When a person takes a decision to become a blogger, he has the excitement, engagement and also plans, goals, etc. But, what happens when the time being?
He loses the motivation, ambition to create a successful blog and also blog post ideas which make the blog (his business) more consistent.
You may get lots of blog post ideas in every time you get a pen and write down your future posting schedule in a paper. But, you need to convert those first blog post ideas into real, creative and unique blog topics, because people love unique posts, and so search engines too.
You shouldn’t try to generate hundreds of posting ideas, but one or two is enough. These topics should be unique and you are well-known about. If you can’t generate blog post ideas and want prevent from writer’s block, here are 10 ways to come up with creative blog post ideas in every time you want.
10 Ways to Generate Great Blog Ideas That Work
Method #1: Keyword Research
This is one of the easiest ways to generate new blog topics for your next posts. Not only this method will add more blog posts to your blog, but also increases overall search traffic by making it easier for search engines to identify your blog’s niche.
Have you seen some blogs publish posts as parts?
Ex:
Make Money Blogging Part 1: How to choose Your Niche,
Make Money Blogging Part 2: How to set up your Blog,
Make Money Blogging Part 3: How to publish Posts,
Make Money Blogging Part 4: How to monetize your blog
These types of posts do not only increase the doorways to the website, but also increase the overall keyword density too. (Do you know that Google also cares about overall keyword relevance? You can check your blog’s top broad keywords on Google Search Console.)
When I researched keywords for guides such as BlogSpot on-Page SEO techniques, I found lots of blog post ideas. That’s how I created blog posts that are relevant to my blog.
How to generate new blog ideas through keyword research
For doing a good keyword research campaign, we want some great SEO keyword research tools. There arelots of keywords research tools online. But, only a few have unique and useful features that you actually need.
Here are a few keyword research tools:
- Google keyword planner
- Long Tail Pro Platinum Keyword research software
- SEMrush keyword research tool
Google keyword planner is the keyword research tool of Google and its partner search engines which has been mainly made for advertisers. Google retired Google keyword research tool which was a really helpful keyword research tool for bloggers, freelancers and content marketers in back days. But, Now everything has become commercial and so Google’s keyword research tool too.
Anyway, you can still use Google keyword planner intelligently and find relevant keyword ideas for your search query. I have already written a blog post on different ways to research keywords using Google keyword planner. If you need further information, you can check it out.
Here’s the easiest way to find blog post ideas using Google keyword planner.
Go to Google keyword planner and enter your primary keyword. You’d expect too many secondary keywords through Google keyword planner, not actual related match keywords. (Ex: If the keyword isfishing equipment, you’ll get keyword such as fishing equipment for sale online, not best fishing nets etc.)
I entered “Cooking plan” as the primary keyword. Here are what keywords I received.
My primary keyword was cooking plan. But, I received keywords such as cooking lesson plan, healthy meal plans, recipes for healthy meals, diet food plan, etc. You could write new blog posts on these post titles.
Post titles:
- 13 Cooking lesson plans that can make your kitchen busy-free
- How these tasty healthy meals plans can make your life more secure
- 101 recipes for healthy meals that even your grandson like to eat
- How this diet food plan pushed me for my marriage (A true story)
Long Tail Pro platinum is a specialized long tail keyword research tool for Windows and Mac computers. You may probably already know the importance of long tail SEO in terms of traffic, conversions and brand reorganization.
The rule of thumb in these days SEOs is to first research long tail keywords in their intended target topic. Typically a long-tail keyword is at least 4 words lengthier. Generally, in most cases, the more words it includes, it becomes more low competitive and targeted.
As long as you use a great long tail keyword tool, you can generate top blog post ideas which make blogging easier.
My favorite long tail keyword research tool is Long Tail Pro platinum, which you can download over here with a discount. To learn more about LongTailPro, read this comprehensive Long Tail Pro review blog post.
Actually, this keyword tool is a gold-mine when it comes to keyword research. Unlike Google keyword planner, you can generate lots of keywords and get more information too.
