How to Come Up with Blog Topics

Blogs are a great way of not only generating more traffic to your website but also building trust and authority and being seen as a subject matter expert in your field.

In 2024, and beyond people will still read blogs, at least the good ones as they educate and add value. So, as a business think about having a blog and read our guide here to find out how to come up with blog topics. Blog on!

Content an Important Part of Any Brand’s Marketing Strategy

Blogs are a form of content marketing that helps build credibility with audiences. Content marketing isn’t a nice to have, it’s a must to have in today’s digital landscape.  Content is exploding like never before and we are right in the middle of the content Renaissance.

So, as a brand you want to be part of it. You don’t want to miss out. Consumers in this digital age are super smart, and so do their research before buying or just engaging with a brand. Content like blogs engages them and gives them value and benefit when done well of course.

Coming Up with  Blog Topics 

There is a right way and a wrong way to come up with blog topics whether you’re a B2B or a B2C. WORD EMPIRE® is all about the right way of course and so have put forth this list of best practices for you to follow to come up with blog topics. Give them a go and you’ll start seeing traction.

First Understand What Your Audience Wants

This is the first step and as such is the foundation for how to come up with blog topics in the first place. But strangely enough, many brands just skip this step and just get on with writing a blog. That’s like picking up a book and reading it from the end. Without understanding what your audience actually wants, you’ll most likely be producing blogs with no real purpose or benefit.

To understand your audience, you must conduct both market and audience research which helps build up a picture of who they are. Through this picture, you get to know their pain points, needs and wants.

From here you have a launching pad in which you can create content. The mistake that too many brands still make is creating topics that interest them but are of no interest to their audience. Change gears, and put your audience first, and create customer-centric content that speaks to them. For every blog topic created, ask: What’s the purpose of this? How will it benefit my customer?

Insider Tip: Go straight to your audience and find out what topics interest them. Conduct a short survey or poll. On social media read people’s comments. Comments are a goldmine for coming up with blog topics as they give you first-hand insights into what people are discussing.

Derive Inspiration from Other Brands Doing it Right

This isn’t just looking at what your competitors are doing though it’s a good start but it’s also looking at other brands outside your industry. Study what’s working and get inspired. In an age of massive consumer insights, you don’t have to go far to see what’s working and what’s not.

Borrow tactics that are working well for other brand’s blog posts. Some of these could be listicles, how-to guides, great visuals, video content incorporated with text content, etc.  

B2C content is very people/human-focused so there’s more emotion in B2C blogs. Whilst B2B traditionally has been more analytical and technical with less emotion. But things are changing in B2B as audiences increasingly want more human-focused content, especially in this age of AI.

Insider Tip: To see which blog topics are doing well, a simple Google search with your industry or topic plus the word blogs reveals a lot. For instance: type legal blogs into Google.  A whole list comes up. SEO Tools like SEMrush & Ubbersuggest (they have free versions) give you heaps of blog topic ideas too.

Be More Personable and Human In the Age of AI

With so much AI-generated content online, audiences crave real and original content written by humans for humans. This is where being more personable and human is needed for coming up with blog topics.

Essentially it is all about injecting your personality and speaking directly to your readers in an engaging way that makes them want to read your blog. Use storytelling, visuals, and humour where appropriate.

There’s still a time and place for jargon as every industry has its own jargon and you need to come across as an expert in your field and be professional. But have some wiggle room where you drop the corporate speak and use a conversational tone to speak to your readers. This instantly makes you more relatable and human, so your blogs will have a higher engagement rate.

Insider Tip: Don’t forget to address your readers directly in your blogs by referring to them as ‘You’ and speaking less of ‘We’ (your brand). That way you have a great virtual conversation with them. Go through your blog post and see if you’ve got more 'We' than 'You'. If you do replace with ‘You’. Still use we of course when needed, but don’t overdo it.

Educate your Readers with Your Blog

Both B2B & B2C blogs must have an educational component to them as readers go to blogs to be educated about a topic. In a way, they are like a mini-Wikipedia on the internet. Gone are the days thankfully when blogs consisted of people using the blogosphere to rabble on about their lives.  Fast forward to now and blogs have evolved into a highly valued and respectful form of content.

That’s why just about every brand on the planet has jumped onto the blog bandwagon. They see the value of educating their audiences through a blog.

So, provide your readers with interesting, factual, and valuable information that genuinely makes it worth their time reading your blog. Provide solutions to their problems in your blog or at least present other perspectives and angles on issues.

Insider Tip: In 2023, Google released an update known as E-E-A-T. It stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is part of their search quality rater guidelines, the handbook that helps evaluate the quality of search results. Ensure your blog meets E-E-A-T.

Great Tools to Help You Come Up With Blog Topics

The team at WORD EMPIRE® has put together a table for you to use to come up with blog topics topics. So, make a copy of this table and keep it handy for when you're doing blog topics for your brand.

 

 

There you have it- our guide to coming up with blog topics for your brand. If you’re struggling with creating blogs for your brand or just need that extra bit of help and guidance for your content Contact WORD EMPIRE today. We create custom-made blogs for your audience.