How often do you experience writer’s block? You know, when you have no new ideas for your blog, and you still need to come up with something. The words are somewhere in your head, but you can’t put them on paper. Or you lose faith in the power of your topic and feel tempted to try to come up with something better — but something better never comes.
Simply put, writer’s block is terrible for content marketing.
Keeping a consistent flow of blog post topics is a challenge for all content marketers. Even the best and most tenured professionals often struggle to come up with original ideas and keep their business blogs up-to-date.
But thanks to some helpful resources, you can find new topics to write about to help avoid annoying repetition.
Technology has not only improved the way we write but has also brought new means to the table to counter creativity blocks. Here are some cost-effective tools you can use to help generate a stream of topic ideas to save your bad days and make you more productive:
- BuzzSumo
- HubSpot Blog Topic Generator
- Quora (and Reddit)
- Your editorial calendar
- Google Trends
Let’s explore how to use each of these tools to find new ideas for your blog and turn them into high-quality blog posts and articles.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is an excellent tool to track hot content online. It allows you to identify industry trends by showing you the most successful content ideas already working. All you have to do is type in some keywords, and you get a list of articles that perform well and get shares on social media.
Trends and Hot Topics at Your Fingertips
How can this help you find new ideas for your blog? When you know what content people consume online, you create and publish pieces that add value to your audience. Plus, you get to drive organic traffic to your blog, increasing awareness and opportunities for lead generation.
BuzzSumo doesn’t just show you which content generates the most engagement. It provides in-depth insights into the type of content to use (video, infographics, articles) and the most attention-grabbing headlines.
…And Insights on Influencers
If you need to identify influencers or segment your audience, BuzzSumo also has a tool that allows you to search influencers by topic and geographical area. Plus, it even ranks them based on their number of followers and engagement rates.
To step ahead of the competition even further, you can use BuzzSumo to monitor your direct competitors’ topics. This way, you get an idea of their respective performances and even their social media.
HubSpot Blog Topic Generator
When you have no idea what to write about but know you want to differentiate from what’s already online, you can use the HubSpot blog topic generator. It’s a clear-cut tool that allows you to refresh your blog with new angles for your topics as well as catchy headlines.
Better yet, it’s easy to use. You insert up to three keywords relevant to your industry and start selecting the blog ideas that fit your style. The free tool offers you 250 blog post ideas from scratch — enough to have you covered for more than a year!
Optimization for Search and Social
The folks at HubSpot know pretty much everything about digital marketing and SEO. So, you not only benefit from their ideation tools but their search and social optimization tools as well. The topic generator provides strong headline suggestions based on convincing language, keyword placement, and length tailored to each posting platform. You’ll no longer have to worry about crafting the perfect title—regardless of the channel!
And since HubSpot takes care of the brainstorming, you’ll have more time to research and write unique pieces. You’ll keep your audience engaged and craving more.
Quora and Reddit
Getting new ideas for your blog isn’t always about brainstorming or magic tools that generate headlines. Sometimes, the simplest method is the best way to capture the public’s eye.
Platforms like Quora and Reddit can become a valuable resource if you know what to look for to get inspired. Start by finding the influencers in your industry and following their activity on these websites. See what they write about, how they aim their approach, and how they are responded to. Then use that insight to enhance your blog.
A New Approach for Old Topics
You can reinvent just about any topic by writing from a new angle. Alternatively, you can share an opposing opinion when you don’t agree with the answers listed on Quora or Reddit.
Furthermore, you can use these platforms to find popular questions in your industry. This way, you can identify pain points or content gaps and use them to provide fresh and up-to-date information from your perspective as an insider.
Use authoritative sources like studies, market analyses, case studies, or company data to back up the information you share with your audience. Interview subject-matter experts in your niche to glean unique details that will enrich your blogs. Interviews with experts also give you new points of view that can help your content stand out from the multitude of articles on the same topic.
Your Editorial Calendar
Besides helping you to stay organized, an editorial calendar can become an excellent tool to generate new ideas for future blogs. That’s because it gives you a clear short-term and long-term picture of what you aim to deliver — and where information gaps exist.
An editorial calendar shows how your content fits into your business goals and overall marketing strategy. It also helps you stay prepared to cover important moments and events in the industry with valuable content.
When you have a content plan, you have more time to dedicate to creative tasks than if you were working without a clear purpose. This way, you can keep doing your work regularly with no interruptions caused by the so-called writer’s block. In the long run, the more you write, the easier it becomes to create high-quality content.
The Benefits of Repurposing Old Content
Take time to build an editorial calendar and keep it up to date. Get used to adding new entries every day, and you’ll see how coming up with ideas becomes part of your routine. Furthermore, when you have everything written down and right in front of you, you can easily make adjustments. It enables you to alternate the types of content and different headline styles.
Another advantage of using an editorial calendar is that it helps to identify and define which old content can be reused — and how. You can repurpose the ultimate guide you wrote last year as a series of short blog posts. Or you can recycle it into a video or a slideshow to reach a new audience.
If you want to increase conversions, you can also turn your old content into webinars, white papers, or ebooks. These types of content are more likely to make people share information.
Google Trends
We can’t talk about blog post ideation tools without mentioning Google Trends. It shows you the most popular search queries by language and geographical area, as well as what people are most interested in. Use this information to make your blog relevant to a broad audience!
The tool allows you to compare keywords and phrases to see which one performs better in terms of search volume. This way, you make sure that every new topic you come up with has the potential to capture the public’s attention.
Working with Google Trends can become a real brainstorming session. You research keywords that are related to your business and see how new ideas pop up from the suggested keywords and the similar queries listed.
Get new ideas for your blog from multiple sources!
A successful business blog relies just as much on consistency as it does on creativity — if not more so! That’s why a well-planned content strategy is the first step towards better, more valuable content. And for the times when writer’s block strikes, working with blog topic or headline generators can help you overcome those moments when the brilliant ideas aren’t flowing as freely.
As you move forward with your content strategy, working with these five tools will allow you to maintain a consistent workflow regardless of your mood or level of creativity.
Teodora Pirciu
Teodora is a former journalist who traded adventure for the comfort of freelance writing. She writes articles, blogs, ebooks, and other copy for fellow freelancers, entrepreneurs, and B2B companies. From 2018, she collaborates with Impressa Solutions, a team of word wizards, strategy sorcerers, and the bee’s knees of B2B. A traveler at heart, Teodora moved to Italy, where she lives the freelancing dream while enjoying good food and excellent wine. She’s passionate about content marketing and language learning.
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