I created a campaign called “fishing equipment” and entered “fishing equipment” as the keyword.
I set up some keyword filters too.
Here are the long tail keyword ideas I got from LongTail Pro platinum.
You can follow these steps and generate tons of long tail keywords. You will find that many of them are actually great blog post ideas that can make you busier for another 2-3 months!
#3: SEMrush
SEMrush is a search engine marketing tool which provides various SEO tools for blogging and PPC marketing. With a single SEMrush premium account, you can get tons of value. Click here to create your SEMrush Pro account free for 14 days.
Among great SEO tools in SEMrush, keyword research tool is one of those powerful tools. Its uniqueness and additional features make the tool stand out from other keyword research tools.
I just entered the “email marketing” keyword into SEMrush search box and hit the enter button.
I got lots of information about the email marketing SEO keyword. Its PPC value (Adwords) and PPC distribution values are some of off-SEO metrics that are actually helpful stats when selecting perfect keywords for content campaigns.
I sorted keywords and here are a few of them.
8 out of 10 above keywords are in unique topic and so I can write eight separate blog posts. Not only that you can get search volumes for each keywords, but also keyword SEO competition scores too. This is a very important metric, if you want to rank your web page for target keyword easier and quicker without engaging in off-page SEO tactics moreover.
Keyword research is an always better option to generate new blog ideas, if you are lack of new topics. I usually use this option, if I want to find already established keywords which only a few websites compete for.
Method #2: Competitors Website Analysis
This has always proved to be working pretty well and given great results. What you are going to do here is steal your competitors’ keywords/blog post ideas which you aren’t using on your blog.
You can do a competitor website analysis in a few different ways, such as;
- Manually check competitors websites, steal post ideas and tweak the post title, content and URL.
- Competitor keyword research
- Competitor website SEO audit
I have tested these all three ways and got different results. But, with these all ways you can generate blog post ideas that work.
#1: Manual Check Website Post Archive
Every blog has a blog archive page or category pages. Or you can use the sitemap of weblog for this.
What you actually do here is check published blog posts on the blog and find out what posts are relevant to your blog and you can write about. I used this strategy and compiled this list post on How to create a grammar free article with these best proofreading tools. So far it works perfectly, within first few weeks, it ranked higher on SERPs (Search Engine Result Page(s)) and surprisingly generated a few bucks too. (Even the tools i promoted provide low commissions for leads and sales)
Withal checking websites manually, you can do this simple search query on Google to find indexed blog posts in a specific date range. Here’s an example for this:
#2: Competitor Keyword research
Competitor keyword research has always given me wonders when I search someone’s site. In above step, we manually researched others websites to find out published blog posts. But, in this method, we are going to find keywords particular website or webpage ranking in search engines.
I have written a detailed, step-by-step and actionable guide on Four Ways Find Your Competitors Keywords in Next 5 Minutes. Here’s one of those.
Go to SEMrush and enter your competitor’s website or any webpage URL. I entered “problogger.net” into the search box.
You’ll find lots of information about your competitor such as daily traffic estimates, traffic cost, top pages, etc. Search for the “Organic Keywords” section and click on the “Full Report” button.
Here are a few more keywords. Many of them are blog post ideas.
#3: Competitor Website SEO Audit
This is another great way to find competitors SEO strategies and their money pouring keywords. SEMrush has a website audit tool which crawls your or another website within a few hours and notify everything inside the website you can’t identify easily.
Here’s the ProBlogTricks website SEO report I got a few months earlier.
What you do here is check out the competitor websites’ dead pages, image ALT tags, posts, keywords and get an idea what they are trying to accomplish. Then you can steal the SEO strategies, keywords and generate ideas for blog posts.
Method #3: Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a most ignored, but a precious free SEO tool you will ever get. Many webmasters go for paid SEO tools, but overlook the importance of this search engine optimization tool provided by Google.
I have used the Google Search Console many times to generate creative blog post ideas that can drive buyer traffic without doing any off-page SEO. My competitor keyword research with SEMrush tool blog post ranked for number of long tail keywords. Some are I have optimized and many are I haven’t optimized.
