand new post or lump together similar questions that you can answer in a single comprehensive article.
To save the questions, click the Export button and download your format of choice.
12. Search Twitter
Search your keyword or topic on Twitter to show you the top tweets for your search query.
Scroll down the results page to see the latest tweets about your topic. Most of them will be articles so you may want to read and get more blog topic ideas out of them.
You can also filter the result to only show the top news, influencers, and media content related to the topic.
How to use this method: Embed tweets and use it as talking point in your post
The great thing about Twitter is you can embed it on your post.
Click on the arrow down icon of the tweet and click “Embed Tweet.”
This opens a new window where you can copy the embed code and paste it on your article.
Use the tweet similar to how you use the news article as a jumping point for your post.
It’s better if you will use a controversial or polarizing tweet about your topic and share your two cents in it. You get to piggyback on the tweet’s popularity and gain some traffic along the way.
13. Search Pinterest
One of the best sources of ideas for your blog is Pinterest. It’s one of the most popular social media because it shows you visual content such as images and infographics.
Type the topic on the search bar.
You can refer to the latest and most popular pins about your audience to generate blog ideas.
Target infographics that feature lots of information so you can pick and choose which among the talking points you should tackle on your post.
How to use this method: Refer to infographics for ideas
As mentioned, visual content is the way to go in the future. And you can start leveraging on this fact with the help of Pinterest.
Aside from featuring the infographics on your post, you can take the points mentioned in the graphic and use it to write an article.
Here’s an example:
14. Use The Topic Research Tool By SEMrush
SEMrush is a premium SEO tool but you can sign up for a free account and get limited daily access to some of its features.
One of those is Topic Research.
Entering your topic on the search bar.
You will be greeted with a host of adjacent and vertical topics related to your query.
Clicking on one of the cards will show you this:
How to use this method: Come up with comprehensive blog posts for each topic cards
Each card shows you relevant SEO metrics (search volume, keyword difficulty, etc), the best topic headlines, questions people ask about the topic, and related search queries to help you expand your search.
Using the results, you can come up with more than enough ideas for your blog!
You can also export the results in XLSX format for your reference.
15. Use Ahrefs Content Explorer
Similar to Buzzsumo, the Content Explorer feature of Ahrefs returns you the best performing posts for your search query.
The next page shows the results:
How to use this method: Find ideas for that topic that people like to link to.
SEO is an important part of your blog.
By following the best optimization practices, you can stay on top of search results for your keywords and amass lots of traffic.
To achieve this, you need to generate lots of backlinks to your site which is considered as one of the top ranking factors.
Considered as the tool with the largest link database, Ahrefs can help your blog generate backlinks from your content.
Using Content Explorer, sort out the results to “Referring Domains.” It will order the results from posts from highest to lowest links.
Browse through the results and check the post’s backlinks and analyze them using the metrics provided by the software.
Aside from using social media shares to measure performance, it also takes into consideration the tool’s proprietary data (Domain Rating, referring domains, estimated organic traffic) and other details.
Using the information here, you can create better content and find link partners of your competitors.
16. Search For Topics Your Competitors Are Ranking For on Search Engines
The goal of writing content is to drive more traffic to your blog or site.
Using the keyword tools mentioned above should help you find low-hanging fruit keywords to optimize for your post.
However, instead of searching for keywords from scratch, you can find proven keywords that your competitors are ranking for.
To see which keywords your competitors are ranking for, use an SEO tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush.
Using Ahrefs for this example, go to Site Explorer and enter the URL of your competitors.
On the next screen, click on organic keywords under Organic Search on the left sidebar.
The next page will show you the different keywords that the site is ranking for which page.
You can filter the results by entering the position, search volume, keyword difficulty, and other variables to find topics to write on your blog.
How to use this method: “Steal” competitor’s best content
If not all of the results are related to the topic, then you need to type the topic on the “Include” bar.
Doing so lets you see keywords with your topic that the site is ranking for. Below is the screenshot of the example:
Browse through the results to see the page that is ranking for each keyword. If you want to write about the same topic, use their post as reference when writing your own.
Using SEMrush, enter the URL on the search bar and search for Organic Keywords from the Domain Overview. You will see the list of keywords the site ranks for.
From here, find topic ideas that you can write about your on your blog.
17. Use Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator
If you want a tool that will come up with a blog title for your topic, then Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator is for you.
Enter the topic or keyword on the text bar.
Add more topics before letting the tool generate blog ideas.
You can then enter up to five different nouns to help the tool come up with the best possible titles for you.
After clicking on “Give me Blog Ideas,” you will receive a five blog topics to write about for the next week.
If you have a Hubspot account, you can receive 250 topic ideas to write on your blog for the whole year.
18. Use Tweak Your Biz’s Title Generator
Another blog topic generator, the Title Generator by Tweak Your Biz provides more topic ideas for different content types on your blog.
Enter the topic or keyword and determine whether it is a noun or verb.
You will be greeted with over a hundred title ideas for your blog.
The titles are grouped according to content types such as lists, best of’s, how to’s, questions, and many more.
Each title tackles your topic in different angles that you probably aren’t aware of, which is a good thing! It helps you come up with different approaches on how to write your content so you don’t have to wrack your brain coming up with fresh ideas.
You can copy and paste all titles to your spreadsheet or document file for future reference.
19. Use Portent’s Content Idea Generator
Some of the blog topic ideas generated by the tools above, as diverse and comprehensive as they are, lack a bit of fun and camp.
If you’re managing a blog that uses humor and weirdness to stand out, then the Content Idea Generator by Portent is perfect for you.
Type the topic in the bar.
Hit enter to see the most unique titles it can come up for your blog topic.
You can click on the refresh icon to keep generating new titles for the topic. You can keep doing this until you find the topic you like the best.
