Finding Topics to Write About
It can be quite daunting to constantly create content for your website. This pages provides a whole set of resources and techniques for finding subjects to write about. If you work your way through the suggestions here, you should easily be able to create a comprehensive list of suitable topics.
Consider Your Existing Customers
Your existing customers can be a rich source of ideas for creating relevant content and helping them with the issues they face.
Answer Your Customer’s Questions
One strategy is to write down all the questions you’ve ever been asked, then proceed to answer each question and make it into a blog post or page on your website. Short answers can be placed on an FAQ page. This can include any relevant images and video which help support your write up.
It may not be possible to answer every question directly as the answer may depend on a whole series of factors which are different for each customer, for example pricing where the answer is well it depends . . . In this case, it should be possible to give some examples.
Testimonials
Could you ask some of your happy and satisfied customers to write a testimonial for you? This is great social proof of your services/products.
Examples of Your Work
Can you provide information on recent work that you’ve done with photos and descriptions to explain what was done, the preparation and planning required, the work as it was carried out, perhaps before and after photos can be applicable in some cases.
To find popular topics on Google, search for your area of interest but don’t press return instead look at the suggestions Google offers. In the screenshot below, I searched for ‘Content Marketing’ and Google suggests ‘Content Marketing Institute’, ‘Content Marketing Examples’, ‘Content Marketing Jobs’ etc.
In a similar way, you can also make a search for ‘[Your Topic] a’, ‘[Your Topic] b’, ‘[Your Topic] c’ etc.
Once you’ve made a search, try scrolling down to the bottom of the page to check the ‘Related Searches’:
Sites for Finding Content
Answer the Public
Interesting way to search Google is to use Answer the Public
Enter your question and scroll down to the visualisation diagram which displays how, what when, where etc questions. Click one on the questions to perform a Google search.
YouTube
To find popular Youtube videos in your area of interest, first perform a search, in the screenshot below I’ve searched for ‘pizza making’.
Then use Filters (1) and search by Channel (2):
Scroll down and find a channel with a large number of subscribers. I’ve selected the ‘Got2EatPizza’ channel as it has 14.5k subscribers and 256 videos.
To find the most popular videos, go to videos (3), then sort by most popular (4).
Also try sorting my newest to see which videos have gained traction in a short period of time. See the number of views obviously. Then watch the videos that have a large number of views in a short time, try to find why they’re popular then create similar content but better.
You can also check the comments to see the questions being asked which might give your further ideas.
Wikipedia
Search the wikipedia in your topic of interest, perform a search, in the screenshot below I’ve searched for ‘content marketing’.
Then check the text and especially the links for possible topics.
Also check the links in the ‘Contents’ Section which can contain closely related topics.
Forums
Forums can be useful to find out what people are discussing, what questions are they asking and problems their trying to solve which can lead to ideas for content for your website.
To find relevant forums, try searching Google as follows:
[Your Topic] Forum
inurl:forum [Your topic]
So for example if you wanted to find a forum on ‘Content Marketing’ you could search using the following term:
inurl:forum ‘content marketing’
Note that ‘forum’ singular and ‘forums’ plural will return different results.
Once you find a suitable forum and sign up one technique is to search for phrases such as “Does any one know” or “I need help”. Then check to see the topics that are displayed.
Facebook Groups
In a similar way to Forums, Facebook groups can also be very useful for discovering the issues people are discussing.
Competitor Websites
Check out your online competition by simply searching Google for topics related to your business. Depending on your business type, your online competition can be completely different from your local business competition. A company located on the other side of the world could be ranking for the terms you want to rank for.
Only use competitor websites for ideas, don’t copy their content obviously. Create your own unique content in your own voice and style. Look to compete with sites of a similar status you your own.
RSS Feeds
RSS feeds may have gone out of fashion but they can still be useful in tracking multiple websites.
RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’
Register with a popular feed reader such as Feedly, then use the app to build a list of sites that you want to monitor.
Try searching for RSS feeds via google i.e. search for.
[Your Topic] + RSS
OR
inurl:rss [Your Topic]
Note that some sites contain an RSS feed button, click the button to display the RSS page and add the link to your favourite RSS feed app. For example, if you’re on a desktop device, see this icon at the top right of your page.
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