“What on earth am I going to write about?!”
Every writer has asked themselves this question at some point in time. Even the greatest writers in the world have suffered from the dreaded writers block. So don’t worry because whenever you’re struggling to think of topics, you’re in good company.
Blog Writing – Dispelling Common Myths
We noticed that several of our prospective clients had misplaced opinions on what a blog should contain or needs to be. Therefore, before we look at how to choose blog topics, let’s clarify a few basics.
1 – Your blog is not your work portfolio
When I say your blog is not your work portfolio, I don’t mean you can never share examples of your work on your blog. You can post about your previous work projects provided the post would be interesting to your audience, and you have something significant to say about them.
There is only one test for determining if a topic is suitable. Is the topic interesting, useful or entertaining to your target audience? If yes, proceed. If no, don’t!
Therefore, if some of your previous work is especially unique and interesting, by all means, use it to create content. Just don’t use your blog as a dumping ground for every last thing that you have ever done because your audience will quickly lose interest and quickly stop paying attention.
2 – Your blog Isn’t a ‘How to guide’ For your profession
Let’s illustrate this point with an example. If you’re an architect, your blog shouldn’t read like a guide to becoming an architect. Why? Because your target audience (presumably your customers) don’t need to know the finer details of how you design a building. Your method is not likely to be particularly interesting to them. It’s the end results that matter.
Similarly, if you’re an accountant, your customers don’t care how you complete a tax return. However, they might be interested in learning how to make their business more successful.
There are some exceptions to this rule. Some blogs are clearly supposed to be how-to guides from the very start. For example, a blog that gives excel tips or a blog about how to become a better golfer.
You can post some content teaching your methods provided that it’s would be interesting to your audience. For an architect, the odd post about how to draw buildings might be interesting to your audience. However, the majority of people viewing an architects website are not there to learn how to be an architect. They’re interested in building a new home for themselves or extend their existing one. Therefore, functional posts that are relevant to them (like a guide to applying for planning permission or a guide to styling their home) and inspirational articles (like a selection of well-designed properties) are more suitable.
3 – Your blog doesn’t have to be laser-focused on your field
For example, imagine the blog of a personal trainer, the primary role of a personal trainer is to teach people how to exercise correctly and motivate them. However, a personal trainer could use their blog to post information about diet or injury recovery. The personal trainer is not a nutritionist, nor are they a physiotherapist; however, these topics are relevant to their target audience (people interested in fitness and exercise) therefore they’re suitable.
Similarly, an accountant might post articles about the habits of successful business owners or review a new piece of marketing software. The accountant is not a business coach or a marketing expert, but since these posts are relevant to their target audience (small business owners), they are relevant to the accountant’s blog.
Content Strategy Again!
So, how do you think of good article ideas?
We know that a blog should be about whatever is relevant to your target audience, therefore thinking of good article ideas is as simple as knowing what’s relevant to our audience. We can take this a step further by combining what is relevant to our audience with what we’re best capable to create content on.
Treat your content strategy as a content topic generator by using it to map out your ideal audience member persona, analysing what is relevant to them and analysing what is unique about your own business. This reveals what is relevant to your audience and what you’re best able to write about!
1. What is relevant to your ideal audience member?
One of the first tasks of planning a content strategy is mapping out your audience persona. Once you have mapped this out, you can determine the wants and needs of your ideal audience member. This is as simple as putting yourself in the shoes of your audience and brainstorming what they care about.
Just doing this should inspire you to think of article ideas. It’s a very simple process, work out what your audience wants and then give it to them through your content!
2. What’s unique about your business?
Although every article doesn’t have to be 100% about what you do, you shouldn’t go completely off track. A decent proportion of your content still needs to be about your business or industry. You have to find a balance.
You need to answer the following question:
“What can I give my audience that nobody else can?”
In other words, what is unique about your business? Once you’ve answered this question, you’ll know what you’re well-positioned to write about. If you can’t find an answer, you probably need to think about your business model!
Once you have a general idea of your unique selling point, you can drill down further into detailed subcategories to unlock thousands of interesting article ideas. By writing about a topic linked to your business’ unique selling point, you’ll have a competitive advantage over anyone else!
For example, imagine that you’re a physiotherapist with a background as an elite tennis player. This background unlocks a range of different content topics that you’re uniquely qualified to write about. There is all content related to tennis training, but also general content about the experience of playing a sport to an elite level. You branch off further and write about sports psychology or the nutrition needed to be an elite athlete.
Alternatively, imagine you’re a lawyer specialising in finance, your advance knowledge of financial law would put you in a position to write articles that traditional lawyers simply would not have the expertise to write about.
Conclusion
The one constant is relevance to your target audience. Your ability to think of blog post ideas is limited only by your ability to understand your target audience. If you understand their needs, wants, desires, dreams you’ll never run out of interesting content topics.
Although staying relevant to your audience will ensure your content is interesting, you also need to look after your own business. Try to find a balance between the following three factors:
- What’s relevant to your audience
- What you’re best able to write about
- What will help you achieve your business goals
For example, imagine you’re a personal trainer working in a gym. A blog post about running would be relevant to your audience because running is of interest to many people who go to the gym. You’re also qualified to write about it because as a personal trainer you know a lot about cardiovascular exercise. However, you don’t want to only release content about running because you’ll risk ending up with an audience consisting solely of running enthusiasts, and they may have limited interest in the general personal training that you offer. This means one or two posts about running is a great idea but too many and you’ll lose the balance that goes into a successful blog for your business!