3 Targeted Blog Ideation Tips

Blogging can be a key element in the online marketing realm: Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages, and companies with more indexed pages get far more leads. When you provide top industry news and actionable tips your audience can use, you establish yourself as the place that people come to for information about the industry. This enables you to build a relationship with future and current customers, engaging them with the brand and—down the line—assisting them through the buyer's journey.

Consistently and continually creating content that your audience needs and wants to consume is integral to blogging. Creating that content consistently and continually can be one of the most challenging parts of writing for a blog. How can you make this part of the task easier to tackle? Follow these practical blog ideation tips: repurpose content, address pain points, and interview experts.

The idea behind recycling and repurposing your content is to get as much mileage as you can out of good content. You want to be sure that you're not just taking a chunk of content from one format and slapping it into another format for another channel without truly reworking it. Here are a few methods that can point you in the right direction to repurpose content in a useful way:

·         Look for high-performing content through social shares, analytics, and leads. Which content was shared the most? Which content generated the best leads?

·         Repurpose content from white papers or ebooks. This bit of advice works with white papers or ebooks that you published previously—that contain evergreen content that's still helpful to your audience—or a new white paper or ebook you're getting ready to launch. Evaluate the longer form content to determine which tips or data points could go into a new blog post.

·         Provide a unique angle for the blog post, whether the content is repurposed or new. And include a CTA that leads readers to the longer form content where they can find more information.

·         Use data from studies or surveys to create an infographic. Take time to evaluate the longer form content to determine which parts could be used in an infographic. Pull out the data with the wow factor or that will elicit a, "Hmm, wasn't expecting that…." from your readers. Write the blog post specifically about the data you've chosen to highlight in the infographic. You can also reference (and link back to) the larger study or survey.

By drawing on your and your colleagues' company and industry knowledge, you can easily generate a list of blog topics that's inherently interesting to your customers. Looking through user generated forums, such as LinkedIn and Quora, is a good way to discover what pain points the audience is discussing. The questions that garner the most discussion are ripe for your answers in a blog post. Talking to your sales team to find out which questions customers repeatedly ask is another way to discover the pain points at the top of your audience's mind. In a blog post, or in a series of posts, you can then provide the answers that enable the audience to make informed decisions.

Choosing pertinent and timely content to write about is important to your blogging efforts. Just as important is how you present the content, which should be in an unbiased and clear format. By incorporating insights and tips from experts inside your company and across the industry, you give more of a journalistic feel to your blogging, which then feels more altruistic to the reader. Using the quotes can also help you more easily clarify a point or give two sides of an issue that incites discussion. Garnering quotes and viewpoints can arise naturally out of work conversations you're having with coworkers, both previous and present, but you can also ask specifically for interviews. Be sure to get permission to use a quote and always credit the person in the blog post.

For more tips about ideation and others geared to optimize your company's blog and its content, check out the Attract and Engage Readers with Targeted Blog Ideation and Optimization slide deck:

2015 can be the year you have fewer headaches creating timely blog topics that deliver relevant information to your audience and that bolster your company's overall blogging efforts.

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Original source: 3 Targeted Blog Ideation Tips.
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