Whether you’re a seasoned blog writer or fresh on the scene, you’re likely to run into a major problem: not knowing what to write about.
It goes beyond writer’s block (though that can be a problem too); it also has to do with finding topics that your audience not only relates to, but cares about. Topics that engage them; topics that they connect with.
Let’s discuss common mistakes blog writers make, then we’ll go into a few tips on how to select blog topics that your customers actually want to read about.
Common Mistakes
As you choose topics for your business blog, you’re bound to write a few flops before finding your flow. But don’t get stuck in mistakes like these:
- Picking a subject just because you see other businesses making money off of it
- Writing about something that only you care about (your passion is awesome, but a business blog should be widely relatable)
- Writing about something you don’t know much about (if you don’t have time/energy to do a good amount of research)
- Picking topics that are all over the board
- Only writing blogs that are self-promotional or self-congratulating
Customers read your blog to learn from the voice of authority, not to be fed clickbait, irrelevant information, or content that’s too promotional.
Now that we’ve gone over what to avoid, let’s talk about how to pick topics that help your customers and strengthen your online presence.
Picking The Right Blog Topics
Your blog topics should resonate with your audience and keep them coming back to hear what you have to say on other related business matters. When customers come back, engagement goes up – and your website’s ranking does, too.
Here are some tips for picking topics that your customers can connect with.
Know And Understand Your Audience
Understanding your audience gives you a good idea on what topics to write about because you’ll get a better idea of what interests them. Ask yourself, what problems are my audience facing, what kinds of things are they interested in?
Writing about topics that interest your audience will keep them coming back. If you’ve been blogging for a while, search your archives and see what topics have generated the most engagement and interest in the past, and reframe them for your current content.
Use Keywords
Keyword research is useful in figuring out what topics will do well with your audience. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to figure out what keywords are being searched, then use that information to write blog topics relevant to what your audience is looking for. Once you become the answer to their questions, you’re in!
When you do research, be sure to check out the results for a number of different wordings for a particular search. Think of the verbiage that your neighbor would use to search for something and look into that. It might take a few tries to find the most popular phrasing!
Be Relevant And Stay Relevant
No matter how badly you want it to be, it’s impossible for your business to be everything to everyone. Don’t stretch your blog too thin. If you stay in your lane and write about your specific niche and expertise, you’ll find more success.
If your business is centered around cosmetics, every blog post should be related to cosmetics in some way – and you can find many different ways to do that! But if you’re a cosmetics company, you shouldn’t start writing about how to buy a car, even if you think it would draw in more readers.
Of course you want to reach a wide audience, but you also want to cater to your customers’ specific needs. You also want to be known online for what you offer, which is cosmetics in this example, so people come to you to purchase what you actually sell. If no one is coming to your business for anything to do with cars, then don’t write about buying a car! It will waste your time and confuse your customers.
Know who you are and portray that persona consistently. Doing so will bring you to the forefront of your audience’s mind when they think of your industry.
How To Do The Research
Now that you know what it takes to think up great topics, where do you begin in doing the research to brainstorm?
Here are four of the best places to start:
- Pick the brains of employees who interact with customers on a regular basis
- Offer a survey to current customers
- Use the keyword researching tools we discussed
- Leverage AI tools
At Federated Media, we simplify things and do the research for you! Our experienced team understands the blog writing sphere and puts in the work choosing topics that will excite and interest your customers.
Choosing Worthwhile Topics
Choosing the right blog topics is integral to your business’s success. And, at Federated Media, we want nothing more than to see you succeed! Gaining a deeper understanding of who your customers are and what they want is your golden ticket on writing blogs that they’ll read.
For more information, get in touch with our team today.
