Managing a blog’s content is usually a twofold task that involves a lot of writing, but also, a lot of time coming up with what to write. This Managing a blog’s content and a constant learning experience but what do you do when you start running out of ideas? It happens to the best of us — especially when writing about niche topics like healthcare — after a while, we can start to feel as if we’ve covered everything there is to say!
Searching and brainstorming is often a time consuming activity that may or may not yield good results. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Next time you come up short on ideas, here are 10 of our best brainstorming techniques for coming up with blog topic ideas.
1. Create 101 Blogs
You can think of these as “about” blogs since their purpose is to break down a specific topic to make it more understandable. For example, you can write an SEO 101 blog that explains what SEO is, why it’s important, when and how to use it, etc. Don’t worry that you’ve already written about the given topics before if you’ve never deconstructed it in this way, do so!
2. Debunk Myths
There’s a lot of information out there, but there’s also a lot of misinformation. Take a look at some myths concerning your area of interest and write about why they are wrong or misleading! Debunking myths shows you know your business well, and it will set you up as a credible source of information.
3. Follow News & Trends
When searching for new content ideas, make sure to look at the most current news and trending topics on social media. You may find something that you can tie back into your area of interest. You can also Google search keywords or topics and see what shows up under News. There may have been some new development that you can grab blog topic ideas from.
4. Check Out The Competition And Write A Look-A-Like Blog
You probably already know who your competitors are, or at least, what other businesses focus on providing the same services as yours. If so, look at some of the popular topics they’ve covered and think about whether it would be valuable for your readers if you covered them to. Don’t copy, create. Take an idea they’ve touched on and expand upon it, providing even more value with your article than they did with theirs. In the end, what you write in your words is your own.
5. Create A Web
The “web” is a brainstorming technique that prompts you to start off with broad ideas and whittle them down into more specific ones while interconnecting them. Say you want to write about social media marketing; you would place it in the center and draw a circle around it, then create 3-5 topics around it (say, SEO, voice and tone, video and photos, and organic reach) and connect to them. As you get deeper into your web, you’ll fall upon a new blog topic idea.
6. Check Relevant Online Communities
Social media sites such as Twitter are constantly utilized to share the most up-to-date content. Find out the hottest issues by searching for trending topics in your area of interest using hashtags. You could also check relevant Facebook pages, subReddits, and FAQs on Quora. You’ll probably discover conversations you hadn’t even thought of!
7. Recycle/Repurpose Topics
Maybe you wrote something in the past that you feel can be updated, followed-up on, or expounded. Look through these old blog posts and see if there are any new blog topic ideas you can pull from them. Also, you can check your analytics to see what blog posts have the fewest page views. Feel free to rewrite these old blogs into shiny new ones with better keywords or images.
8. Schedule Seasonal Posts
Is there a big holiday coming up that you can tie a blog topic idea to? Even if there’s not, you can probably find a calendar of industry-specific events (i.e. health awareness days/weeks/months) that you can write about in relation to your business. Plan this out ahead of time so that you don’t miss them!
9. Don’t Be Afraid To Bring Other People Into The Process
If you work at a marketing office, it’s likely that you interact with a lot of other people who could give you tons of ideas to write about if you asked them. Take advantage of the creative brains around you and don’t be afraid to ask others to help you come up with new topics! Chances are they’ll have some great insights that you might be missing. In our agency, we try to hold a creative brainstorming session weekly, which is a great forum for people to share blog ideas for each client. Even if you don’t leave with any specific topics to write about, you’ll probably have a lot of blog topic ideas to develop.
Managing a healthcare blog is a challenging task that takes a lot creativity and sharpness. It’s only natural to get writer’s block every once in a while, the most important thing is that you have the tools to get through it. We hope these brainstorming techniques have helped you out, we know they certainly work for us!