Hey guys, in this post, we’re looking at blog post ideas and how to come up with them. If you’re feeling stuck and not sure how to continue churning out content when you have no fresh ideas – you’re in the right place!
Specifically, we’re going to discuss the following (click on the link to skip right through to it, or just scroll down).
- 15 Expert Tips On Ways To Quickly Come Up With Blog Post Ideas – we’ve interviewed 8 successful bloggers and got their input and their best tips showing how they come up with winning blog post topics.
- List of 12 Instant Blog Post Ideas – we’ve looked all over the internet to come up with a monster list of blog post ideas and topics. These will help you get “unstuck”.
How To Come Up With Blog Post Ideas – Expert Tips
We’ve reached out to several successful bloggers and asked them how they go about generating blog post ideas.
We’ve collected some really useful advice from them, which we’re really excited to share with you.
Let’s get into it.
Method #1: Using Quora
We’ve reached out to Arfa Nazeer from SheMeansBlogging.com, who has shared this interesting strategy to generate ideas for blog posts:
Coming up with blog post ideas becomes ridiculously easy, if you know where your audience is.
Knowing where your audience usually rave about their problems, and struggles is your go-to-place to find best ideas, and then jot them down into several blog posts.
Apart from all popular methods, my favorite tip is to use Quora for new blog post ideas. I have used Quora to find out what questions people ask, what are their common problems, what are their fears to start an online business etc.
Quora is a popular Q/A platform to find inspiration, and countless ideas for your own blog. It can also be used for getting clients, lead generation and building an authority as an expert.
Here’s an example:
I typed ‘small business’ in the search bar and I got a list of questions:
At a glance, I found three new blog post ideas:
- What are good marketing strategies for a small business?
- What are some tips to start your own small business?
- What are the biggest struggles for small business owners?
If you just follow the thread, and read every comment, you can eventually have a huge list of ideas to write about.
There are over 250,000 topics on Quora which means you can find ideas for almost every topic.
I highly suggest you to find better target questions by following some main topics. Always look for similar questions to get more ideas. However, the easiest way is to type the question or the main topic in the search bar.
I have published a detailed guide on 25 ways to come up with endless ideas for my blog posts. This post has all the methods you will ever need to find content ideas.
Method #2: Pinterest, Google Trends and GKP
This contribution is from Kunle Ajayi who runs CMS Folks:
Kunle uses a combination of Pinterest, Google Keyword Planner, and Google Trends.
Contrary to what the majority of bloggers believe, Pinterest is actually a search engine that deals mainly with Pictures.
Even though it’s one of social media platforms, it’s also a powerful search engine. A good way to think about it is as a hybrid of both search engine and Social Media.
Using Pinterest predictions box, you’re able to easily identify good blog post ideas, like this:
Notice how we enter “best recipe”as initial input. And then Pinterest produces predictions, and each of them can be a good candidate for a separate blog post.
Important: these predictions are based on what real users search for on Pinterest. So this means there’s existing user search volume for these keyphrases (on both Pinterest and Google) meaning that you have a chance of getting search engine traffic to these posts.
Another tool that Kunle uses is Google Keyword Planner, which is a free tool offered by… Well, Google 🙂
(Note – if you don’t have an Adwords account yet, you might need to create it first before you’re able to use Google Keyword Planner).
Kunle uses Google Keyword Planner to analyse ideas that he generates from Pinterest and to pull out search volumes on those keywords.
Another important characteristic that Google Keyword Planner can produce for you is projected CPC. This is simply how much advertisers are willing to pay per click. This is an important metric if you run Adsense Ads on your blog, because it can give you an idea on how profitable clicks on ads could be if you produced an article on this keyword.
Kunle also recommends to validate your proposed blog topic idea using Google Trends. Google Trends can give you confirmation (or otherwise) of your blog post idea by showing you if the keyword is growing in popularity, falling, or is only popular in just one country.
Method #3: Teach About Your Achievements, Even Small
Simon Zaku from SimonZaku.com recommends to write about your “past” struggle. He says:
Now, this might be a little different from others but that’s the goal; be different. On my blog, I only write about or teach things that I’ve personally tried myself. For example, if I want want to learn how to kick a ball to go as far as 5 metres but after days of practice, I only kick the ball to 2.5 metres, I teach people how I reached the 2.5 metre mark.
