Top 30 Blog Post Ideas: Part One

25 September, 2013

There are a number of reasons why blogging is good for business. In addition to improving your businesses’ SEO, blogs can provide brilliant and original content to be used on social media, with back links to your website encouraging more traffic. Blogs also provide a great platform to engage directly with your target audience and if the content is good enough, position you as an expert and voice of authority.

But many of my clients ask me, how do I make a blog engaging? What should I be including to ensure customers read it all and want to find out more about my business afterwards?

It is a good idea to vary your blog posts to keep the content interesting – make sure you include some text, some videos and images which help bring the content to life.

Over the next two weeks, I will be sharing 30 different blog post ideas to give you inspiration and keep your blog vibrant.

(1) Infographic

An infographic is a visually engaging tool, which helps illustrate your data and bring it to life in a way that’s not just facts and figures. Definitely consider using one within your blog if it’s starting to look data heavy.

(2) Checklists

Using a checklist definitely improves efficiency, helps you plan and manage your content and what you want to convey. It is also useful for directing clients to, who have asked a content management and marketing process question.

(3) Interviews

Interviews with industry experts that are ‘in the know’ can help strengthen the content and give the blog audience another point of view. They are also great for driving new traffic and often result in a reciprocal backlink from the interviewee’s blog.

(4) Quizzes

Quizzes are great for two reasons, naturally they engage the reader but the results also give original content that could form the basis of another blog. E.G. XX amount of people believe that…

(5) White papers / thought papers

A white paper is an authoritative report or guide helping readers to understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. A good white paper contains enough ideas to fuel several blog posts.

In fact, here is the best way to use both together:

1. Publish an effective white paper.
2. Extract one key idea to blog about.
3. At the end of the blog, point to the landing page for the full white paper.
4. Repeat steps 2-3 to cover all the key ideas in the white paper.

This uses the SEO power of your blog to build visibility and downloads for your white paper.

(6) Video

There are a great number of online users that prefer to watch videos over reading text content. YouTube’s popularity is no coincidence. Video blogging or adding video to your site could widen your potential audience and bring new visitors aboard.

Demonstrating things and explaining some concepts can be easier with video. Sites that have a good amount of ‘how to’ articles and tutorials could therefore benefit from the format.

Video blogging will bring out your voice and possibly your face. This is a much stronger way to interact with your visitors. Secondly, if you want to develop your personal brand, video could help with that. Read here for more info about the pros and cons of using videos.

(7) History timeline

A history timeline is a succinct and easy to follow tool to guide people through the company history and include key highlights, innovations and successes.

(8) Industry event round up

A key part of my career is attending events, trade shows and conferences relevant to the industry. A great way to engage with your target audience is to include an industry event round up blog. This will be particularly useful if they couldn’t make the event for one reason or another. Don’t just restrict the event update to your blog, why not also tweet about the event giving live updates on what is happening and key highlights. For an example of how to draft an industry event round up blog, check out this event round-up blog from Buy Yorkshire 2013 or this one focusing on Chris Brown’s LinkedIn talk.

(9) Answer peoples questions

A great way to engage with your target audience while also positioning yourself as an expert. This also gives you good fodder for further blog posts by seeking out the commonly asked questions and focusing a blog on an in depth answer or solution.

(10) Competition

Everybody loves the idea of winning something so if you want to draw traffic to your blog, why not set up a competition? The prize could be to win your service or products to ensure it is relevant and increases potential custom. Make sure you draft some Ts and Cs to ensure you’re covered. Here’s a starter for ten.

(11) Best posts of the month (or year)

Check out other blogs and see what other people are writing about. Help signpost the reader to check out these blogs in a ‘best post of the month round up.’ An example of how this works well can be found here.

(12) eBook

The opportunities to grow and expand your business or ideas through publishing an eBook are limitless. With a insightful, compelling eBook, your words can instil valuable wisdom, actions, stories and ideas that can build trust and relationships with your audience. If you already have an established platform — or want to build one — this eBook will fortify all your other online marketing efforts.

(13) Case Study

People love a good ‘people like me’ scenario but also to see your services put into practice and used in real life – proof of its worth as it were. A client testimonial or case study can really help encourage patronage and build trust among your target audience.

(14) Day in the life

Who doesn’t love being a bit nosey and getting an insight into other people’s lives and that includes blog readers. Try and keep the day in the life interesting and include key events that show your expertise and the breadth and depth of work you do.

(15) Seasonal advice

The seasons are a big deal, especially in the UK and focuses within business can change. Take the winter for example, no matter what your website is about, there is always a way to integrate the festive season into it. You should look for seasonal related tips and advice that you can give related to your blog’s niche. Even if your blog is on the topic of precious metals, you can write posts about how the winter frost may make some metals more brittle, explain how many reindeer a sheet of precious metal can hold. Some blog niches are easier to convert into seasonal themes, such as cookery blogs and decorating blogs.

Watch out for 30 Top Blog Post Ideas: Part Two next week!
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To maximise the impact of your digital marketing by setting up a blog or running SEO campaigns, please contact me directly on 011 33 20 21 21.