Getting Topic Ideas

Gaining Blog Momentum: Coming Up with Topic Ideas

Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank

A lot of us crash into the wall that is writer’s block on a regular basis. And without content, a blog really doesn’t go anywhere. After all, you need to provide something fresh for people to read. Today, I’ll go over a few ways you can generate blog topic ideas for free.

The hardest part is making sure you’re creating content someone wants to read. This means you need to pay as much attention to search intent as you do the topic ideas in general.

Not to mention delivering something your audience wants. Everyone has a different user-base on their website. And knowing what they want will guide success.

Your target audience is crucial to building blog momentum.

15 Ways to Generate Topic Ideas

Even someone as experienced as I can come up short when coming up with blog ideas. And this is coming from someone who used to specialize in writing more than 10 articles per day for various clients.

We all have our off days.

But, I comprised a list of things that help me prevent writer’s block. In fact, I often have too many ideas that I don’t know which one I want to write first.

1. Tutorials Work Wonders…Sometimes

One of the things I specialize in is writing tutorials. In reality, that’s what thousands of people are doing online in the first place…looking up how to do something.

But, not every how-to is going to be successful. Some guides will simply be more effective at generating traffic than others.

Every blogging niche has something that can inspire a tutorial. You might need to use a bit of imagination, but laying out a few posts for how to do something is often worth the effort.

2. Never Underestimate the Value of a Review

Writing Reviews

When it comes to all of my sites, the most prominent method for getting blog traffic is through the use of reviews. In reality, about 93% of shoppers will read online reviews before making a purchase.

This means you have an incredible scope of searchers if you provide a detailed breakdown of a product or service. And if you tie in the review with an affiliate link, you could then make money blogging from any sales you inspire.

As an added fact, one of my reviews on this website makes up one-third of all its traffic. The right review can take your website extremely far.

3. Lists Are Always a Favorite

Creating lists, or listicles, is always a good path to take for topic ideas. You can start with a list of points and then expand each of those into its own blog post.

I recently did a live stream about how to use a single listicle to plan out a month’s worth of content. It can also lead to a myriad of other ideas for even more.

And if you think about it, you’re reading a listicle right now.

4. Create a “Best Of” Series

Best Of Articles

A very effective platform my client uses is creating “Best Ofs” that are relevant to his niche.

For instance, I could create a blog post titled, “7 Best Content Mills for Making Money.” Or, I could go with “The Best Way to Plan Out Content” while providing statistical information.

As you can see, I mixed the Best title with a listicle. These work well in search for boosting click-through rates.

The point here is that I’ve seen “Best” articles perform amazingly well.

5. Offer Tips for Success

Every blogging niche can do well with a set of “tips” for specific purposes. Again, this can easily be mixed with listicles. But, you can use an engaging title and provide detailed tips within the content.

Although most tips focus on the positive of an experience, you can also write from the side of a failure. For instance, “7 Tips to Avoid Crashing Your Computer.”

Perhaps you could do “What I Learned from Failing at the Keto Diet.”

Tips are useful to help anyone improve their chances, whether your providing examples of success or failure.

6. Blog About Learning Something New

Learning Something New

One thing I often do is write about something I am in the process of learning. People often like to follow a series of growth as they feel more connected to the author while learning along.

Find something you’d like to learn that is relevant to your site’s niche. Then, create a category and a series of posts. It’ll help boost your expertise while possibly generating blog subscribers and followers.

Anything related to personal growth often works well for topic ideas. I know I follow a few blogs simply because I want to see someone succeed with his or her efforts.

7. Use Personal Experiences

Personal experiences work far better than I thought they would. I often write about things I go through as a freelance writer on my main blog. And, those articles get more attention than I expected.

It goes along the lines of learning something new. People feel more connected on a personal level and are interested in your daily life.

I’ll also intermix personal experiences when writing certain types of content. For an example of this, you’re reading a post right now full of my own points of view.

8. Take to AnswerThePublic.com

Answer the Public

I talk about AnswerThePublic.com quite a bit. That’s because it’s been influential in helping me come up with topic ideas for all of my blogs.