Some of the suggestions are very exotic. But as mentioned, if you are implementing a fun and quirky tone for your blog, then the suggestions provided by this tool may be crazy enough to work.
20. Use The Blog Post Ideas Generator
The Blog Post Ideas Generator by Build Your Own Blog puts a twist to tools that generate blog post titles for you.
Instead of entering your topic on a search bar, just click on the “Generate Blog Post Idea” button.
It will then come up with writing prompts for you to write about on your blog.
Keep clicking on the button until the right prompt comes up.
21. Curate More Content About Your Topic Using Feedly
Feedly is another social listening tool that lets you collect and bundle content about a specific topic from different sources.
How to use this method: Compile the best sources of news about the topic
Sign up for a topic and click “Add Content.”
You then need to add content by entering your topic on the search bar and choosing the sites you want to monitor.
Once you enter the topic, the results will show sites you can follow on Feedly.
Click on the sites to see their content and they publish relevant content to your topic.
If yes, click on the Follow button.
Repeat the process of reviewing the sites and following the most relevant ones.
Once you’ve followed more than enough sites, you now have a feed that you can track and monitor if you want the latest content about the topic. Use the article results as inspiration for your next blog topic idea.
22. Read Your Blog Comments
If you’ve published enough content, then the blog topic ideas may be just right under your nose.
Depending on the commenting system you’re using, browse through what people mentioned in the comment.
Maybe they raised questions about a topic that you weren’t able to cover in one of your posts.
How to use this method: Use comments raised by your readers as your topics
There’s probably a thread of comments that sparked intense discussion among you and your readers.
Use these details to help you brainstorm for ideas you can use to write new articles on your blog.
Here’s a comment on my blog post that I’d like to use as an example.
Assuming that it wasn’t covered on my blog post, I can use this as a starting point for a brand new post I can write.
Brush through all your comments with a fine tooth comb to unearth potential blog topic ideas.
Not all will be home runs especially comments that simply thank you for your writing the post. You want to search for comments that post questions or add value to the discussion.
23. Ask Your Email Subscribers
Your subscribers are some of your most valuable blog readers. The fact that they subscribed to your blog means that they like what you’re writing and publishing.
Therefore, it would be a great idea to ask them for topics that they want to read from your blog.
How to use this method: Crowdsource your subscribers for ideas
Send a broadcast using your email marketing tool to all your subscribers. Make the message short and end the email with the question to encourage them to reply to your email.
Here’s an template you can use to write your message:
Subject: I need your help!
Body:
Hello, [first name]!
I’ve been writing super actionable blog content for you that, well, I’d run out of ideas!
I’ve searched far and wide for new topics that I can write on blog. Alas, I’ve come up empty!
But then I remembered you, [name].
You’ve been a subscriber of my blog for as long as I can remember, And it’s only fair if I ask you:
Care to share any topics you want me to discuss on my blog?
It can be anything under the sun, as long as it’s related to [blog niche].
If you have something in mind, send a reply and I’ll see what I can do.
Thanks in advance!
24. Find Subtopics You Mentioned on Your Blog And Discuss Them Further
If you’ve written a very wordy post that’s loaded with value to your readers, then you might want to use the subtopics you discussed and turn them into articles on their own.
There might be times when you talked about a particular subject on the post but never really delve deeper into it.
If that’s the case, then consider writing an article that breaks down the subject in detail!
How to use this method:
When visiting your blog posts, you need to double-check if you covered all the details in your subheadings.
The screenshot below is from one of my posts. Under “Best Practices for an Optimized Image,” I’ve enumerated three: determining image format, using captions on images, and using image sitemaps.
Each practice contains 200-300 words, which is good enough if discussed alongside other subtopics.
However, I feel there’s more room for me to discuss image sitemaps on a separate post. Therefore, I could spin that into a brand new article.
25. Turn Outbound Links Into Articles on Your Blog
When writing posts, you might find yourself linking to an online resource about a specific subject. While this isn’t a bad thing, you are driving them away from your blog by offering them a link to the topic.
Therefore, if you have links that point to a page on another site, rewrite the content from that page and publish it on your blog. Once published, you can link back to the post from within your blog.
How to use this method: Fill in the missing content in your blog
In my posts, I make sure to linking from within my blog.
If I happen to link to another site, it’s because I haven’t written a post that covers that subject. Once I have the time, I’ll write about it and link to the one I just wrote and published on my blog.
This accomplishes two things :
- turn the outbound links into blog topics
- keep them longer on your blog by linking to the post about the same subject from within your page instead of linking to a post from a different site.
The longer they stay on your blog, the better you can engage them!
Are You Ready To Find Great Blog Topic Ideas?
Looking for blog ideas isn’t that difficult.
The ideas above are proof of that. You can come up with hundreds of ideas just by using Google.
From its search engine to its tools, there is so much information that you can use online to brainstorm for topic ideas.
However, the biggest issue is finding the right blog topic idea.
There are topics that seem great and interesting, but ask yourself these questions:
Will they drive traffic to your blog?
Will you be able to generate more social shares from that topic?
Can you convert visitors into subscribers or customers by writing about that topic?
These will help you choose the best ones instead of just choosing at random.
Along with the ideas above, I’ve also indicated the different factors you need to consider when choosing your blog topics.
The number of keywords, determining the posts that garnered the most social shares (to help you create a similar but better content on your blog), and finding out the latest news about your topic are just some of the variables that should come into play when choosing your topics.
Of course, it won’t hurt if you can organize all these ideas so you can create a schedule for writing your blog topic ideas. The point of brainstorming for topics is so you can publish a steady stream of content your audience will love on a regular basis.
Hopefully, the ideas in this post will help keep you busy finding the best and most compelling topics for your blog!
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