As a blogger, you’re always on the hunt for the next idea for your blog. Engaging and relevant topics help you engage your current readers and look appealing to new ones. But it’s hard to come up with new ideas constantly. Using the same brainstorming techniques over and over can lead you to a dead end.
Today, I’ll share eight tactics for generating blog post ideas so you always know what to write about.
1. Explore your niche
As you think of blog post topics, keep your blog’s niche at the front of your mind. Your niche keeps your topics focused and gives you a place to start.
If you haven’t pinned down your blog’s niche yet, I highly recommend doing so as soon as you can. While you might think you’ll limit your writing options if you pick a niche, you’ll actually give yourself the specificity you need to zero in on more topics.
Ask yourself these questions to find a niche for your blog:
- What themes do you see among your existing blog posts?
- What topics do you have a lot of first-hand experience in?
- Which blog posts and subjects do your audience enjoy?
- What subjects could you write about far into the future?
If you run a blog for a business, you’ll also need to consider your niche’s relevance to your product and viability for earning money. We explain some of these factors and share some examples of niches in this blog post.
2. Identify your target audience
Understanding your readers can also help you find new blog topics by giving you criteria to spark ideas. Plus, the topics you develop will have a greater chance of success with your audience because you picked them with your readers in mind.
The most valuable way to learn about your readers is to get input from them directly. Use a Google Form or your favorite survey platform to survey your readers about their interests and favorite content. Or, you could interview some of your readers directly to see what they want to read on your blog.
Second-hand info helps, too. Check what kinds of accounts follow you on social media to understand their interests and background. You can also look at your existing comments or customer feedback to get an idea of what readers already like about your content.
3. Monitor industry trends and news
One of the perks of working within a niche is that you know what news and trends to follow on your blog. By staying informed of the latest happenings in your niche, you’ll find more timely topics that your readers are currently interested in.
It’s easy to automate this process. Set Google Alerts for terms specific to your niche to get automated notifications about trending content. If your niche is gaming, for example, you could set alerts for game consoles like the PlayStation 5 to receive updates on their new features.
Aggregator platforms like Feedly also make it simple to stay up to date. Add publications related to your niche to your feed and create automated alerts. Depending on your platform, you can do this right in the app or using an automation tool like Zapier.
4. Leverage social media for inspiration
Social media is a bountiful source of relevant and interesting ideas if you know where to look. Platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit feature plenty of discussions from people in your audience that you can read for inspiration.
Here are some techniques for finding social media content to inspire your blog topics:
- Make a Twitter list of prominent people in your niche and check on it regularly. You’ll give yourself access to a feed fully focused on your subject area.
- Follow subreddits related to your niche on Reddit and pay attention to what the members talk about and how they talk about it.
- Search and follow hashtags on Instagram and TikTok that cover topics related to your subject area.
- Use the polling tool on the social media platform where you have the biggest following to ask your followers about potential subjects for your blog.
5. Listen to your audience
Your readers’ feedback, questions, and comments show you exactly what your audience wants to read from you. If you notice a common question, for example, you could answer it in your next post.
WordPress has built-in features that encourage your readers to give their input. Enable comments in your blog settings to get audience opinions on each of your posts.
For more general feedback, you can use the form block to give your readers a place to let you know what topics they want to read about.
Outside of your website, you can also start a regular social media posting schedule to encourage your followers to engage with you. Remember to respond to any social media replies and blog comments made in good faith.
6. Use content generation tools and techniques
In addition to investigating your niche and audience, you can also use time-tested idea-generation tools to add to your topic pool.
Try some of these tools:
- Keyword research: Even if you don’t optimize your blog for search engines, you can use a keyword research tool to find relevant ideas. These tools look for search engine keywords related to the keyword you enter. I’ve recently been playing around with Ryan Robinson’s free keyword generator, but you can find many others online.
- Google Trends: Google Trends captures Google’s trending search terms online. You can narrow those results down by location and time period and find related terms.
- HubSpot’s Blog Idea Generator: This tool riffs on the nouns you enter to give you blog post angles on different topics. You get five ideas up front for free and 250 ideas in exchange for your contact information.
7. Repurpose and update your existing content
Once you have a well-established blog running, you don’t always have to come up with brand-new ideas to make new content. Sometimes, repurposing or updating older posts can have as much of an impact as creating a new one.
To refresh your content, you’ll first need to figure out what blog posts need a revamp. If you have an SEO tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush, look for posts that used to perform well but dipped in traffic over time. You can also come from a non-SEO angle and keep an eye out for posts that could use an update in their facts, language, or links.
Once you choose your articles to refresh, approach the updating process from SEO and non-SEO angles. Use an SEO tool (Keywords Everywhere is a great budget option) to find high-performing keywords related to the blog post’s topic. Then, look for ways to make the content more relevant, helpful, and meaningful for readers today.
