Quality content is the best way to attract people to your website. So, it’s important to regularly write and publish blog posts with optimized content. But what should you write about? If you want to increase your customer base, it has to be something relevant to your business, of course. It should also be something people want to read; otherwise, no one is ever going to be searching for the content you’re trying to rank. Whenever possible, it’s good to choose something you’re not only knowledgeable and passionate about but also something that will match the search intent of your target audiences. But these are very general statements. What you need are real, actionable tips on choosing topics for your blog. So, let’s talk about that instead.
Tips for choosing topics for your blog based on your niche
There are thousands of things you could write about for your blog. So, the first step is to narrow down your choices. If you want to run a successful blog and build a loyal fanbase, you can’t simply choose to write about anything that comes to mind. There needs to be cohesion, a subject matter within which you’re writing, a broad topic under which all your blog posts fit.
Choose a topic within your field
Aside from journaling out of personal need (which you are unlikely to be able to monetize), there are two reasons why you might be running a blog:
- either the blog itself is your source of income or
- your blog is a part of your company website.
If blogging is what you do, then you’ll need to select a niche – a subject that people want to know more about and you’re very familiar with. Then, you’ll want to choose individual topics within that niche. The most popular and lucrative niches are within travel, health and fitness, finance, parenting, and cooking. Once you’ve picked yours, you should stick to it. After all, that’s what people will be checking your blog for. Nobody wants to read about politics in the middle of looking for a recipe for guacamole – so don’t force it upon them. Choose topics within your niche.
If your blog is just a single part of your business, then you’ll want to choose topics that relate to your industry. When you start a moving company, you also start a moving blog. It’s all about staying true to your brand.
Use your blog to promote your business
There are a couple of reasons why you should pick block topics based on the industry your business is in:
- these will be topics you already know a lot about,
- your customers will find these topics interesting,
- and most importantly, you can use your blog to promote your business.
Take for example a digital marketing agency writing about social media marketing trends. Firstly, they already know a lot about this. Secondly, anyone considering using their services will be interested in learning more about social media marketing too. Finally, the author can very easily promote the different services the agency offers within a post on this topic.
Tips for choosing topics for your blog based on research
Once you’ve narrowed down your topics to a certain subject matter, it’s time to start thinking about specifics. Within your identified niche, what exactly should you write about?
Pick something relevant and current
Not all topics are equally relevant all the time. People are unlikely to be searching for Christmas decorating tips in July, for example. So there’s no point in publishing new content about it at that specific time. Instead, keep those topics for winter and write about summer holidays or something equally current. You’ll need to stay on top of moving trends for this part. That includes both general recurring trends (such as the effect of weather on relocation practices which is something you can talk about every year) and more temporary changes in the industry (such as new legislation being introduced, for example).
Use keyword research to solidify your choice of topic
Once you have a general idea of your topic, you’re getting into the nitty-gritty of defining and phrasing your topic in the best possible way. In order to do this, you’ll want to do some keyword research. Take a look at Google trends. What are some things people have been Googling in relation to your chosen topic? How do these phrases fit into your general moving company SEO strategy? Are you focusing on the most used keywords with high competition or will you pick a more specific long-tail keyword? This will help you finally choose the exact topic for your blog.
Look at what your competition is doing
If you want to be the best, you need to beat the best. And you can’t do that if you don’t know what the best are doing. So, research your competition. Research whether other big blogs with similar niches are covering the topic you’ve selected. Consider which keywords are they using and how are they phrasing their topics. You can learn a lot just from observing others in your field like this.
Tips for choosing topics for your blog based on your audience
Unless you’re writing a personal blog, your posts aren’t just for you – they’re for your readers. You have to take this into account when choosing a topic because your topic will be based, at least in part, on what your readers want to know about.
Identify your target audience and focus on what they need
Before you can know what your audience likes, you must first know who your audience is. There are two aspects to this: knowing who you want to be reading your blog and knowing who really is reading your blog. A lot of the time, these two categories will overlap, especially if you’ve done a good job marketing your blog. But it’s also possible that unexpected demographics are interested in your content.
Start with asking yourself who your content is for. Picture your typical customer – how old they are, where they come from, and what their goal is when visiting your blog. You want to gear your posts toward the customer you want to attract. How else would you entice them to consume your content?
Then, check your traffic through a tool like Google Analytics. Where are most of your visitors coming from? What do you know about them? Which parts of your blog are they most interested in? If you want to keep these visitors coming back, you’ll need to choose topics they’ll like.
General tips for choosing blog topics
Finally, there are a few general guidelines that you should stick to:
- be as original as you can: it is almost never possible to come up with a topic that hasn’t been written before but you can always put your own spin on the content itself
- don’t repeat or recycle topics: if you already have a post on a certain topic, simply rephrasing the title and recycling the content won’t really benefit you – if anything, you’ll be creating competition for yourself
- plan your content in advance: to avoid having to think up a topic on the spot and accidentally duplicating content, create a strategy where you plan out your topics in advance
Finally, remember this: while you should always try to keep all of these tips in mind when choosing topics for your blog, you won’t always be able to incorporate every single step of this guide. And that’s okay! Just do the best you can and be consistent in the quality of your content.
