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If you’ve ever written a blog that you thought was fantastic but pushed publish only for it to fall flat, then you need to read this article.
Perhaps you were expecting more shares and comments, or just more traffic. Whatever the case, it’s obvious that your article wasn’t as attractive as you thought it might be!
It’s painful, but it’s happening because you’re either not promoting your content enough or you’re missing the mark with what you’re writing about.
Here’s how to create blog content that people actually want to read.
What are the questions you continuously get from your clients? If you were to put together a page for Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s), you’ll have a long list within minutes. So use these questions for blog posts. For some of them, you’ll be able to elaborate on them enough to make a full post that's easy to write.
That blog then becomes a great asset too, as you can always link straight to the blog whenever you get that question in the future.
A good idea is to keep a question bank that you can pull out whenever you need some fresh ideas.
If you just can’t quite think of common questions, there’s nothing like going to the horse's mouth.
You can go direct to your customers and prospects and ask them exactly what they want to know more about.
The best way to do this is to get in front of as many people as possible. A good idea is to start a poll on social media and give them 3-4 different options.
There’s nothing better than this sort of instant feedback, so give it a try and before you know it you will have a list of blog post ideas.
When you’re stuck, it’s often because you’ve spent too much thinking about it already! So a good thing to do is remove yourself from the equation altogether and use an external tool to generate ideas.
The first is a great tool called answerthepublic.com. You simply put in your topic area and it will give you so many blog ideas you won’t know what to do with them!
The second is to use Google, just like you would when you’re doing keyword research. Type different phrases into Google and see what they auto suggest (this is what they suggest to finish off your sentence as you write). Then take a look down the bottom of the page and see what search alternatives show up there.
For example, when I type “facebook live strategy” into Google and scroll to the bottom, it shows me these topics that are related to real searches:
If this isn’t enough, jump into the free Keyword Planner tool that’s available in your Google Adwords account.
While I don’t advocate worrying too much about your competitors, it’s a good idea to take note of what they’re putting out there and what is gauging a reaction from their audience.
Brian Dean, an SEO expert worth following, has coined the Skyscraper Technique which has proven to have great results in getting listed in Google, because you’re providing people with the information they want to know. The thing about the Skyscraper Technique is that you use the best content in your niche as the benchmark, but you just do it better!
This article is definitely worth a read if you really want your content to be read and loved by the Google gods.
There’s no better source for inspiration than your analytics. Go through your existing content and find out what posts have gotten the most traffic. If there’s a clear standout, then this is a topic that people are interested in.
Is there the opportunity to write a follow up to this post? Perhaps there are comments that pointed out some unanswered points.
Sometimes you might just find that this content, although popular, is outdated. So update it and promote it again. Too easy.
Staring at a blank page with no inspiration on what to write is downright awful. But hopefully with these ideas, you’ll be able to skip those moments of despair quickly.