Get the idea?
You don’t have to perfectly master a problem to be able to teach others. You are always going to be one step ahead of some people out there and they’ll need your knowledge. Write about how they can get to where you already are regardless of where you want to reach.
For instance, if your blogging goal is to make $1,000 and you’ve made $100, write about how you got to the $100 dollar mark.
Now, here’s how to effectively apply this on your blog.
Step 1: Have a blogging focus. Make sure you decide on the topic you want to blog about.
Step 2: Find yourself a quiet time, get a book and a pen and start putting down the problems you used to face and jot them down. Don’t forget to narrow these down to your chosen blogging niche.
Ask yourself, “what gave me tough time yesterday?”. Carefully think and put them down.
Step 3: Write and show people how you solved them.
Method #4: The “EBR Method” (Essential But Rare)
Generating interesting blog post ideas is easy when you know how to find ideas correctly. Brainstorming is one common way that we use. But we also focus on generating post ideas through what we call “EBR Method”. It means Essential But Rare topics.
Here, we think about all such ideas which are essential and could become a very useful resource for bloggers. Generally, a handful of people have written on such topics.
This way it gives an opportunity to get more traffic on the blog by helping readers in their own blogging journey. Basically, we write on crucial topics or pain points of readers.
We also think about what problems we face as bloggers. This kind of post ideas is simply the best because other bloggers might struggle with them too.
As an example, we wanted to set realistic blog goals and achieve them.
There are other bloggers too who find it difficult to set blogging goals. Several posts on blog goals are written showing how that particular blogger achieved them but step by step guide for the reader was mostly missing.
So, our idea was to write a post where the reader finds what kind of goals they can set, how they could achieve them in easy and practical steps using smart and useful techniques and moreover how to track their progress. And that’s how we published “The Ultimate Guide for Achieving Blog Goals for Beginners”.
We also assign post idea days to the week depending on categories on our blog.
For example, Motivational post on Monday, Blogging Tips on Tuesday and so on. It gives us more blog post ideas and gives the reader lots of useful information without annoying them with similar kind of posts back to back.
To sum it up, focus on finding vital topics which are less written about. Extract ideas from problems to gain authority.
We learnt about this method from a conversation with Vishal and Shubhi from Kinggswriter.com.
Method #5: Refer To A “Blog Post Bank”
Edwin from Do Six Figures finds that using a “blog post bank” helps him generate ideas quickly and reliably.
He says:
Whenever I’m running low on blog post ideas, I go to my bank of blog post types. A blog is boring when you write the same type of post each time. Mix things up with a variety of blog post types. As far as ideas go, when I review this list, the ideas are bound to come.
The suggested list of ideas that he uses is listed below:
- List Post
- How-To Guide
- Top Blogs In Your Niche
- List Of The Best Resources Or Tools
- Best Apps In Your Niche
- Case Studies
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Interviews
- Guest Posts
- Product Reviews
- Product Comparison
- Personal Story Post
And if you’d like more ideas, then simply scroll below to go to our own list of “blog post ideas” 🙂
Method #6: Research Your Competition
Bob Swetz from RJSHomeBusiness.com uses the following technique to come up with ideas.
Step 1: Getting rough ideas
He starts out by researching his competition, by looking at their websites and seeing what kind of ideas they are writing about.
You can start out by making a list of 10-20 authoritative sites in your niche which you can come back to time and time again in the future, this will be helpful for you long term.
By analyzing their blog posts, you can usually walk away with some excellent ideas for your next blog post.
Once you have an idea, you can do more research by Googling that idea and checking how others present this topic, what they include in their posts, and how they lay out the posts.
Interestingly, by looking into your competitors, you can get more info than just the structure of their site. Using an SEO extension for your browser, such as SEOQuake (free tool), you can get a lot useful information about the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) structure of the competitor articles.
Step 2: Validating ideas
Once you’ve got some “rough” ideas of the posts, it’s time to validate them.
You can use Google Keyword Tool (also mentioned earlier in this post) to get an idea on:
- Search volumes of the keywords you’re thinking of
- Some related keywords
It’s important to include those related keywords into your article as well so that you get as much relevant search engine traffic as possible (if you don’t have those words in your article, there’s no chance your site will appear in search engines for those terms).
