You’re trying to get your website off the ground, and you’ve heard your traffic will improve if you fill your pages with lots of valuable content. But there’s the problem—you want to create interesting blog posts and page content for your audience, but you’re totally stumped on what to write about! This is an all-too-familiar problem for many small business owners. Thankfully, in our years of practice, we’ve discovered some shortcuts that can make it easier to come up with webpage and blog ideas. Keep reading for our suggestions on how to come up with topic ideas for your website content!
Take Inspiration From Online Forums
Track down online communities related to your trade or niche. Social media groups and blog forums are a hotbed for passionate discussion about new trends, DIY tips, personal anecdotes, and more. If you’re stuck for blog ideas, take a few minutes to read the online discussions on these forums. Mine the conversations for hot topics that attract a lot of engagement and discussion. You might also discover the same handful of questions popping up again and again. You can use these insights to provide people with the advice and answers they’re clearly searching for. These are the topics that are most likely to interest your target customers.
Discover New Keywords
In studying these online discussion boards, you may also start to notice some new phrases or keywords gaining popularity. This is invaluable information, because it will show you the kind of language regular folks use when they talk about things related to your industry. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to mold your content so it captures search traffic for layman’s terms that you might not have been aware of, given your technical expertise in the field.
Use Tangential Topics, Too
When coming up with ideas for content, don’t be afraid to blur the lines between your niche and a niche adjacent to yours. Chances are, your target customers are interested in both, and you can easily relate these tangential topics back to your own business. Here’s an example: Let’s say you’re a hardwood flooring specialist. It’s safe to assume a large subset of your target customers are planning a home remodel. Therefore, you may want to include blog posts about topics related to remodeling, such as DIY decorating tips, popular paint colors, and how to remodel on a budget. In other words, go beyond your specific industry and think about related topics your target customers might also be interested in.
Consult an Automatic Generator
If you’ve exhausted all of the above strategies—or you’re simply short on time—try checking out an automatic topic generator like Answer the Public. This tool works if you have a keyword in mind but you can’t quite figure out how to write about it. You simply type the word or phrase into the search box, and you’ll be presented with a large assortment of questions that people are asking related to that keyword. These questions are taken directly from search engine data. For example, if you type “hardwood floor” into the Answer the Public’s search field, you’ll get a list of 111 frequently asked questions, including:
- “Why wax a hardwood floor?”
- “How to clean hardwood floor?”
- “Which hardwood floor is best?”
- “Can hardwood floor cleaner be used on laminate?”
As you can see, the questions come from all different angles, so there’s no shortage of topics you can cover for any given keyword. Just pick a question you find most intriguing, or one you know the most about, and write your answer. This should be a great starting point for your blog post or webpage.
When All Else Fails, PG Can Help!
Whether you feel like writing isn’t one of your strengths or you just don’t have enough time to create your own website content, we can help. Our talented writers and production specialists can produce compelling content for your website, blog, and social media accounts on your behalf. Then, we can even promote it online to increase your traffic and visibility. If you’re interested in our writing services, don’t hesitate to reach out!