Perhaps one of the most tedious forms of internet marketing is writing new content to feed your blog or website. This is a necessary evil, if your pages are not updated regularly and periodically, you can easily lose search engine rankings.
The major search engines like to know that someone is maintaining the website and keeping it fresh and current. People are influenced by new content, few visitors would come back to a site if it never changes.
You might feel that, particularly if you have been maintaining a site for several years, you simply cannot think of anything new to write about. So how can you keep coming up with new ideas for Writing Blog Content and posts that will bring in new traffic? Search through these tips to get your creative juices flowing again.
RSS Subscriptions
If you provide an RSS feed for your visitors (and you certainly should), then you’ve got some valuable information very handy. Simply take a look at what post the subscriber was reading when he or she subscribed, or what blog post he or she is tracking comments on.
This will give you clues as to what types of information they are most interested in. If you find that posts on book reviews seem to be most popular, then keep writing more.
What Are People Tweeting About
With so many members of Twitter, it is easy to get a real feel for the topics most people find interesting on any given day. This is truly easy. Just log into your Twitter account and take a look at the right sidebar, under “Trending Topics”. Click on any of the links for an overview of the full discussion revolving around each.
Just in case you don’t know how a subject becomes a trending topic, it is by using the hash tag (#) directly in front of a particular subject (no spaces in between) in a post.
Online References
Another way you can find out what topics are current and of interest to others is to use any of the many online reference sites. Google Blog Search is a good one, it lists the top blog posts by category. The Yahoo Buzz Index is another one that offers large lists of the most popular stories online.
Social bookmarking sites are also a great source of topical subjects that can give you some great ideas for writing new Blog content.
No matter where you choose to get your ideas, you will get a lot of marketing leverage by writing about topics that are frequently searched. These can vary from day to day, so check your resources often.
Try to take a current topic and relate it to your business in some way. If you can use a news story of global significance as the basis of your post, you are likely to gain traffic from the farthest reaches of the globe. Of course, if your business is more localised, content with significance to your community can be very beneficial.
There is literally a never-ending supply of news and information to provide you with fodder for Writing Blog Content. Don’t get lazy and forget about keeping your site fresh, it is easy to find lots of subjects to feed to your website if you look in the right places.
See you at the top of Google!
Sean Rasmussen
SEO Australia Pacific
AussieSEO.com © 2007 - 2010
Hi Sean,
Writing blog content consistently is one of the more challenging things about having a blog. I subscribe to a lot of blogs so I get to read a lot of new stuff. Generally something I read will give me an idea for a blog post.
The other thing I do is use Google Analytics and see which are my most popular posts. Then I just find a topic along similar lines to what people seem to like reading on my blog.
When all else fails, I come by one of your blogs to get some inspiration.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Learn and Earn Competition – This is It =-.
I’m thinking that having to write blogs may actually get me to increase the number of words I generally speak.
Wish I had your talent for “talking under water” Sean !
Currently I don’t have a problem coming up with a topic as I have probably 30 or so stones to go through yet, if not more, in my Healing Earth blog. I would have a harder time, I think if I again started writing in my other blog, “All in a day…” which is about the day to day occurances for me as a jewelry maker, seamstress, and shop owner. I’ve not written in that one for several months.
I like the idea of “taking a current topic and relating it to your business in some way”. It is great to give people practical examples. One of the biggest issues in the world economy today is the Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A good way to communicate this would be about the level of action that people are taking to correct this issue.
This is a great topic Sean, I have stumbled quite often on trying write blog content.
I quite often sit there and think on what could I write about, so checking the resources you have outlined above will be very valuable.
.-= Darren´s last blog ..SPASA 2010 Winners | The winners of SPASA 2010 awards are…. =-.
Most of my blogging to date has been at random intervals on items of personal interest as well as the activities of Grateful We’re Not Dead. If I intend to get serious about Internet Marketing I’ll obviously have to start writing blog content on a more regular schedule. For years I’ve been researching online for material that I have required so that is nothing new for me. With regard to Twitter, even though I’ve had an account for over 3 years I’ve never really paid much attention to what information I could glean from the tweets so the Twitter tips are a real eye opener and I’ll now have to investigate this more thoroughly.
.-= Don White´s last blog ..Psycho- =-.
Hi Sean
I know I need to subscribe to more blogs so that is on my to do list now.
I keep an alphabetical indexed notebook with me at all times and every day I write at least two nouns or adjectives under 5 letters so that I am building up prompts for subject matter.
I also keep a notebook with me at all times as ideas are always popping into my head through conversations with people or articles and books I read, sometimes even songs or conversations I may overhear. I have no shortage at this stage.
I like the idea of Google blog search too. My blog is idle at present while I put all my focus into the competition.
Thankyou Sean.
Blessings,
Elly
.-= Elly´s last blog .. =-.
Hi Sean,
Thanks for the tips on writing blog content, it can be very hard to get those creative writing juices flowing sometimes so a good list of ideas to get the ball rolling can help a lot!
I really like the “Trending Topics” idea because you can check what is fresh & popular : )
Hi Sean,
Thank-you for this article on blog content. You have caused another piece of the jigsaw puzzle to fit into place and given me food for thought.
Sometimes it only takes a few words for the penny to drop. One thing, besides many ideas I got from this article is: Try to take a current topic and relate it to your business in some way. A simple message but brilliant!
.-= Jill Brown´s last blog ..Couples Marry at Common Law =-.
Hi Jill,
This happens to me all the time reading Sean’s posts. Slowly the pieces are coming together and I feel like I’m getting it. The best thing about taking a current topic and blogging about it is the huge spike in traffic you can get.
Remember when Cade wrote his article about Jessica Watson? He got over 600 visitors to his blog off that one article. I’d love some of that traffic.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Finding Your Passion =-.