Step 3: Post creation
Finally, Bob usually gets a list of related high-quality articles which he links to from within his blog post, to quote any facts or statements.
Bob has a quality guide about writing a blog post on his site.
Method #7: Post About Resources
Gena Babak is a blogger who runs GenaBabak.com and he has a slightly different approach to blogging. This is what he’s shared with us:
I post to my blog whenever I find something useful or interesting – for example, a new approach, useful tool or software that I might need to use in the future in my business.
For example, if you know about retargeting, you can create a post about retargeting, even if you’re currently not using it in your business.
Why? Because you know it’s a useful technique and it’s used by many people out there. So any time you hear something about retargeting, you can add to that article.
If you hear about a new retargeting software – add it to your article. If you hear about a retargeting case study – add it to your article.
(Comment from us here at CaffeinatedBlogger):
This is an excellent line of thinking, because many bloggers lose opportunities by not updating their blog posts. We are guilty of it as well. If you have a blog post that doesn’t have links to various monetization sources, you’re losing money.
So Gena’s suggestion about creating posts focusing on various techniques and resources is a great idea.
It ensures two things:
- Firstly that you post content is popular and needed (everyone needs tools and methods)
- Secondly, it gives you opportunities to monetize your blog posts with affiliate links and other sources of revenue
Method #8: Don’t Keep Your Ideas Limited To Your Blog
According to Amit Kumar from WorthOfBlog.com, it’s a good idea to share your blog post ideas on other blogs, by doing guest blog posts.
Write Lots of Articles … For Others
He says: “One of the most common complaints I hear from new bloggers is that “I’m not getting much traffic on my website or blog”.
Well, how can you get additional traffic if you’re writing only for your own blog?
If you want enough traffic on your website or blog, then write for other blogs, do guest blogging and increase your online reach.
Guest posts also allow you to build some quality backlinks for your blog and increase your overall domain authority, resulting in increased traffic as well.
Writing guest posts using your blog post ideas will help you get more traffic to your website in two ways:
- Firstly, you can get some instant traffic from the readers of the blog you posted on. Readers will click the bio link that you will be allowed to leave.
- Secondly, by building backlinks, you improve your overall search rankings for any keyword you’re targeting
Don’t make a mistake of writing only for your own blogs. That’s the biggest blogging mistake anyone can make especially at the start.
If you want to read more of Amit’s tips, you can check out his article 11 Top Secrets How To Become a Successful Blogger.
Method #9: Use AnswerThePublic.com
Tracie Forbes, who runs the blog over at TracieFobes.com, uses a little-known website called Answer The Public.
Here is how she uses it:
One of my favorite features for finding content is to use AnswerthePublic.com.
You can put a topic idea in there and get countless questions and ideas for content. It is a tool that I feel is underutilized by people who need content ideas.
For example, I have typed in debt and get more than 100 questions for ideas on content to write about. Such an easy way to not only come up with one but many ideas that may turn into a series or a long, more detailed piece of content that may just rank where you would like for it.
Thanks, Tracie, for this idea.
Method #10: Use HARO
I got this method from my friend Ike Paz who runs a blog for online marketers called Internet Marketing Gym.
I don’t just have one tip for you, but rather two powerful and useful blog hacking techniques.
You see, HARO stands for Help-a-Reporter-Out.
All you gotta do is put in your email and HARO will send you daily messages with lists of topics (niches) that reporters and bloggers need help with.
Using HARO For Backlinks
As you can imagine, this is a great resource for guest blogging and acquiring white-hat dofollow backlinks.
Just contact the reporter or blogger and let them know that you can write something up (or hire it out) in exchange for a do-follow backlink.
Listen, don’t be afraid to contact these reporters, they want you to do their jobs for them.
It really is a win-win situation, they get to feed their audience and you get a backlink from an authoritative source.
Let them know that you have experience in whatever topic they need help with, and that you are a reliable source of information.
Reverse Engineering HARO For Blog Post Ideas
There is another way to leverage HARO, you could just skip the whole guest blogging bit and focus on the blog post ideas.
I mean, come on, these pro bloggers and reporters are literally sending you dozens of hot content ideas directly into your email inbox every single day!
