Jokes aside, coming up with ideas for new content topics can be an absolute bastard. Many content marketers rightfully dread the content ideation process, especially those of us who write for well-established blogs with frequent publication schedules in competitive verticals. Running out of ideas is Not An Option, so what do we do?
In this post, I’m going to show you.
We’ll be examining five ways to find things to write about, whether you’re writing for a major B2B blog or your personal Medium page. We’ll look at the pros and cons of each approach, including common pitfalls to avoid, before diving into some general tips to help you develop new content ideas quickly and (relatively) painlessly.
1. Find Things to Write About Using Competitive Intelligence Tools
Since we’re always telling you to rely on hard data rather than assumptions, we’re going to look at coming up with content ideas using competitive intelligence tools first. Competitive intelligence tools can be invaluable during the content iteration process. They can help us quantify why some content ideas are better than others – specifically, which topics are being discussed most.
I don’t want to get bogged down in a platform-specific tutorial, but for the sake of example, we’re going to use BuzzSumo, but I’ll keep the concepts as platform-agnostic as I can.
First, we need to specify what keyword or vertical we’re interested in. We do this by entering our query into the relevant field. In this case, I’m going to take a look at content about… content. An article being shared widely across social platforms can be an indication of several different things:
It’s a breaking news story that got the scoop first and is being shared/cited widely.
The article is handy, insightful, or actionable.
The writer has a unique perspective or insight into the topic
The opinions in the article defy the conventional wisdom about the topic
It’s an article so bad or an opinion so controversial that people are sharing it out of anger or incredulity
Except for the last one, any preceding points are worthy of emulating our own content.2. Find Things to Write About Using Keyword Research Tools
While we’re on the topic of tools, our next tip focuses on using keyword research tools to develop new content ideas.
Regardless of which keyword tool you choose to use, we’re looking for relevant keywords that we may not have thought of otherwise. This can be especially helpful if, like us here at WordStream, you work to a frequent publication schedule for a popular, established blog.
There are dozens of free keyword tools out there, but we like to think ours is pretty good, so I’ll be using WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool to illustrate this process.
First, we need to choose a nice, broad initial keyword to start our search, sometimes referred to as a seed keyword. For this example, I went with the keyword “cryptocurrency” with no industry vertical specified and resulted limited to the United States:3. Find Things to Write About in the News
Even though most news is as toxic as a neglected Superfund site, the news can be an excellent source of content ideas.4. Find Things to Write About Using Blog Topic Generators
Before you close this tab out of disgust that I’m about to seriously recommend blog topic generators as valid content ideation tools, hear me out.
The thing about blog topic generators is that they aren’t meant to be perfect – they’re only supposed to get the rusty gears in your noggin turning, like a can of WD-40. Think of blog topic generators as writing prompts in a creative writing class. Some prompts are excellent, and others are so bad they’re practically crimes against literature.
The same goes for blog topic generators.
Let’s take a look at what using a blog topic generator looks like. Below is a screenshot of HubSpot's Blog Topic Generator, one of the better topic generators out there. For this example, I entered three terms into the generator: Writing, Advertising, and Marketing:5. Find Things to Write About…In Your Old Content
Our final tip for finding new things to write about is to look back through your old content.
Reviewing older content can be a lot of fun (or an exercise in cringe-inducing hilarity), and it’s a great way to see your progress as a writer over time – but that’s not all. Going back through older content is also an excellent way to develop new things to write about.
For example, I quickly searched for some older blog posts I’d written to come up with some new content ideas. Here are the first handful of posts that caught my eye:
Nice
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