Ex: how do i find out what keywords my competitors are using (I created one medium post, Tumblr blog post and a SlideShare presentation. They ranked higher on SERP and draw high-quality traffic. Not just only SEO traffic, but also referral traffic too)
You can easily find out for what keywords your web pages are currently ranking, by going to Search Console >> Search Traffic >> Search Queries section.
Here are a few long tail keywords I collected quickly. Don’t you think that they are actually free ideas for blog posts?
Method #4: Comment Section
Do you love reading blog comments, either on your blog or others? I love, not just only because I can find out what are users’ problems, but also new unique blog ideas too. In fact, the blog post comment section is a blog post idea generator.
You just need to go to a popular website in your industry and find out most discussed blog posts. Some blogs show the most commented posts widget on website sidebar too.
The chances are enormous to finding hot blog posts.
Here is a comment on quicksprout blog posted by Steve Estimable.
You can read comments on your niche-related blogs and find new blog posting ideas that people want to read.
Method #5: Forums
Since a few months, I started reading the threads on Forums than any other day. It is for two main reasons: I can get knowledge and find what problems people have.
As my favorite niches are Internet marketing, Blogging, SEO and social media, WarriorForum and BlackHatWorld are two main forums I use regularly.
Here are a few thread titles in the main internet marketing discussion forum of warriorforum.
You will find that these are real blog post ideas that can generate constant search and referral traffic.
How do you find a forum of your niche?
The easiest way to find a forum of your niche is through doing a simple search on Google.
Queries: keyword intitle:forum, keyword inurl:forum, keyword inurl:discussion, keyword inurl:thread (Replace keyword with your niche/industry/topic)
By reading a few forum threads, you will find lots of personal blog post ideas.
Method #6: Q&A sites
Q&A sites (shortened form of Question and Answer sites) is another great medium to find popular blog ideas. Just like forums, you can directly find lots of questions related to your niche.
Here is an example:
And don’t forget to look at related questions. You can find tons of new blog post ideas for awhile!
A few Q&A sites:
Resources:
- List of question-and-answer websites – Wikipedia
- 10 Awesome Q&A Sites to Answer Your Burning Questions – Guiding Tech
Method #7: Social Media & content syndication/sharing websites
There is nothing better place rather than social media to find trending posts, right? So why couldn’t we utilize social media to brainstorm blogging ideas? Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumblr, Medium, SlideShare, Vkontakte, Vimeo, Dailymotion, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Delicious are almost always the best places to find trending topics. In fact, you could know some news from social media faster than Television or Radio both concerned.
Above mentioned social media sites have search boxes and search filters. And some categorize popular/trending posts for each subject (ex: SlideShare.net)
The only thing you have to do is visit one of those sites and enter your target keyword. It doesn’t matter whether it is a broad one. Phrase keywords result more laser targeted posts. Let’s take SlideShare.net for an example.
I entered “Inbound marketing” into the search box. Looks like many people search this keyword in SlideShare.net.
Here are a few Infographics under inbound marketing keyword.
I found these titles:
- The inbound marketer vs The outbound marketer
- How effective is Inbound Marketing
- Why PPC is important for inbound Marketing
- How does inbound marketing works
- Inbound Marketing: Tool or tactic?
- How manufacturers use inbound Marketing to drive results
When you repeat the process a few times, you’d find lots of post titles. Then you can tweak the post titles and write new, informative blog posts which search engines can crawl and people can read.
YouTube is another great place to find new content writing ideas. And Twitter has an advanced search tooltoo. You can use this tool to find trending posts on Twitter since 2006. Use these Twitter tools to tweak your Twitter profile and keep track everything happening inside the Twitter social networking site.
Another way to generate blog posts ideas is to use an external tool to find trending blog posts. By using a social sharing counter tool, you can find most shared content in social networks. Buzzsumo and Ahrefs’s content explorer are two of those great tools.
