Ideas are easy to come by. What’s hard to come by are fresh and original ideas. You can enter a keyword on Google and write about the same things you find on the search results. What’s hard is thinking about something no one has written about. These are the kinds of topics that separate your blog from the rest. Unfortunately, the hardest part about creating digital content is the ideation part. How can your blog stand out? What can you write about that is unique and interesting to your target market?
And not only that, but your topics should also work to your business’ advantage. You can’t just write about anything under the sun. It has to be somehow connected to what your business is offering. Think about your audience. If they are looking for a windows contractor, how can your blog interest them? How can your blog appeal to a general audience, as well as to a specific market?
Spend Time Brainstorming
Spend an hour or two reading about the possible topics to write about. Don’t just sit in front of your computer and expect to magically come up with a topic. You have to allot time in your week to think about topics your readers would want to see on your blog.
Once you have started writing down ideas, don’t stop when you think you have enough for a week or month. Continue listing down the topics until you’ve drained yourself out of ideas. By then, you should be ready for a month’s worth of blog posts.
Create a Calendar
Some people believe that working on their own sweet time will make them a better writer or blogger. It doesn’t. Bloggers and content creators follow an editorial calendar. Do you know how one issue of a magazine is created? The editors brainstorm a month or two before the target month’s issue. They spend hours thinking of topics to write about. When they finally have the topics they want, they assign these to writers, and they create a calendar. These topics should be written at these exact dates because the editors need to know their magazine is ready to be published weeks before it is scheduled to come out.
Visit Question-and-answer Websites
It used to be Yahoo Answers. Now, it’s Quora. These international question-and-answer websites are a treasure trove of ideas for digital content creators. You’ll be surprised by the questions people come up with. Simply search for the appropriate keyword and a list of questions will pop on your screen. You can get inspiration from these questions. Don’t mind the answers. Research on your own. Most of the answers there were given by internet users and are usually unfounded and without evidence.
Follow Your Social Media Audience
Visit some profiles of your social media followers. See what they are talking about and what concern them. Follow some popular hashtags on Twitter, too. You’ll be up to date with what your target audience wants. This is how you can create digital content that will resonate with them. You can even ask your followers for ideas. Post a question on your page. You’ll be surprised that a lot of them have great ideas.
Review Blog Comments
Have you ever read the comments left on your blog? Spend time reading them before finishing up for the day. You’ll get a lot of insights from your readers. Even if some of them may be contrary to what you are writing about, you can still gather more information that you can use on your next topics. You can pull different concepts from just one comment.
It’s an exciting thing to read about what others think of your business, too. Aside from the comments on your page, you can also check out comments made on your competitors’ social media pages and websites.
Interview Your Target Market
You don’t need to do the interview physically. Post a question on Twitter and see how your market will respond. A lot of them will give a direct answer, but some will post interesting viewpoints. Some of them may feed you new ideas without even realizing it. If someone’s ideas interest you, don’t hesitate to reach out and get more information. You may even collaborate on a blog post.
There are many other things you can do to get ideas for your business blog. What’s important is not to scrimp on time when choosing the topics to write about. It takes time to come up with an original idea that will impact your audience the way you want to.