Using data from what people are currently searching, all you have to do is plug in a keyphrase relevant to your blog. This free blog topic generator will do the work for you.

Depending on the topic, you can get a long list of ideas from AnswerThePublic.com. All you have to do is be able to answer the questions people are asking online.

9. Find a Few Forums to Inspire You

Forums are an amazing source for topic ideas for virtually any blog. I often find myself getting inspired by sites like Quora or Reddit. Because so many people use the Internet, if one person is asking, you know many more are also looking.

You can easily find forums for just about any industry, topic, or niche you can think of. Just type, “(niche) forum” in Google. Just replace “(niche)” with your own.

For WriterSanctuary, I would use “freelance writing.” So, in Google, I’d search for:
freelance writing forum

Then, find a question someone asked that piques your interest.

All you have to do is write out an answer that fulfills someone’s need. Some of my most popular blog posts were inspired by forums.

10. Create Troubleshooting Guides

A lot of people search online for ways to fix something themselves. After all, we live in a “do-it-yourself” kind of world. And if you can provide a walk-through with images or detailed fixes, you’ll gain a lot of readers.

I have a troubleshooting post about WordPress that I wrote two years ago and it’s still in the top 10 for getting traffic.

This is also another element that fits into virtually any genre or blogging niche. Troubleshooting can encompass everything from ways to deal with teething toddlers to how to fix an issue with a television.

11. Create “Ultimate Guides”

An ultimate guide to a topic can generate a lot of blog traffic. But, you have to be careful. Make sure that you’re actually writing an “Ultimate” guide. Otherwise, people will bounce off your page.

Creating an extensive guide takes a great deal of time, however. This is why I only have one on this website at the moment. I want to make sure every base is covered in a topic.

For one of my clients, I created an ultimate guide for FileZilla three years ago that is still in the top 5 for bringing in an audience.

12. Create “Beginner Guides”

Beginner guides are vastly less intensive to write than an ultimate guide. You won’t need to dive into a lot of the intricate workings of the topic, just the basics to get someone started.

And, it wouldn’t take much effort to combine a few of the beginner guides you create into an ultimate later on down the road.

A series of these can bring in quite a few readers, especially if you make it into a series along a specific topic.

13. Browse the People Also Ask Section

People Also Ask

Another one of my favorite places for topic ideas is the “People also ask” section of Google. Just search for just about anything you can think of and Google will often provide a list of relevant questions.

Depending on the question itself, it can inspire a single blog post or perhaps a series. I’ve actually done both to varying degrees of success. Though, I often try to answer these questions in blog posts as a way to get my site into the People also ask section.

At any rate, you can come up with a ton of blog topic ideas from the simplest of searches in Google.

14. Write About the News of Your Niche

News pieces have great potential for generating traffic to a blog. In fact, a news article is one of my client’s best performing pieces of content. It still generates thousands of visits per month, and the news piece was published more than a year ago.

This is an outlier, though. Most news-focused articles do well for short-term gains but pitter out as the news becomes obsolete.

Personally, I rarely write about news as I focus on evergreen content more. However, it is something I am debating on diving into as a way to keep my visitors informed.

At any rate, giving your opinion about something in the news regarding your niche or industry can help drive traffic while boosting your authority online.

15. The Power of Infographics

Infographics are still a widely used form of content. That’s because graphics are prevalent when it comes to retaining information. In fact, about 65% of people remember visuals vs 10% of hearing information.

The downside to using infographics for topic ideas is how intensive they are for data. You need to do a lot of research to find numbers and statistics that support a specific topic.

But once you come up with the data, you can use platforms like Canva to easily create the infographic. Plus, they are often more easily shared among readers and have more of an impact on engagement than just text blog posts.

You Still Have to Write the Topic Ideas

Coming up with topic ideas is only the beginning of creating amazing content. You still need to write the piece. And I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to keep search intent in mind.

Luckily, any of the above points can point you in the right direction. These are methods I still use to this day for a constant flow of blog posts.

If you have an idea and would like to share, leave it in the comments down below. I’d love to hear from you.

Michael Brockbank
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