8. Collaborate with other bloggers and industry experts
Make your next blog post a team effort by collaborating with another blogger or expert in your industry. You’ll have two minds to think of ideas and the support of another creator.
The most sustainable way to find people to collaborate with is to integrate networking into your day-to-day. Follow WordPress blogs and social media accounts in your niche and comment on their work. In other words, get interested in what other folks do and be a nice person — it’ll pay back.
From there, you can email or message these people about collaborating through a blog post like an interview or podcast. They might ask you to do the same later on!
Additional Tip
Let your day inspire you
For many bloggers, success is defined as growing an audience of interested readers who don’t make you feel like you’re shouting into the void. You can start by mining your daily tasks and responsibilities for story ideas. People are naturally curious, so posts that give a behind-the-scenes peek at your habits, business practices, morning routine, client process, and business location are a great place to start.
What should I write about? Here are some examples of story ideas gleaned from daily business activities:
- Write a blog-post series about the big steps in your sales process, from planning and inventory to sales and delivery of your product(s) or service(s).
- Give a tour of your office or shop. You can even explain how you organize your supplies (mentioning your favorites), file your papers, and make your space more welcoming and productive.
- Write a post about your favorite organizational tool(s). Is it a day planner, your website’s contact form, or something else?
- Round up your sources of inspiration, whether they be podcasts, books, or magazines. You likely look to others for inspiration all the time, so let your fans know what inspires you.
- Consider writing a post that shares insights on how to become successful in your field, especially if a big part of your daily life involves fielding questions from those looking to do what you do.
Bonus round: Where does article length come into play?
Don’t be afraid to go long
Have you ever written a blog post that’s more than 4,000 words? While it may seem like a ton of work (which it certainly can be), the benefits could potentially skyrocket your blog. Think back to when you first started your blog or business. Did you ever lay awake at night, stressing? And did you then turn to long, how-to blog posts to help you figure out the knowledge and tools you needed? Using a long-form blog post, you can now be the solution to someone else’s struggles.
Well-written and helpful long-form blog posts take some time to read, but more time equals more trust. Plus, readers will typically stay on your long-form post 40 percent longer than they would on an average page — and will then look at 25 percent more pages on your website, Kissmetrics explains. Try to write one or two long-form blog posts every few months. They take time, but they can become a pillar for your business’s online presence.
What should I write about? Here are more story idea examples that are best suited for longer posts:
- Write a post about a differing or contrarian belief that you have in your field — a long-form post gives you room to share your reasoning and explain your thought process.
- Share a detailed day-in-the-life post. What does it look like to see you on the clock? What activities take up your time?
- Highlight all the tools you use in your trade. From WordPress.com to that desk chair you’ve finally found that doesn’t hurt your back — list them all with a blurb about each.
But short matters too
Short-form blogs absolutely have a place in the content landscape — just consider Seth Godin. His short, daily blog posts written on whatever topic strikes his fancy are highly shared. Mix up your posting rhythms to see what your audience prefers, and lean on the WordPress.com app to keep up your posting schedule. You can snap images and type quick blog posts into your smartphone, which gives you the power to publish from anywhere.
Shorter posts can be great places to play with counterintuitive ideas, information that inspires, and pithy observations. To make each individual article easier for search engines to find, be sure to it stands out from the get-go! Pair it with a striking image and stay focused on a single idea that’s worth sharing.
What should I write about? Here are more story ideas that are best suited for short posts:
- Snap a photo on your smartphone of something that inspires your work and post it via the WordPress.com app. Ask your audience where they find inspiration.
- Post a quote you love, or find beneficial, and explain what it means to you.
- Share a quick bullet list of things you learned at a recent meetup or conference.
What’s the sweet spot for blog post length?
Looking at the data we have about blog post best practices, the sweet spot seems to land at about 1500 words. This is the point where performance started to improve in Semrush’s 2020 State of Content Marketing Report. It was also the second most popular blog post length in Orbit Media’s 2022 blogging survey.
You don’t need to use performance as the only guideline for your blog post length, though. If you want to perform a deep dive on a topic, don’t be afraid to go as long as you need. And shorter blog post lengths can work wonders for posts with impactful messages.
Make idea generation a regular to-do
Your best bet for always having blog post ideas on hand is to make these idea-generating tactics a habit. Make time in your schedule to come up with ideas, and add those topics to a list to pull from when it’s time to write.
This principle also goes for learning about your niche and audience. Always keep an eye out for what’s going on in your niche and the people who like it using the tools mentioned in this blog post. If you’re still having trouble thinking of ideas, try our blog post with 130 of them. It also has a brainstorming process to keep generating them. Feel free to bookmark this article and visit it whenever you need to come up with post topics, too.
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