What’s stopping you from taking these blog topic ideas as your own. You could easily write it out yourself or hire someone off of Fiverr or Upwork to do it for you.
Another gangster move would be to embed low competition long tail keywords into these blog post ideas. Let me show you how I find these hidden keyword gems using nothing but free tools, you can get that guide right here at no cost.
Method #11: Generate Blog Post Ideas Using BuzzSumo
We interviewed Kathryn Maclean from MarketingOfflineOnline.net and she told us about this brilliant tool called BuzzSumo:
One of the tips I tell my clients is to make sure that the keyword and subject they are using is popular. There are a number of ways to find this out but the easier way is to use BuzzSumo.
You want to have traffic to your site that is relevant to your site/blog. Not posting about cats on a dog site. Right?
What I do is use BuzzSumo to see what is popular in my niche. They offer a free pricing tier which gives you top-10 results and is enough to get started.
BuzzSumo offers:
- Free keyword search for content marketers. You can find what content your audience finds valuable and relevant.
- You can go beyond what YOU think your audience likes and finds helpful, and have your content ideas backed up by strong data.
- Before creating content, you will be able to understand the competition. For example, how many articles are being published each week or month on your topic and are the social shares increasing this month?
Here is an example. If I want to research the topics related to “Headlines for posts”, I get these results:
I can see that there is a blog post that was published just recently and already has had 427 shares (the highlighted post, by Arfa Nazeer).
So this topic seems to be reasonable popular, and is a good idea for me to go ahead with.
Using BuzzSumo, you will be able to identify the networks where your audience shares content. You will also be able to understand what’s working well for leaders in your space.
BuzzSumo has tons of content to explore on their site.
You cannot publish content and hope that people will find it. There is simply too much competing content. Without a promotion or an amplification strategy your content will sink into obscurity.
Analyze what people are saying, when and why. Find out what your competitors are creating and compare it in minutes with BuzzSumo.
Thank you Kathryn for this wonderful contribution! You can learn more about getting more traffic to your site in Kathryn’s recent post here.
Method #12: Reverse-Engineer Other Bloggers Using Pinterest
This following idea is simple, effective, and often overlooked.
You might already know that Pinterest is a really good source of high-quality traffic. However, it can also provide you with a lot of blog post ideas, if you know how to find them on Pinterest.
Here is an example. Let’s say you have a site about dogs and you want to find some other blog post ideas relating to dogs.
Step 1: Find influencers on Pinterest in your niche
For this step, you can type in “dogs” into the search bar on Pinterest, and select “people” as the search option, then try to locate profiles with a high number of followers, like this:
Note that we have found 3 profiles on the first page of results that have a high number of followers and most likely are large influencers.
Step 2: Investigate their board and find topics
Here, we clicked through a few profiles and found a profile with a board containing all of their blog posts:
As you can see, it’s full of blog post ideas that we can adopt into our own blog posts.
Thank you to Stefan Ciancio from ActionTakingBlogger.com for this excellent idea!
Method #14: Different Approaches For Different Niches
Some niches require different approaches to come up with relevant blog post ideas.
For example, when we spoke to Kathy Cakebread from Glitz and Glamour Makeup, we found out that she used a different approach to most other bloggers we’ve spoken to.
Kathy’s blog is in a niche that’s very much centered around latest trends and fashion, and naturally, she uses different tactics/
Kathy says:
I see inspiration all around me when I’m planning the sort of topics I want to write about on Glitz and Glamour Makeup.
My blog is very much about helping out my readers whether it’s with tips on how to save money or how they can deal with anxiety.
I get the most inspiration from magazines, current trends and seeing what sort of things are trending on social media.
It’s important to understand what’s important to your readers for each week that you’re planning your content, I plan my content in advance but I like to move posts around if I come across something that’s a lot more relevant and will resonate with my readers on a particular date.
Ultimately you just need to remember inspiration is all around you and hot trending topics are going to draw a lot of readers when the story is popular.
Method #15: Facebook Groups
As it turns out, Facebook Groups can also be a huge source of inspiration for blog post ideas.
Monique (Mo) Solomon from BlogWithMo told us about her success in finding great ideas in Facebook groups:
My ideas for blog posts surround problems that people have that I have solutions for.
For example, I run a Facebook Group for Bloggers called “Help a Blogger Out” and one of the questions I ask when people apply to be a part of the group is their biggest struggle as a blogger.
