We recently wrote a blog piece which looked at how to overcome writer’s block. One of our trusty wordsmiths here at Neil Walker Digital discussed the ways to power through when suffering from what is a writer’s worst nightmare. It happens to the best of us, even the most experienced blogger or copywriter will be lost for words and be at a loss as to what they should write next.
Granted, some subjects are notoriously harder to write about than others. Some topics will leave you pondering for a while, your blank screen staring back at you, time passing by. You’re stuck with no blog topic and no reason for you to start caressing that qwerty and begin crafting a blog of beauty. But how can we begin to easily identify blog topics which are relevant to your audience?
As a content writer, it is my duty to dream up new and interesting blog topics which are relevant to the audience of a particular client. Be it a beauty blog, a fashion blog or a blog about dogs, it is important to cover topics which are interesting and engaging to your readership. Blog posts must be informative, sharable and evoke an emotion in the reader which will resonate deep down – whilst always being relevant to the brand. Content through blogging is a great way to elevate your brand. The goal is to create value for readers which will increase your brands attractiveness for potential customers. But there is little point if you aren’t connecting with your audience.
You could be blogging for a website which sells chairs, but that doesn’t mean you should write a piece about ‘chair legs through the ages’. Equally, a website who sells or leases cars will be no better off if you blog about ‘How do windscreen wipers work?’. Whilst there may be someone on this planet of ours who is dying to know about these things, I would say that nobody really cares. Yorkshire indie band The Cribs once sang a tune in the mid to late naughties called ‘Don’t You Wanna Be Relevant?’; it plays over in my head as I begin writing, it helps stop me writing blogs that nobody would want to click on or read. Don’t you want to be relevant?
So imagine the scene; your deadline is in two hours time and you’re fretting. You still don’t know what to write about. You’ve look through all the previous posts that have been written, and it looks like it has all been covered. You think you know your audience like the back of your hand. You have tried all your usual keyword research, where do you go next? At our agency, we have a number of our own techniques and tools that we use regularly. This helps us find topics which are relevant to the audience of our clients.
You might not. You continue to struggle for inspiration and nervously trawl the expanse which is the world wide web, desperately looking for something to write. It doesn’t have to be like that. See this as your emergency procedure. The blog behind the glass, you smash it with your fist and there it is. Your rescue plan, that killer blog post is about to be penned!
Where to start?
Follow this guide to begin finding the topics which both your readers, and search engines will love. Firstly, you should use all the available data that you have:
Find your most popular posts from the archives
Select the posts which have been the most popular in the past, use Google analytics to identify blog posts which have had the highest amounts of visits as well as those who have had the most conversions. Check to see which blogs have had the highest duration (time spent on the page) – only select say, the top 20 or 25% of these.
Next up, check to see which blogs have been shared on social networks, again only keep a select few from the highest scoring. After you have gathered all of this information, you should create a spreadsheet which easily displays each piece of content and the stats for say: visits, conversions, visit duration, social shares.
How easy is that?It is much like an audit, you have quickly and easily discovered which blogs have been working for you. Next up, look at your competitors.
Look at your competitors’ most successful blog posts
You won’t be able to access your competitors analytics, but you can dissect their blogs using Social Crawlytics. You can also check which sites have earnt the highest amounts of links from other sites by using Open Site Explorer. The next step is to create another spread sheet which includes the following data for your competitors blogs: shares on social networks, external links and linking domains.
Take a look at influencers within the online community, see what they are sharing
See what influential people are sharing within your community, identify what content is most liked and retweeted etc. Think about using tools like Tribalytics to find out your community information; this includes, influencers, topics and locations. You can then find out the most shared or retweeted content for a particular user. Do this for a wide selection and make a similar spreadsheet to what you did for your own blogs and competitor blogs.
By seeing what’s popular within your communities, you can quickly develop your own content ideas. If this isn’t working for you, keep reading!
hot on the net?