Social media is always a great place to find trending topics in your niche/industry. To keep in touch with latest social media trends, you can use IFTTT tools.
Method #8: RankReveal – Reverse Rank Tracking
This is a new concept for revealing all the keywords which your or competitors’ websites are ranked in search engines. Unlike other keyword tracking tools, with reverse rank tracking technology, you no more want to add keywords to keep tracking. Only single input you want to add is the website or webpage URL.
RankReveal is such a tool which uses Reverse Rank Tracking technology. Once you started a campaign and add a competitors’ web page URL, RankReveal will crawl the internet to find all the keywords that particular webpage is ranking for.
The special thing in this technology is that you can find out all the keywords, even Google webmaster tools doesn’t show up for you. This is awesome, right?
If you used it correctly, you can find tons of unknown keywords that your web pages are already ranked in search engines, but need some boost to increase their rankings. You know that new keywords are new blog post ideas for writers…
Method #9: Blog Title Generators
Now you know eight different ways to generate blog post ideas, right? But, have you ever thought that there are actually blog title generators?
Well, there are a few content idea generators that can make you busy for weeks, if not for months in a row!
My favorite content idea makers are;
These free blog title generators are helpful when you can’t make attractive blog post headlines. Try these tools and find how many blog posts you can make per a keyword.
Method #10: Think, think, think… (out of the box)
This method generated me a few, but very unique blog post ideas which are right now performing well. A few are;
- 7 Must Have Best SEO Tools for Blogging in 2015 (#7 is New)
- Content theft is illegal, Here’s How to steal traffic instead!
- Best Premium WordPress Themes You Will Ever Have to Buy
- Fiverr Quick Money Making Ideas to Make Money Online Fast
- List Building? 10 Reasons Why You Must Have an Email List
- Tumblr On Page SEO Strategies: The Ultimate Guide
I generated many blog topic ideas when I was walking, swimming, talking with others and thinking what I learned and know. Some have already converted into blog posts, videos, SlideShare presentations, PDF files and many of them are still in queue! The best blog ideas come when you are actually in free-mind, not in front of computer and hearing songs or watching films & teledramas.
You should have a free mind-set, experience and confidence on what you are actually going to write about. By focusing on a laser target topic, you can generate awesome blogging ideas which can drive tons of traffic to your website years to come consistently without any problem.
I thought I would write a post about Fiverr in any day. But, I didn’t actually know how to convince newbies can also start building their online business with Fiverr. But, when someday I was walking and thinking about the post, I got a post idea that can convince they can make money with Fiverr easily.
It is a technique to create eBook covers and sell the service for people through Fiverr. But, for non-Photoshop lovers, I also shared a few other ways to make money with Fiverr fast.
I couldn’t generate unique blog post ideas such as Best Small SEO Tools That can Change Your Blogging Career, Image SEO: How to Rank Images on Search Engines without my free mindset. Try it yourself once and see the results you get after a few weeks later.
A few tips for writing blog post titles:
- Search visitors can only see the first 60 letters. So make sure to use a Google SERP optimizer tool for optimize blog headline for search visitors. If you use WordPress CMS, you get this feature with theYoast WordPress SEO plugin. But, if you don’t use WordPress as your blogging platform, you can usethis Google SERP snippet optimizer tool.
- Don’t write titles for search visitors. You may encounter keywords such as salt water fishing reels, saltwater fly fishing combo, etc. Always write non-spammy, human friendly headlines which take the attention of both search and social visitors.
- Write unique and attractive blog post titles. Don’t copy anyone’s blog post titles.
- Load primary keyword prominently. Recent studies proved that when loaded the primary keyword first, certain post ranks higher in SERP. I have also experienced this when I tweak headlines. (Ex: 12Blogging Tips to double your search traffic within 2 months vs How these 12 practical and actionable Blogging tips can increase search traffic)
- Test, test and test: The best way to identify the best performing post title is through A/B testing. It is just like PPC advertising. You want to renew post titles to find post title with highest click through rate. You can use webmaster tools CTR data to prove your tests.