Generating Content Ideas To Keep Your Blog Up To Date

Your blog shows that you are a caring company by providing helpful, useful content that appeals to your audience based on their interest in your product or service.

Your blog can also showcase updates at your company and be a form of “press release” that goes straight to your leads. Finally, your blog also provides valuable information about the product or service itself, helping those who visit your website to “see themselves” as people who cannot live without this product or service.

The first few posts of a company blog tend to be spirited, exciting, and well-attuned to the needs of the customer. However, as the months go on, you may find it challenging to sustain your blog, even if you are choosing to update only once a month.

As you work on content idea generation, keep these principles in mind. You’ll find that it isn’t as hard to develop content ideas for your blog when you focus on the elements of your own content strategy.

GENERATING GREAT CONTENT IDEAS WITHIN A CONTENT STRATEGY

While there are many ways to get new ideas for content for your blog, one of the top ways to improve your blog’s content and keep it going long-term is to generate a content strategy.

According to Brain Traffic, content strategy is all about “getting the right content, to the right people, in the right place, at the right time.” To brainstorm content based on a strategy, consider the following:

• Right Content: Brainstorm ideas for what kinds of topics that would appeal to your customers and future potential clients.
• Right People: Who are these people you want to reach? Are there new uses or applications of your product or service that you’d like to emphasize to bring in a new market segment?
• Right Place: You want to be seen in search engines, so research some keywords about your product or service and brainstorm how you can create valuable, interesting blog posts that also feature those terms.
• Right Time: Make a long-term calendar based on how many posts you want in a given week or month. Compare that calendar with release dates, busy seasons, and other important times for your company. What content fits into which times? Schedule your content as early as possible to reveal times of year when you have open places for new ideas.

STRATEGIES FOR KEEPING THE CONTENT FOUNTAIN FLOWING

Now that you have your content strategy, what other principles can help guide you to consistent, valuable content long-term? Here are a few!

Hire a Copywriter or Outsource to a Copywriting Agency

One of the best strategies to get great content consistently is to either hire a stand-alone copywriter who can be part of content strategy conversations as well as responsible for writing said content and publishing it to your blog.

This person can take on the research component of finding the next big thing for your blog as well. At the same time, if a full-time or part-time employee isn’t the right fit for your blog right now, there are a variety of agencies that will allow you to develop your own topics and have their freelance writers do the writing for you; this is often less expensive than hiring a copywriter for just your company, though you’ll have to do more of the content strategy yourself in many cases.

Dig Into Your Website’s Analytics

One way to develop your next big idea is to see what visitors to your website are searching for. Some websites can tell you what search terms got someone to click through to your site, and your website can also show you what people used your on-site search bar to search for.

These pieces of information can help you make more content for the search topics that these visitors specifically wanted to find. The longer you keep them on your site reading interesting content based on their needs, the more likely they are to develop a relationship and positive association with your brand.

Find Those Best Keywords for Search Engine Optimisation

Keyword research isn’t just valuable; it can be a source of inspiration! If you can take your product or service and pare it down to just a few keywords, you can use resources like SERPS.com to see which keywords that include your product or service are performing best and incorporate those terms into your next blog post.

Sometimes a constraint, like needing to use one or two specific keywords, can help you generate a great, organically original idea. Don’t focus on getting the keyword in the post over and over; find ways to mention it such that the reader doesn’t focus on those keywords, but instead on the excellent content.

Tools like Answer the Public can also help you generate excellent results that inspire the next round of content for your company.

Create Timely Posts That Read as “Evergreen” Later On

You want to write content that seems relevant to the moment, but don’t make your posts things that will go obsolete quickly; focus on ideas that will survive the test of time and won’t require major rewrites to still be accurate later on.

If you must post timely news that won’t be true in a few months or years, note this in your content strategy calendar so that you can plan ahead to make the necessary updates.

Weigh In On Important Industry Conversations

Your company is already making it their business to understand what is happening in your industry. Have your writer or content strategist interview various team members at the company about what they think are the most important issues facing the industry.

This will generate great quotes as well as sparks of ideas that can be used later on as full blog posts. Your company will be seen as “cutting edge” if they have wise, well-thought-out opinions on major issues.

Offer Insight and Depth Based on Relevant News Stories

The same “thought leadership” attitude can be applied to the news. A great way to generate a few more stories each month can be to look through Twitter based on hashtags relevant to your brand and comment on the major news stories related to your product or service.

Your blog posts can reference a major viral news story but then talk about how your product or service is or is not impacted by that news. You can inspire brand confidence while also showing that your company is active and thriving by being on top of the news.

CONVERT MORE OF YOUR NEW BLOG TRAFFIC

Once your blog begins to receive more regular traffic, even substantial numbers, you may want to view your analytics for exit pages, bounce pages, and view the average time they spend on your website.

After all, viewing Google Analytics can help you notice which posts have the highest bounce rates, meaning that the visitor left after reading the article.

Average time on site can be indicative that customers find your site interesting and want to keep investigating after they visit, versus just clicking through a few pages rapidly and then leaving.

If visitors are not exploring more of your website, when reading your blog, then you may want to consider a new blog layout or design. If you want to look at converting more of your traffic: get in touch to make sure your blog layout and killer content generate more leads and sales for your brand.