Not only should you see what topics are trending in your own community circles, you should take a look at the internet as a whole, look specifically at social networks. By using tools like BuzzSumo, you can see what is popular on Google+, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter – just type in a relevant search term for instant results. Again, stick the results in a spreadsheet so you can easily analyse your findings at a later date.
Use an SEO tool to see what questions are being asked about your products
By signing up to a handy website like Semrush, you can find out which specific terms have been searched for most regularly in your region or even the world. By doing this you will learn what the biggest questions people ask when searching about your sector, bringing you fresh new ideas. One of the easiest ways to think of a relevant blog subject is to simply build blogs around those key-phrases.
Set up Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a great way of seeing what’s been said online about a specific subject or topic. By signing up and setting up alerts, you can gather information and see what people are writing about already in your niche. It is also a useful way of finding out breaking news stories or the latest developments within an industry. You can set up daily, weekly or monthly email alerts into your inbox.
If you are stuck for time, using Google Alerts, Semrush or Buzzumo is the best choice for you (they are our personal favourite tools anyway).
Get in their heads
By putting yourself in the shoes of your readers, or by getting inside their heads, you can begin to really understand their concerns and the problems that they might encounter. And start to realise why they use your products in the first place. Try to find out what issues the could be having on a day to day basis. Advertising agencies are known to use this technique to understand the USP (Unique Selling Points) of the products they are selling. How else do they make you think you want things that you don’t even need!
If you do this, you can become both the blogger and the reader. It is much easier to address concerns when you are more passionate about the topic. I guarantee you will be better at writing about mobile phones if you use one everyday than you would be about bay windows if you have never once thought deeply about that subject. Absorb yourself in new topics, become the customer and give yourself a head start.
Brainstorm
If you are working as a team in an agency, it is more than likely that you work with a group of writers who all contribute to blogs for your clients. Speak to each other; two heads are better than one. By opening up and bouncing ideas of others, you will be able to dream up much more creative ideas than if you were just thinking about the blog by yourself. If you know somebody who is an expert in the topic, give them a call, ask them what’s hot on the lips of those who are interested or involved in that industry.
Speak to the client
Another great tactic if you are stuck for a topic to talk about is to speak directly to the client you are writing for. If you have weekly or monthly meetings with them, it is a great idea to ask the client about their products. Create a solid content plan which consists of a range of topics and a schedule for the posting of blogs over the coming months. This way, you will know what the client wants, and most likely you will have a clearer understanding of what your audience wants to read.
Keep a journal
All great writers or songwriters have kept notepads or journals, they are a great way of being able to jot ideas down when they come to you unexpectedly. Even the hardest working bloggers take time off work, so when you have a brainwave, a notepad is a great way to keep reference of any ideas when you are outside of the office.
All the latest smartphones have notepad apps which mean you can note things down in a digital format. Use these to keep track of ideas so that you don’t ever have writers block or are struggling to find a relevant subject to blog about again.
Use industry publications
Nearly every single sector has some sort of regular publication. This could be a monthly magazine or informative mailing lists send out via email. Subscribe to anything you can find, become immersed in the subject you are blogging about. This is easy if you are blogging for a personal website, but in an agency you will find yourself blogging about a number of topics you aren’t too interested in (its true), but by being a sponge and using every possible outlet of information – you can become an expert. Blog topics should then come to you more naturally!
Check Frequently asked questions
Take a look at Yahoo answers or Ask.com. You will find thousands of people asking useful questions about your products there. Answer their questions in the form of your blog!
So, if you are a blogger who has found yourself stuck for a relevant topic to write about, bookmark this page! I’m serious, by using this blog as a checklist, you can rest assured that you will never be struggling to dream up a relevant blog again. You will lose the fear. Having writers block as a blogger can be overwhelming, especially when those deadlines are looming!
As an experienced blogger, copywriter or marketer, you may still have the odd day when you can’t think of something to say. After a prolonged period of time when you can’t think of a relevant topic, it is handy to have these tools at the ready. By understanding your audience, undertaking solid keyword research and developing some specific techniques, identifying blog topics which are relevant to your audience will never be a problem again!