Starting a blog may seem like a lot of work, mostly because of the effort that goes into continuously producing content. However, there are a number of reasons why producing a blog will benefit your business in the end.
One of these reasons is that blogs help drive traffic to your website and could thusly improve your rank in search. Every time you write a blog, that’s one more page on your website that could get discovered on a search engine. That’s also more good content for you to post on your social media channels and other businesses to repost.
Improving your ranking in search will increase traffic to your website, which in turn could result in more qualified leads. Think of each blog post as an opportunity to generate new leads and include appropriate calls-to-action thusly.
Now that you understand the importance of having a blog, what in the world are you going to write about? Writer’s block can be a frustrating feeling, but here are 10 article ideas to help you and your business get a good start on content production:
- Top Posts: Combine all of your most popular blog posts in a “top posts” of the week, month, quarter and/or year. This content was highly viewed the first time you posted it, so why not post it again?
- Common Themes: Find common themes in your posts and rewrite list articles using info from (and linking to) these old posts. Whatever the theme is, your blog is sure to have a few overlapping articles. Combine these posts into a list and be sure to link to the original posts, for double the views.
- Question of the Week: Does your website have a Q&A section? Or do you get a lot of customer questions on your Facebook page? Highlight a “question of the week” from these sources and answer it fully in a blog post. Customer feedback is great content to repurpose because chances are if one person is asking about something, others are wondering about the same issue/topic.
- Link Roundup: Do a roundup of helpful links to articles and blog posts related to your industry from that week. This is a great way to not only track the competition, but find inspiration for blog posts. Collect these articles as the week goes on, then at the end of the week put them together in a blog post.
- Event Content: Do you attend or host industry related events? If so, the discussions that take place at these events can serve as great blog content. Recapping sessions or interviewing people at these gatherings will provide you with plenty of material to generate interesting blog posts. These posts could include personal testimonials, photos and videos of the event, and more. Be creative!
- Listicles: People love lists, and if you’re reading this article, you’re helping prove this point! Think of turning some of your article ideas or previous articles into lists that offer very quick and easy to digest takeaways.
- Guest Bloggers: If you know experts in your industry, coworkers, or anyone else who has the time and expertise to contribute to your blog, tap into that network for help. Keep track of regular contributors and how often they contribute, and reach out monthly or quarterly offering opportunities to write for your blog.
- Surveys: Conduct a survey and write about the results. Depending on your industry, you could survey customers about their questions, perceptions, interests, etc. Then view the survey results and write a series of blogs analyzing the data and what it means for your target audience.
- Industry Statistics: Track relevant industry statistics to share. You can make quick, simple graphics using these statistics and then link to relevant pages or other blogs on your website that expand on those stats. This kind of content also makes for great social media content as well.
- Ask Your Customers: When all else fails, ask your customers what kind of content they want to see more of on your site. Do they want more videos, articles, podcasts or something else entirely? What topics are of most interest to them? Listen to and fulfill your customers’ needs.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of ideas, so be creative. Also, look at what your competitors are doing and think of ways to do it better or with your own spin on it. How do you refresh your content when it is getting stale? Let us know in the comments below.
