10 Ways to Source Content Ideas for Blogs

Last Updated on 1 year by Francesca Egay

Have you ever sat down, feeling so ready to write your next blog post but ended up staring blankly at your computer screen for hours – because you don’t have any content ideas for blogs to write about? You’re not alone. We’ve all been there. Almost every writer can relate to that.

Coming up with delightful ideas for your next blog post can be really painful for content writers sometimes, especially when the writers’ block hit. Do you know what makes it worse? When the deadline is looming, waiting for you just around the corner.

The struggle is real, and this is surely not a fun place to be.

A study from The Content Marketing Institute found that more than 57% of B2B marketers claim that producing content consistently is their toughest challenge.

That’s said, when you always run dry and dreaded blank pages constantly haunt you week after week, you know that you need better content planning. It helps you to keep a constant stream of content ideas flowing.

“But how?” You might ask.

And that’s what this post is for.

So, if you have a hard time coming up with new blog post ideas to feed your content calendar, don’t fret just yet. We have the solution for you.

Table of Contents

Content Ideas for Blogs: Why Do You Need It?

Do you know that a new blog post is published every 0.5 seconds? Some of them might include stunning infographics, compelling explainer videos, or checklists to attract more and more readers.

What’s more, there are approximately 409 million internet users who view more than 20 billion pages each month!

From those staggering numbers, you know that it’s the battle for eyeballs, and internet users love to read blog posts to get the information they need.

It should come as no surprise that companies with constant content production produce 67% more leads per month, compared to those who don’t publish content and act on their team’s blog post ideas.

So, it’s safe to say that constantly keeping the ideas and creativity flowing means that you can keep consistent traffic, leads, and conversions.

That’s a simple reason why you need to add new content for blogs regularly.

You might have an eye-catching and user-friendly website design, but it’s your blog content that your visitors are likely to be most interested in.

And, of course, creating mediocre and generic content won’t do the trick as it’s easy to get lost in flood. You need to come up with engaging, high-quality, informative, and valuable content ideas.

How to Come Up With Delightful Content Ideas for Blogs?

Content marketing is mostly about turning all that blank space into high-quality content that attracts, and engages, and converts.

Again, coming up with compelling content ideas for blogs is indeed a challenge. But, thankfully, there are some ways to avoid being tormented by the cursor’s blinky-ness and those frozen fingers.

Here are some methods to find some inspirations and start writing:

#1. Steal from Others

Don’t be afraid to steal ideas from other blogs that are clearly performing well. Just remember not to steal their content. That’s totally not cool.

Reading other blog posts can spark your inspiration, making it easier for you to come up with your own ideas while breaking down the same topic.

You can subscribe to your favorite blogs and check in regularly to see they have been published. As an alternative, you can also sign up for your favorite blogs’ newsletters so that you never miss a new post.

#2. Go to General Online Forums

The beauty of the internet is that it has literally everything you need. There’s always an answer to every question you ask. Thus, you can find content ideas for blogs on the internet, too.

General online forums like Quora or Yahoo! Are such an ideal place for most internet users to ask any questions under the sun. In this case, you can simply type the topic or keyword that relates to your niche or industry.

Once you press the enter button, there are a bunch of questions or queries that you can turn into high-quality content.

#3. Ask Your Audiences

Writing blog posts means providing valuable information to your audience. Here, one thing is obvious: it’s all about your audience – you have to understand what you need and what they want to read. So, make sure your content ideas are all related to them.

The easiest way to source relatable content ideas for blogs is by asking the audiences themselves.

You can create a quick survey or polling on your website to ask the audiences about what content they want you to publish next.

Or, you can utilize social media platforms and simply create interactions with your audiences so that you can build a solid connection with them. This, in turn, will help you understand what they need help with.

#4. Ask Your Sales Team What Prospects Want to Know

Do you know that your sales team can be such a hero in determining your next content topic that the audience actually loves?

Sales teams deal with prospects and directly communicate with them, answering their questions, and solving their problems. Therefore, you can talk to your sales team to see what questions they’re always getting and what prospects want to know about the business.

From those frequently asked questions, you won’t only create informative content but also problem-solving content for your blogs. After all, content marketing is about answering questions your potential and existing customers have in mind.

Social media platforms are helpful to see summaries of what people are talking about online. It’s also a great place to understand what trends your niche or audience is hype for. You can even predict what blog posts your readers will be excited to read a month from now.

To make it easier for you to monitor social media trends, tools like Hootsuite, Google Alerts, Talkwalker came in handy. They provide you with social media information relevant to your business.

You can look at media monitoring metrics to see what phrases and words users are recently using. This way, it’d be much easier to understand what your audiences need so that you can come up with ideas to create relatable and up-to-date content for them.

#6. Expand or Repurpose Existing Content

When you still find it too painful to come up with a new content idea each week, you can rely on this method instead: expanding and repurposing your old, existing content.

This is one of the easiest ways of pulling blog post ideas out of thin air. You can read your old content and find some parts or subheadings that can be broken down into a whole new, more updated article.

Thus, repurposing your blog posts into other formats like video, infographics, or e-books can also be a smart way to catch some low-hanging fruit and get even more people reading your blogs.

#7. Pay Attention to Google Auto-complete

Using Google autocomplete for content ideas for blogs might seem like a no-brainer. But it works.

Google auto-complete shows you what content users search most using the word you just typed on the search box.

Since the results are based on current search trends, it’s a quick way to get high-quality suggestions, especially for long-tail keywords, to optimize your content so you can attract more people to your blog.

#8. Do Some Competitor Analysis

Finding the competitors within your industry and researching them can help you learn from both their successes and mistakes.

Read what their audiences think about their blog posts in their comment sections. By doing so, you’ll know what content their audience loves the most and least.

Try also to look for the gaps in your competitor’s content. Then, fill those before they realize. One more thing: You can always cover topics that they haven’t had on their blogs.

#9. Turn Your Story Into a Case Study

What about writing your own stories as blog content? It sounds easy and easy to find. But, the problem is: are your stories interesting enough for the audience to read?

If you feel your story isn’t “impactful” enough to tell it as it is, you can take a more analytical approach to it by turning it into a case study.

Add some raw data or statistics and hypotheses to it and show the audiences the results. It’d be much valuable for your audience to read and learn.

#10. Utilize Some Tools

There are a bunch of tools that can help you generate infinite ideas for your blog – all thanks to the internet. Now, you can find high-performing content ideas hassle-free only within a few clicks.

Some popular tools you can utilize are:

BuzzSumo
UberSuggest
Alltop
Google Trends
… and more

Those tools aid you in the process of generating new content ideas, making it possible for you to post fresh, engaging content each week. You can potentially find some epic new ideas you haven’t even been aware of before.

Wrapping Up

Just like any other job, content marketing has its own challenges. One of them is coming up with fresh, engaging content ideas for blogs. However, with all those methods above, you’ll never be intimidated by an empty editorial calendar again.

One thing you need to bear in mind, though, one method isn’t enough to bring you the ideas you need that day. It means that the more alternative methods you have to turn to, the better shape you and your content planning will be in.

Author

Andre Oentoro

Founder, Breadnbeyond

Founder of an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).