What makes your blog special? What are you passionate about? This gives you an answer to the question, what to write your blog about.
Every beginning of the month means drawing up a new editorial plan for your blog. You think about which topics you want to write about. But whatever comes to mind – you have the feeling that you have already written extensively about everything. In order to find new, exciting, and at the same time informative content, good advice is welcome.
Whether private or for a company – blogs are very popular with readers. In content marketing, the company blog is even more successful when it comes to enhancing your own website. The goal is almost always to increase awareness, generate new customers, and outperform the competition.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you have to find out what you do differently from others and why that is maximally helpful/inspiring for your readers.
The basis for this is what to write about in your blog.
It lays the foundation for the content of your blog – and is the first step on your way to becoming a blogger.
As with the construction of a building, the foundation plays a particularly important role: all future actions are based on it. If it is not intact, the building will become unstable.
The four phases of writing a blog
A blog offers a lot of freedom in terms of appearance and the implementation of new creative content. This happens most successfully in a recurring routine with the following four phases:
- Planning
- Production
- Publication
- Analysis
This article deals exclusively with the planning phase, in which the topic finding is the top priority. It is important to constantly coordinate newly developed topics with the company goals, the target group, and the appropriate keywords.
The quality of the content produced has priority. Because the higher the quality, the higher the probability of gaining new customers. At the same time, a higher conversion rate can be achieved.
What to write a blog about?
Even if you keep running out of ideas for new content, there is no reason to give up. But how can you still find new and interesting topics? With the following tips, you will succeed in doing this in the future:
- Social media can be used excellently as a source of inspiration for interesting and current content. For example, Twitter can be turned into an alternative ticker using a Twitter stream with the right hashtags. It is advantageous to use a software platform for inbound marketing such as HubSpot. It integrates the Twitter stream into the marketing tools used via the social inbox.
- Do you know who is in charge of your industry? Most of these so-called influencers have their own Twitter account or blog where trending topics are discussed. For example, in the SEO field, Rand Fishkin is a trendsetter and known to every SEO specialist. Follow such people and be inspired by them.
- Social media groups are another way to get great ideas quickly. Such groups are particularly well represented on LinkedIn. The discussion within the groups is usually particularly lively and the participants also pass on lots of useful tips and links to one another.
- RSS feeds keep you up to date. Use your browser’s RSS reader or services such as Netvibes, Hootsuite and feedburner.
Find out what’s trending right now from the newsletters from influencers or other respected bloggers. In this way, you are up to date even before this content is distributed via other social media channels. - You can also use free Google tools. With Google Alerts, for example, you get the latest news on keywords that you define yourself. Google Correlate provides information about how several search terms relate to one another in a time interval.
- Google Trends shows the frequency of a search term over a period of time.
Think about whether a topic can be broken down into several parts as a series. Great side effect: Your readers are encouraged to read the next parts of the series and come back. - Expand or differentiate categories. This gives you the chance to revisit many topics from a different point of view. For example, a travel blog under the main category Italy can also be divided into the categories Mediterranean cuisine, Rome, and golf resorts.
- Invite guest authors. Other bloggers, experts or readers are suitable for this. You will increase the reputation of your blog and at the same time give yourself a break.
- How about a tutorial? Explain in easy-to-understand words, step by step, how something works. At the same time, you can expand your expert status.
- Speaking of experts: An interview with a well-known expert in your industry underlines your competence. This inspires readers and brings new followers.
- Interesting videos or podcasts that you produce yourself also provide variety. Film in your company, introduce employees or tell them what’s trending right now.
If you can’t think of anything, ask your readers what topics they are interested in. Award the best suggestion with a small give-away in order to get as many answers as possible.
What to write a blog about based on site structure (categories)
If you know what you want to blog about, you can clearly organize your content and separate it from one another. This is done in the form of meaningful categories or rubrics. Through them, your readers know immediately what your blog is about (in addition to the blog name and, if applicable, the slogan).
To take an example: In your travel blog, there are main topic travel destinations, underneath are the individual continents as sub-topics (e.g. Indonesia), underneath the countries (such as Bali), and again underneath the specific travel reports.
There are also main topics such as “world travel” or “traveling with children”. What all articles have in common is the topic of backpacking, which we will emphasize even more in the future.
Tip: The more specific your blog topic, the higher your recognition value!
What to write your blog about: Put your passion first
This point is the most important one when it comes to what to blog about. Basically, the answer is very simple:
Make your greatest passion your blog topic!
What you are passionate about, what you are interested in, what you always want to talk about, what you have already been able to inspire friends/acquaintances with. Even if you think you are not (yet) good enough – your hobby, your greatest interest should definitely be your blog topic!
Why?
To put it bluntly, your blog won’t last long otherwise. At some point, you will no longer feel like dealing with these topics for weeks or months, in the best case even for years. And your readers will notice that too.
4 reasons why passionate bloggers are more successful
- The content is high quality, helpful, thrilling, authentic.
- The design is lovingly and, above all, appropriately designed.
- Your activities are extensive and persistent.
- Communication with readers is cordial and engaging.
Why is that?
The magic words are “intrinsic motivation“. It is defined as follows:
“Intrinsic motivation is the inner, self-evolving motivation of every person: you simply enjoy doing certain activities because they are fun, useful or challenging, or simply of interest.”
If you are motivated from the inside out, you will be far more successful than someone who blogs just for the money. In the world of work, the phenomenon of “increased motivation through inner drive” has already been proven in studies:
“Employees who are intrinsically motivated are about three times more committed than those who are guided by extrinsic incentives such as money.” – Source: Harvard Business Manager Online
It’s the same when it comes to your own blog.
Why you, too, should find a blog topic that interests you really, really deeply
- You are far more motivated and therefore have more stamina to make your blog something great. And the fact is: you need perseverance! Which in turn is not a problem if you can express your passion.
- You feel good, have the feeling that you have found a new hobby, can develop your talents – your well-being benefits.
- You better deal with supposed setbacks, concentrate less on “mistakes” or “weaknesses”, but want to learn, change, and be creative.
- Your readers will feel your passion and will be happy to come back.
Whatever your goal with your blog, you will achieve it more easily.
How to even more out of your blog
Using a blog for customer acquisition and corporate communication works on the condition that it consistently provides relevant content for the target group. This requires planning, for which the following rules apply:
- The frequency rule: It states that it is advantageous to fill the company blog with new text contributions at least twice a week. Especially with a new blog, it is recommended to post new content more than twice a week. This increases the chance of attracting as many visitors as possible to your blog.
- The 80/20 rule: The idea behind this is that 80 percent of the blog content should be written for visitors. The remaining 20 percent of the content can revolve around the company itself.
- The cocktail party rule: This means that it makes sense to actively involve visitors in the blog. In order to achieve this, a suitable incentive must be created. For example, ask readers for feedback or ask readers for their own ideas for blog posts. Competitions or sweepstakes are also particularly suitable.
Conclusion
Finding what to write about in your blog is not that difficult. Use all available tools and our tips sensibly. You will quickly find that in the future you can easily fill your editorial schedule and write interesting blog posts.
The Contentime tip
Approach blog writing in a structured manner. Apply the frequency, 80/20, cocktail party rule. Please also note our other tips, if success is guaranteed. Should you reach your capacity limits, our team will be happy to assist you and provide you with blog writing support.
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