By Adam 
Even a simple concept like
“write what you know” may not help when you have already written dozens of
articles for your blog and are faced with the issue of finding new ideas for
articles. We have collected 11 easy and free ways to find ideas for blogs on various
topics and covered how to choose the best ideas from among them.
How to find
an idea for a blog article
If you can’t come up with an
idea yourself, then the following sources will help you come up with a topic
for your next articles:
- Google SERP
- Google Trends
- News Feeds
- Competitor Monitoring
- Ahrefs Content Explorer
- Social Networks and Forums
- Websites in Foreign Languages
- Idea Generators
Let’s explore each method in
more detail.
Google SERP
Searching for topics on Google
is one of the simplest and most effective options. At the stage of creating a
blog post, you have already devised keywords and phrases that characterize your
topic, which means you can type them into the Google search bar and study the
recommendations from the search engine.
For example, you can type the query “vacation in Mexico” into Google and the system algorithms will immediately offer a dozen results:
Among these search results, you
will see various blocks, such as ads, featured snippets, articles, etc. Study
them to understand how and what others have written.
You can use the “People also ask block” as a source for ideas or you can research what other queries are suggested for your request:
In addition, we recommend that you scroll down on the page to the “Related search block”:
In this block, you can get even
more ideas if you type a suggested related search and repeat the analysis of
those search queries.
Google Trends
Google
Trends is a free service from Google that allows you to follow
trends. If you want to find relevant topics for your blog, Google Trends is the
perfect tool to find the hottest and most discussed topics.
When you go to the main page of Google Trends, it is very easy to get confused, since trending topics are scattered chaotically, but you can type your request and view suitable trends:
At the bottom of the page, you’ll see “Related Topics” and “Related Queries”. These will give you an idea of what people are looking for in your topic right now:
As with the Google SERP, you
can use Google Trends to find topics for any blogs. The service is not tailored
for a specific niche, but, of course, has a bias towards trending events.
In addition to searching for a topic in Google Trends, you can find out whether your topic is interesting to a potential current audience by looking at the charts:
Pay attention to the large
number of settings that allow you to customize your analysis. For example, if
your website is not for a US audience, you can select a different geographic
range and view detailed statistics for that range.
News Feeds
This method is not suitable for
all blogs, since information in news feeds is always somehow related to current
events. If you write exclusively on evergreen topics, this method will not be
very helpful. Nevertheless, in news feeds, you can find a lot of ideas and learn
about changes in the requirements for entering a certain country as well as how
to update your previous publications or prepare new ones.
You can monitor both specific news websites and track news in the news feed. For example, in Google, there is a separate search for news:
In the “Settings” and “Tools” section, you can more precisely specify your request and get more suitable content ideas for your blog:
Competitor
Monitoring
It is possible and even
necessary to spy on your competitors’ topics and explore those topics more
fully and expertly on your blog. This can be done by hand or using software.
Collect a list of your main
competitors (everyone has them) and regularly observe what they write about.
You can track this information manually or set the RSS readers or other
software to provide you with fresh updates.
If you have a young site with a
small number of articles, you can check not only your competitors’ new
articles, but also their old ones, since there may be a lot of useful ideas
among them as well.
If you take ideas from your
competitors, be sure that your content is better than theirs. Otherwise, why
create it? Your content must be better for both your readers and for the search
engines. For example, your material may answer a question more fully and
concisely or may contain more relevant information, and so on.
Ahrefs
Content Explorer
Ahrefs Content Explorer is an
awesome search tool that allows you to find the most popular content, which you
can use to discover new ideas as well. To find blog content ideas, you need to:
- Type the query in the
search bar for the query you want to rank for. - Select a search area.
- In the “Publish
Date” section, select the publication period of the analyzed content. - Select a language and word
count, then start your search - You
can sort the results by different parameters or export them for your
convenience.
The results obtained need to be
analyzed further, since there will be many ideas among them, which are
sometimes repeated or even similar to those of your website.
Social
Networks and Forums
Social networks and forums are
great places to find out what’s interesting to people. You can search Facebook
for a topic you want to learn more about or you can join large communities and
monitor them regularly.
In many groups, you will be
able to simultaneously determine what is interesting to people (based on their
questions) and discover what’s new in your niche, as moderators often share
important news and articles from other sites.
Forums are likewise a great
source of data. It’s worth starting with the Reddit community or Quora. While
not forums, these are platforms on which millions of people communicate every
day. You will discover people’s actual needs, which you can later satisfy on
your site by writing quality content.
Websites in
Foreign Languages
Most major topics are in demand
in different languages, although there are some differences between countries.
Therefore, you can look at ideas for articles on foreign websites.
The easiest way is to type a topic into a Google search in another language that you know and check what foreign websites are writing about. If you do not know other languages, then you can still easily check foreign websites with the help of Google Translate, which allows you to translate entire pages:
Please note that there are
specificities within each country. Therefore, you will have to at least adapt
your content to the needs of your audience. For example, if you have a website
about cars, some topics from other countries may not be suitable, as the car
model range may be different.
