The rewards of a successful blog are plenty. Primarily, it means opportunities for monetization through advertising, affiliate marketing, sponsored content, or even selling products or services. But building a successful blog is not easy, especially now that there are millions of blogs and websites. It takes time, effort, and dedication to create high-quality content, build a readership, and establish yourself as an authority in your niche.
Luckily, it’s not impossible, and a great place to start is by consistently choosing the right topics to write about. Here are tips for researching blogging topics.
Keep Up With Industry News
Regardless of your niche industry, one of the easiest ways to find inspiration for topics to cover is by keeping up with industry news.
You can do this in many ways:
- Follow industry influencers and leaders on Twitter, LinkedIn, or other social media platforms
- Subscribe to newsletters from industry publications and blogs
- Attend industry conferences and events to network and stay up-to-date
Check Out Your Competition
While it’s true that most topics have been covered already by various blogs, not every subject has been covered extensively. So it’s a good idea to take a look at what other blogs in your field are writing about to get an idea of what gaps you can fill with your own content.
You can:
- Use search engines to find blogs similar to yours
- Use social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook to find bloggers in your niche who share their content
- Check out the websites of relevant industry publications or magazines in your field
- Network with other professionals in your field to discover similar blogs
Use Keyword Research
With keyword research, you get a better idea of what topics people are searching for and what kind of content in your niche trends on search engine result pages (SERPS).
Here’s how:
- Use a keyword research tool like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to generate a list of related keywords
- Analyze the keyword metrics given by these tools, including search volume(how many people are searching for the keyword), competition, and keyword difficulty(how hard it will be for the keyword to rank)
- Use long-tail keywords as they are more specific and less competitive than broad keywords. For example, instead of targeting the broad keyword “bathtub stopper”, you could target a long-tail keyword like “best kinds of bathtub stoppers for minimalists”.
Ask Your Audience
Why not reach out to your readers and ask them what topics they would like to see covered on your blog? This will not only help you come up with new topics, but it will also show your readers that you value their opinions and are interested in meeting their needs.
There are different ways to do this:
- Post a message on your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc accounts and ask your followers to comment with their ideas
- Another way is to create a survey using a tool like Google Forms to get more detailed feedback
- To encourage your audience to give suggestions, you can offer incentives such as a free ebook or a discount on your products or services
Finding the right topics for your blog should not be taken lightly. Keeping up with industry news, checking out your competition, asking your audience, and using keyword research are all good places to start.