The responses here always give me ideas for posts that are very specific to my audience. Facebook groups in general are a great place to come up with blog post ideas.
I hang out in groups for all the niches I blog about and take note of the questions people ask over and over again.
I am also in a few keto diet Facebook groups since I am a keto dieter and write about it on my health and wellness site quite a lot.
The Facebook groups have certainly helped me to come up with blog post ideas based on repeated queries.
Comments I get on the blog or replies to my email series are also great inspiration for blog post ideas.
12 More Instant Blog Post Ideas You Can Implement Right Now
Everyone (me included) gets mentally stuck sometimes, and can’t figure out how to come up with fresh ideas for our blog posts.
So if that’s where you’re at, then here is a list of blog post ideas that you can instantly implement.
#16. Offer Your Opinion
You may have seen that the internet is now full of list-style posts such as “19 Amazing Beaches In Portugal That Will Make Your Jaw Drop”. This approach clearly works. However, as Harish Udupa, founder of BoostBloggers says: “It often makes sense to offer your opinion instead of just blindly posting about facts. Offering your opinion is what will make your readers want to follow you”.
So as an example, the post about “19 Amazing Beaches In Portugal That Will Make Your Jaw Drop” might be better angled as “19 Amazing Beaches In Portugal I Loved And Why”.
#17. How And Why You Started Your Blog
This is a very interesting topic for your readers. It can also help you build rapport with them. And this kind of post is an excellent opportunity for you to gently plug any of your own products, courses, coaching, etc, or to simply invite them to join your email newsletter list.
#18. Share A Case Study
For example, some results that you or some of your readers have achieved. Alternatively, you can share a case study on someone else’s blog, and write your commentary and point of view about it.
#19. Monthly Progress Reports
People LOVE reading those. These are some of the most-read blog posts for virtually every blogger. For example, weight loss progress report is a good idea for a weight loss blogger, travel update such as countries traveled is a great idea for a travel blogger.
#20. Best Blogs To Follow In Your Niche
This kind of a post can kill two birds with one stone: firstly, it’s great content. Secondly, it can help you create relationships with other bloggers in your niche, as they will most likely see your link to their blog from within their analytics tools.
#21. Best Tools To Use In Your Niche
This kind of a post is useful and can help you make money as well, if you link to the tools via your affiliate links. Check this post to learn how you can get traffic to your “money” blog posts.
#22. Share Your Failures – Such As “7 Mistakes I Made While Doing XYZ”
People love to read about failures. It’s natural and will help your readers relate to you more. It’s also a great way to pitch any solutions via affiliate links.
#23. “Ultimate Guide” Style Posts
An example might be “The Ultimate Guide To Getting Pinterest Followers” here on my blog. These posts take a while to create but are really worth it for a number of reasons.
Firstly, since they are usually quite long, they may outrank shorter posts in Google Search (Google gives preference to longer content, all other things being equal). Secondly, since they are high quality useful guides, they may attract backlinks over time.
Backlinko.com do an amazing job with Ultimate Guides. Here is an example of a great Ultimate Guide from the Backlinko blog.
#24. Host A Viral Contest
If you’re willing to put up some sort of a prize, then hosting a contest can bring you lots of shares, exposure, traffic and new subscribers.
#25. Expert Interview
If you know someone who’s got some authority in your nice, you might be able to interview them and share the results of that on your blog.
Authority contributions are always an excellent way to give valuable information to your audience, since you’re not just sharing theoretical stuff.
An interview can take many formats: a Google Live hangout, YouTube Video, or even as simple as sending questions to the expert in an email and then getting their written replies, and pasting them into your blog post.
For a great example of a simple written interview, check out this post on the Making Sense of Cents blog.
#26. Accept Guest Posts
Getting high-quality guest posts is an easy way to have free content written on your site.
Nearly all bloggers want backlinks. If you offer them a way to write content on your blog and allow them a backlink back to their blog in the content, you will have many interested people.
If this is something that you’d like to do, then you should create a page somewhere on your blog explaining that you accept guest blog posts, and how others can get in touch with you about that. Adding a link saying “Write For Us” or “Guest Post Inquiry” to your menu is a good idea.