Blog Post
Idea Generators
This method is relevant, but it
is not in last place without reason. You can find many theme generators on the
net. Here are just a few of them:
- https://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker/
- https://www.buildyourownblog.net/the-blog-post-ideas-generator/
- https://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator
The post idea generators do
work, but the efficiency is not very high. Among the proposed topics, there are
a lot of options that are not even worth writing about. However, generators can
be used as a source of inspiration.
Bonus: 3
Non-obvious methods for finding content ideas
The previous eight ideas are
used by many webmasters, but there are also less obvious sources for
inspiration:
- Courses – A
lot can be learned from other people’s courses, including ideas for blog posts.
If you can’t find a topic for an article, try to find tutorials/courses on your
topic and go through them. In the process, you will come across questions that
you can later write about in your blog. - Surveys,
Research, and Statistics – There are many statistics available on the
Internet (for example, on Statista.com). You can find different studies related
to your blog and check them. Studying such polls, statistics, and research will
help you better understand your topic and find good ideas for future blog
posts. - Ads – If you
have an ad blocker installed, temporarily disable it. Advertising is an
excellent source of ideas for topics. Moreover, it is certainly a great way to
find commercial topics, since advertisers usually advertise what is in demand,
which means that, in the future, you will be able to monetize such articles.
Whichever way you choose to
find ideas for blog content, it is important to select the best topics that
make sense to write about.
How to choose
the best idea for an article
You can come up with a great
idea that will not generate traffic and income in the future. Therefore, before
writing an article, you need to study your idea in the following parameters:
- How much traffic can this article generate?
- What is the competition in the niche?
- Do I have enough expertise to prepare quality material?
- How can I monetize this page in future?
You will be surprised when you
find a topic that is interesting to you that may not be of interest to your
audience at all.
All you have to do is use Google Keywords Planner or its alternatives and check how many people are searching for your topic each month:
If the total traffic is less
than 100 people per month, you should skip this topic or write an article as
short as possible to avoid wasting a lot of time on a post with low traffic
potential. Another way is to combine several unpopular, but related topics and
create one article that includes them all.
However, the more traffic there is on a topic, the more competition there usually is. After all, everyone wants to get visitors, which they can then convert into income. Therefore, you need to analyze your competition. To do this, you can use tools like Ahrefs, Serpstat, and their alternatives. You can simply check the query in Google by typing the main queries for your article and see which pages appear in the SERP:
If there are many homepages or
the official sites of companies and highly trusted services, such as
TripAdvisor, in the search results, then consider whether your site and page
have a chance to compete for the first page. Maybe it’s better to choose a less
competitive topic. However, you can still opt to fight for higher traffic if
you make your page no worse than the one that is already at the top of the search
results.
To compete in topics with
high-potential traffic, your articles must be the best answer to a reader’s
question. Thus, it is ideal if you personally understand the topic or have an
author who can prepare high-quality material. If there is no such knowledge,
then a compilation of knowledge from other sources (written uniquely!) and a
more convenient presentation of the material may still work.
Of course, if your strategy for
attracting traffic includes mainly other traffic sources, such as social
networks, then the analysis of the topic must be built in a different way,
especially if your chosen topic already generates traffic from your existing
traffic sources. For example, if you have a large social media group for Honda
car repairs, an article about children’s toys, regardless of its high monthly
searches, is unlikely to generate a lot of traffic to your group about Honda
cars.
The last point, but no less
important, is to evaluate how you can monetize future articles. If your site
has contextual advertising, such as Google Ads or display ads, and your goal is
exclusively to generate more traffic, then even here it is better to focus on
commercial topics, as there is a higher chance of getting a more expensive
click.
By collecting people on your site
who need a certain product or service and are ready to buy, you can earn a lot
more.
For example, when writing about
how to get compensation for a delayed flight, you can earn through both
contextual advertising and the sale of law services. While writing about a solo
trip to Hawaii, by placing affiliate links, you can earn money on visitors
booking hotels or purchasing flight tickets. Affiliate links are available for
almost any topic. For example, the owners of travel sites can join the
Travelpayouts affiliate network and get access to 80+ affiliate
programs, including Booking, GetYourGuide, and others.
You can assess the commercial
potential of a topic by analyzing user intent based on the keywords he/she is
searching for. There is no one-stop service that will do this for you. Of
course, if the queries contain the words “Buy”, “Book”, etc., then the
intention of the user is obvious, but not all blog article ideas can be
tailored for such queries.
You can logically evaluate if a
person needs something or not. For example, in the article about “Reliable
suitcases for travel”, it is logical to assume that a person reading that
article is in search of a suitcase, which means the topic has the potential to
earn money from affiliate marketing, for example, through the Amazon affiliate
program.
By using all of the above
methods, you will be able to find great topics for future articles on your
blog. However, if you have tried everything and a topic idea has not yet come
to you, perhaps you need to take a temporary break from content creation or
hire an editor to help you with content production.
SME Paid Under
Sitetrail Research Team