When it comes to driving interest to your business’s website, a business blog is one of the best options out there. There’s a limited barrier to entry, plenty of opportunities to attune it to SEO, and a way to build a personal brand through your original voice. However, these great strengths also become blogs’ greatest weakness: a lot of people out there have one too. There are two main things that you need to do in order to circumvent this issue. The first is to have a genuine, interesting voice. This comes with time. The second is having a regular stream of content.
Keeping to this can be a real headache, but it’s necessary. An inconsistent blog is one that isn’t very useful for those who read it because the subject matter is irrelevant to them. Here are some strategies to keep the topics coming so you never have to worry about “topic block”.
Plan 1: Find Constant Sources
Depending on your industry, there may constantly be new developments, or things may be more low-key. Either way, it pays to keep plugged into the relevant news with the right tools to brainstorm topics. Here’s a quick list of some options you can use:
- Google Alerts: This is probably the front-runner in this regard, letting you get alerted when a news story happens on a particular keyword.
- National news stories (in print or web): Conventional news may not always be relevant, but it’s always on people’s minds.
- Talkwalker: This tool is nice because it allows you to monitor developments in a particular business. If your sphere has a few front-runners, it may be worth noting.
- Social Mention: This solely focuses on social media. If you are working on a specific platform, like Twitter, you can chart the progress of your business and other companies using a similar approach.
The benefit of approaching topics like these, is that people are already thinking about them. Writing a relevant piece of content story lets you tap into some of that interest and apply it to your blog. If you are a newcomer, you may want to see how other successful blogs in your niche are doing it.
At the same time, this is a bit of a broad stroke to paint with. It’s also not applicable to everything. For example, if you run a home restoration business, trying to hop onto political trends is a bit of a stretch. However, there are ways to do this differently. For example, you could join a group on social media relevant to your industry. LinkedIn is particularly valuable for this, as most people are already business-minded. People do this all the time to try and reach out to influencers and share issues they are dealing with. Participate if you wish, but see what other people are talking about. If there is a common thread, you may have something you can write about for your next blog topic—and other ones to come.
While you’re at this stage, consider featuring certain influencers in exchange for them promoting your blog on social media. This is a great way both to get an immediate benefit (the social media boost) and a prolonged one (having a true influencer in your business’s circle).
Plan 2: Brainstorm Your Own Ideas
If you want to be creative, though, you may want to not follow a trend for your topics, but start scouting potential trends on your own. For here, you want to go straight to the source—your actual business. For example, you probably have customers and clients asking you various questions regarding how you do your business. This can range from what exactly you do to why you charge what you charge. This is a whole set of different blog topics that you can use. If you don’t get a lot of these, facilitate the process yourself by getting online reviews. This can be done through surveys, or listing your businesses in local indexes.
The nice thing about this is that it doesn’t require much work on your part. You already know your target audience, these are the same sources that gave you that question. In addition, you already have the expert source: yourself. In the same vein, don’t be afraid to take issues or things that you discover yourself as you work and turn them into potential topics.
The Next Stage
By incorporating one or both strategies you have a bunch of different means to get topics that will keep your blog going. Where things can be more difficult is bridging the relevant ideas that you know people want to hear about the mechanisms that will bring people to your page. This is where an experienced SEO expert can be a great asset to you. Not only do they know how to find the keywords that make the most sense to bring motivated customers to your pages, they can help you identify opportunities to put those keywords in the content you’ve already thought up. Get in touch with Paul for a consultation on how you can put SEO into practices on the pages of your blog.
