7 ways to find business blog topics
As I've mentioned many times before, blogging is a powerful component of a good content marketing plan. It's useful for educating prospect and constituents, it can help guide website visitors toward calls to action, and it can also be good for SEO.
However, one of the most difficult things about maintaining a good blog is consistently finding topics. Let's say you are publishing a new blog post once a week. In my opinion, this is the minimum. That means you need to come up with 52 topics throughout the year to write about. And remember that these blog posts need to be educational, useful, well-written, and tuned for SEO. This takes time and effort. So how do you come up with topics? Here are a few ways.
1. Use questions from your customers. I'm sure most of us receive all sorts of questions from customers (or members/constituents) related to products, services, and problems. Rather than just answering the same question hundreds of times, why not write a detailed blog post with lots of useful information about that issue? Not only does this give you a ready-made article to send to people next time the question is asked, but it also demonstrates your expertise to prospects.
2. Create a list of resources. Most organizations are in a position to make recommendations to their constituents and give them resources that can be helpful to them. Be a content curator and publish "top 10" lists of external websites or resources that your customers will find useful.
3. Write about services you provide. Sometimes your customers are not aware of all the services you provide or perhaps don't understand the importance of taking advantage of them. Use this opportunity to take one of your less well-known products or services and write a blog post explaining its value. I recently wrote about mobile website design and how to approach it and immediately got a number of inquiries from existing clients wanting to learn more about our mobile website design service.
4. Write about things you wish your customers knew. Is there a recurring situation that makes you say "I wish our customers would do [...]" or "I wish they knew [...]"? If so, write about it! Explain the issue to your customers in a detailed and helpful manner. They will appreciate the time you took to provide insight and education. This can be especially useful for non-profits since a lot of their work involves educating the community on the specifics of what they do and why their constituents might want to show support.
5. Tell stories. Do you ever have great stories about your customers? Write about it! Focus the attention on your customers and tell stories about challenges they overcame or great things they are doing. When appropriate, include information about how you helped them.
6. Ask questions. Would it be useful to gather feedback from your constituents on a certain topic? If so, present some background information and ask a specific question. This encourages discussion via comments. If you have a socially optimized blog then this means more inbound traffic via social networks.
7. Get the whole team involved. Chances are your organization has one person designated to write content (perhaps you) but that doesn't mean you can't recruit some help. Poll your team to find out what issues and questions they receive from customers. You might discover a whole list of topics just by getting new perspectives from others in your organization. Pay special attention to those in customer service.
Remember that an effective blog is useful, educational, consistent, well-optimized, and is not an overt sales pitch. With the right theme and a constant flow of good topics, your blog can become a powerful sales, marketing, and customer service tool.
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