5 Blog Content Topic Sources
Categorized in: Content
Owning a business blog that is a part of the company website is a smart idea for a number of reasons. First, it’s a content outlet that the business owns, meaning that the business owner or marketing department has full control over what’s posted, when it’s posted, and how often it’s posted. Second, it provides website visitors with informational content that allows the business to be viewed as a thought leader in the industry. Third, it’s extremely beneficial from an SEO and social media standpoint. Blog content provides additional opportunities for website content to rank organically in the search engines, specifically for long-tail keywords, and sharing blog content across social media platforms is a way to keep social pages active with useful posts.
While it’s relatively easy for a web developer to add a business blog to the site, the hard part is keeping it active. One of the worst things that a business can do online is set up a blog, and then let it go inactive for months at a time. If your company blog is included in the site’s navigation, there’s a good chance that your website visitors that are looking for more information will click on it. Do you really want them to see that your last post is from three months ago and discusses a (now) irrelevant subject? Probably not. A blog is a commitment, and that needs to be understood from the get go. Unfortunately many businesses create a blog with the best intentions and within a few months have numerous excuses as to why they haven’t been posting.
One of the most frequent excuses, besides lack of time, is that they don’t know what to write about. Sometimes, in order to fill a post quota, it’s tempting to just write about anything that comes to mind, even if it’s not completely relevant to the needs of a target audience. That should never be done. By doing a little bit of digging, there are always relevant topics to cover. You just need to know where to look.
Here are 5 places:
Customer Service
Your customer service team is speaking to your customers on a daily basis. If you’re looking for topics, spend some time talking to members of the customer service department in order to get key insights about what kinds of questions or concerns they most frequently hear. Depending on the size of the company, there could be hundreds of topics to cover. Whoever is responsible for blog content should make it a point to have a discussion with the customer service team on a regular basis. In fact, by posting blog content that addresses frequent customer questions, the customer service team can point people to these posts, which makes their jobs a bit easier.
News
A business blog is owned by a business, which means that it’s perfectly OK to share any interesting news that’s going on in the company. This can include anything from a new hire to a new office location opening up. Also, make a point to browse industry news on a daily basis to see if there is anything worth discussing. Share your opinion on the current news and additional insights as to how it will affect your company and your customers. A quick way to see what’s happening in your industry is to set up Google alerts for certain keywords or phrases that relate to your business.
Social Media Followers
Social media is about two way communication. Your social media followers follow you for a reason. They want to hear what you have to say. You should also want to hear what they have to say. Create blog posts based on social media conversations that are happening amongst other people in the industry. If you’re really stuck, don’t be afraid to reach out and ask your followers for feedback or insights regarding what kind of content they would find interesting. There’s a good chance that your followers will appreciate having their voice heard.
Industry Newsletters
Sign up to receive newsletters that others in your industry, even competitors, send out. The content in these newsletters may spark an idea or you may want to take a different spin on something that they’ve written.
Search Feature of Site
Does your website have a search feature? If so, what are people searching for? Sometimes people are just too lazy to navigate a website and head straight to the search bar to find what they are looking for. Pay attention to search trends for insights regarding what people are most interested in learning.
The next time you think there’s “nothing to write about”, think again. There’s always something to write about! It’s just a matter of taking the time to follow these suggestions and be willing to put your own creative spin on a topic.
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