Consistent blogging has proven to help companies grow their audience and achieve better ranking on the SERPs (search engine results pages). If you want your content marketing efforts to be effective (and who doesn’t?), it just makes sense to blog on a regular basis. That said, you may at times be at a loss for what to write about next. Don’t let that stress you out! As one of the top boutique inbound marketing agencies in Missouri, Colorado, and Washington, we know that there are a number of data-driven ways to determine what interests your audience.
Look to the Stats for More Blog Material
If you’re struggling to come up with interesting and informative blog topics, try using these strategies:
- Review what’s worked in the past. One of the best ways to determine what your audience likes to read is to look at what they have read in the past. Analyzing the performance of previous posts using HubSpot’s Content Strategy tool or other aids can show you exactly what they have enjoyed. From there, you can write on related topics, update a past post with new information, or consolidate information from multiple posts into one.
- Check out the conversations at industry associations. If you are in, say, widget manufacturing, visit the website for the Association of Widget Manufacturers and see what they are blogging about and how readers are reacting to their posts. A quick count of posts and comments can help you come up with your own topics that tie into these conversations.
- Take a peek at your competitors’ blogs. No, you don’t want to be “late to the party” with topics your competitors have already covered. But if they blog regularly and seem to have an engaged audience, there’s no shame in learning from their successes (and possibly their failures).
- Ask your readers. It’s a little ironic that when wanting to know what readers are interested in, we often fail to go right to the source and simply ask them! If your audience has shown a willingness to reply when you pose a question, a “What do you want to know?” post or a more detailed online survey may bring in lots of great ideas. And if you have a Contact Us form on your website, you might want to mine the list of submitted questions to see if there are any topics your audience has already indicated they would like to be more informed about.
- Get a little help from Google. When you perform a Google search on a specific word or phrase, a list of related searches is shown at the bottom of the page. These entries aren’t Google’s opinion of what’s related; they’re based on stats, and can be very informative. Also, Google Trends can be a great resource for seeing what topic are hot or about to break out.
- Ask your coworkers. People on your sales and customer support teams (and possibly others) are in regular contact with your prospects and customers, and they can probably come up with a list of questions they are asked most frequently. That list is blog topic gold!
Keep Your Blog Cranking!
Ask experts at any top marketing agency and they’ll tell you that consistently cranking out engaging blog posts can be a challenge, but one that pays off handsomely over time. Our agency helps clients nationwide use blogging as an integral part of their highly successful inbound marketing efforts. Wondering how blogging can help you draw more attention to your offerings? Give us a call and let’s talk about your strategy!
