SEO

How to Generate Blog Ideas (And Is It Even Worth It?)

By February 17, 2020July 10th, 2020No Comments

New content is critical for websites.  It shows users that you’re still around and active, it brings value to your users, and good content is one of the best ways to continually increase your site’s presence in search engines. The three big issues we typically hear from business owners are:

  • Blogging is outdated [or dumb, etc.]
  • I don’t have the time to blog
  • I have no idea what to write about

blog traffic stats

We understand the objections.  We often have the same struggles and thoughts (seriously!).  But, it does wind up being important.  For example, the traffic shown in the chart is from a period of less than a month for one of our clients (page names redacted for confidentiality).  Every one of these pages is a blog post except for #8, the home page.  Two pages get over 10x the traffic as their home page.  Over 46% of their leads (valued in the mid 5 figures each) came from the top 4 blog posts.  There’s a lot of traffic and money to be made by blogging.

So, how do we address the objections (besides just showing the chart to the left)?

 

Blogging Is Outdated

Yes, we agree.  Blogging is so 2011.  People don’t read blogs like they used to, but they do look for information online more than ever.  The objection isn’t about blogging as much as it’s about the term.  Don’t call the section on your website a “blog” if you don’t like the term.  Use a term instead like:

  • Articles
  • Resources
  • Helpful Tips
  • Important Information
  • Brilliant Thoughts

It really doesn’t matter what you call it, as long as the principle of regularly adding good content is there.  Just choose something that fits your business and its personality.

I Don’t Have the Time to Blog

There’s a good chance you’re right, and you’re very busy.  So, you need to get creative.  You could always hire an agency to do that, but it may not be necessary (we write content for a lot of clients, but will also often recommend businesses write their own content – both to save money and because it’s a better fit for the company to write their own content).  But here’s what you can do:

  • Set some reasonable goals. You may not have the time for 4 articles a month.  Do you have time for one per month?  You can probably squeeze that out.
  • Compound your efforts – just post what you’re already doing. For example, we helped an attorney with a successful blog with a lot of traffic in a unique niche – just by having him recap information from recent unique cases.  Just reformatting that information to make it useful for the average person and putting it on the blog drove a lot of traffic and generated inquiries every month.  Don’t reinvent the wheel, utilize what you’re already doing.
  • Get your team to write content with you. If everyone pitches in, it’s very little work for everyone.  We have a client with a team of over 20 physicians.  If every one of those physicians writes one blog in a year, that’s a good article coming out about twice per month.  And it barely takes anyone any time.  They can all write one article per year based on what they’re doing.
  • Want to take a unique approach? Make it a contest in your team.  If it fits your team’s environment, offer a gift card to the person whose blog generates the most traffic.  This may not work if you’re a medical practice, but if you’re an agency with a young eager team, this could be a great idea.  Give people a vested interest in what you’re doing.

When you change how you look at the workload, the “unrealistic” task of creating a blog, and finding the time to do it, becomes much more practical.

I Don’t Know What to Write About

Writer’s block affects everyone, but there’s probably a plethora of topics that you can talk about.  Here’ are 15 quick ways to figure out the best content to write about:

  1. Answer the questions you are always asked at your business
  2. What is something that your company does that really sets you apart – that very few people are doing – and why it’s so important
  3. What is a way that your customers could save money that they probably aren’t doing now or don’t know about
  4. What do you think people are typing into google search
    *Tip #1 – start typing into the Google search bar and see what Google is suggesting – that’s likely what other people are searching
    *Tip #2 – do a search for something you think your customers look for, then check the “people also search” suggestions at the bottom of the search results.
  5. What would make your life easier if people knew it before they contacted you
  6. What are competitors writing about – figure out a way to do a better job on that content
  7. Look at the existing content on your website – what could you do a good job expanding on
  8. What happened recently in your company that you could write about, such as a client engagement or success that is relevant for others (think about ideas like the lawyer mentioned above)
  9. What information can you provide that would help show you as an industry leader
  10. Picture a specific customer or potential customer and think about what you’d like to say to them anonymously
  11. Rewrite old content with updates due to advances in the past years, or simply expand on it
  12. Go on reddit and find out what people are talking about in your space (do a search at the top search bar in reddit to get yourself started)
  13. Comment on relevant news stories to your industry – there’s usually something relevant to just about every industry in the news if you know where to look
  14. Ask your customers – find out specifically what they would love to know more about that would be helpful to them
  15. Brainstorm – get a stack of post-it notes and start writing ideas. Don’t stop no matter how bad the idea is.  Do this for a good 10 minutes.  At the end, sort through what’s a good idea and what’s not.  Typically, the bad ideas form a chain that eventually lead to a good one that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

And that should get you started for a good long while.  Even a couple of these ideas can keep you going for a good year.

Yes, it can be a lot of work.  But is it worth it?  Absolutely.  And if you’re interested in SEO, this is really a good low-cost, low-barrier way to get started that doesn’t even need professional help.  But if you do need help getting started, let us know and we can point you in the right direction.

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