By the way, if you’d like to write a post for this site, then Contact Me Here and let me know 🙂
#27. Review Posts
People LOVE reading reviews. And they usually do so before they buy something. That means that review posts can make you good money as well.
So you can publish reviews of popular products in your niche which have an affiliate program. Review keywords are usually reasonably easy to rank for, and you can make some easy affiliate commissions by posting these reviews.
As an example, my post with a review of Siteground hosting has made me several thousand dollars since I published it on my old blog.
What To Read Next
Here are some other articles that you will probably enjoy:
- How To Find A Great Niche For Your Blog
- How To Make Money On Pinterest
- How To Get Pinterest Traffic To Your Blog
What Did You Think?
That’s it – what did you think of these blog post ideas? If you enjoyed them, then please share this post using the share buttons below, or consider mentioning it on your site 🙂
Also, let us know in the comments what you thought, we LOVE hearing from our readers.
22 replies to "Blog Post Ideas: 27 Instant Ideas That Will Bring TRAFFIC"
Great post with loads of ideas and thanks for including me too.
Best,
Simon
Hey Simon, thanks for the comment and for sending in your contribution, really appreciate it!
Hi Greg and what an enlightening post. Working away building out my Bloggii based new site at the moment.
One question, I noticed that your links out to other sites do not open on a new tab and wondered if you do that deliberately, if so why?
Best wishes
Alistair in the UK
Hi Alistair! Thank you for your comment, great to see you on this blog. There are different schools of thought around that, some say you should keep them in the same window, some say it doesn’t matter as people can open them in a new tab themselves. I haven’t really thought too much about the consequences of each approach yet, if you have any info you can share which points to one way or another, please do 🙂 Thank you!
The only info that I can find says that the majority of commentators say external links should not open in new tabs. Personally I prefer them to open out new so that I do not lose the original page that I was on. Of course for internal pages the links should stay on the site although I have come across some sites that will open a new tab for every link! So it’s very much personal choice it seems! Cheers
Gotcha, thanks Alistair! In a way, it probably makes sense to open them in a new window, since that will show Google that people stay on the site longer. I will consider that and research a bit more myself! Greg
You did a very great job putting these ideas together. Someone can not get lost making use of the methods mentioned here. Will definitely bookmark this page to get more insights for better blogging. Thumbs up Greg
Hi Kunle, thank you very much for contributing to the post, it was great to have you featured. All the very best, look forward to talking to you soon. Greg.
Hey Greg,
That’s a wonderful compilation! This post has covered great ideas for bloggers who struggle to come up with new blogging topics.
Thanks so much for considering me as a contributor!
Arfa
Hi Arfa, thank you so much for your contribution! Was great to connect with you, and I think that our readers will love your tip 🙂 Speak soon.
This is a wealth of information! As a new blogger I’ve found a lot of really helpful information on this post. Thanks a lot! I’m a fan and will definitely mention this post in my blog for other newbies.
Hi Pearl! Thanks for your comment, excited to have you here on our site. I’ve shared your recent blog post on Pinterest and Twitter. Thanks for stopping by! All the best of luck.
Hey Greg, just got back and got a chance to check out the finished post.
Nice work bro. Thanks for having me on.
Hey Ike, HARO is a great resource, so thank you for sharing your tip and for taking part in this round up! Talk to you soon 🙂
These tips are awesome! I really liked the blog post bank, great idea!
Hi Teya, thanks for reading, and for your comment 🙂
These tips are awesome! I really liked the article Most Useful part of an article for me is how to use Quora to get traffic
Hi Mohit, you’re most welcome!
I have explored using some of the strategies mentioned here, but Using Quora is new. I guess this is a great idea for Quora.com is huge site, respected and huge traffic…good back link weight maybe? Once again, thank you for the great articles and ideas.
Thanks for sharing this amazing article online. I really loved the way you have included all the essential points in the above content. Although all the above points are great, I personally loved the point where you have discussed following best blogs in your niche. That’s the thing which inspires me a lot and keeps me going. Will definitely be sharing this article with my online network. Looking forward to more such quality content in the future… 🙂
Thanks for your feedback Abhishek!
I found great ideas by reading comments on popular blogs. Sometimes people start a conversation that provides a lot of valuable content ideas. There should be a subheading for blog comments in this post.