33 Sources for Fantastic Blog Content Ideas

If you’ve read our blog long enough, hopefully you’ve already figured out that blogging is important for your small business website.

This article’s for all you faithful bloggers out there. You’re trying your best to write regularly, but sometimes you just can’t come up with topics fast enough. Or maybe you can come up with ideas, but they’re…well, boring!

Not to worry. I’ve got your back. From personal experience as well as the recommendations of some of my colleagues, here are 33 sources for fantastic blog content ideas.

Offline Sources

1. The news. This can be regular old TV news as well as industry-specific websites.

2. Clients. What better source for ideas than the people who give you business? Ask your clients what they’d like to hear about, then write about it.

3. Industry conferences. Attend these regularly and use them as an opportunity to learn, network, and accumulate ideas for future content.

4. Personal experiences. Blog posts written from personal experience are always unique and often more memorable.

5. Your coworkers. Talk to the customer service and sales teams to see if there are any specific topics that your clients need to hear about.

6. Trade journals. Subscribe to a magazine or two to keep you updated on news, innovations, trends, and opinions in your industry.

7. Talk shows. Sounds weird, but I’ve gotten some great ideas when listening to NPR or even watching late night talk shows.

Social Media

1. Facebook & LinkedIn groups. Join a few groups of bloggers that allow you to bounce your ideas off of each other.

2. YouTube. Subscribe to people who talk about your industry, and use their videos to inspire your writing. (But don’t forget that you should never plagiarize!)

3. Reddit. Find a couple Reddit communities, called subreddits, that fit into your interests. Consider checking this list of the top 5000 subreddits for something that strikes your fancy.

4. Twitter. Tip: One great way to use Twitter for blog content ideas is to create a list of influencers in your niche and then scan their tweets when you need inspiration.

5. Slideshare. People make presentations on all sorts of topics; I’d bet you can find tons of things to get your creative juices flowing.

6. Social bookmarking. StumbleUpon, Digg, and other social bookmarking sites are great for driving traffic to your site, but they’re also excellent sources of inspiration for your content as well.

7. Pinterest. Pinterest conveniently sorts pins into categories–use those to inspire your own content creation.

8. Competitors’ blogs and social media posts. Obviously you shouldn’t take content directly from them, but it’s always a good idea to keep tabs on your competitors.

9. Trending topics on Facebook. You know those little bullet points off to the side on your news feed? Keeping up with those trending topics can result in some relevant and possible viral content for you.

10. Forums. Yup people still use them. And they’re a great place to find real ideas and get real feedback for them.

Resources from Google

1. Google Analytics. Take a look at your site’s analytics to find out the types of posts and pages that people are most interested in.

2. Google Trends. Google Trends allows you to see what people are searching in real time. What better way to tap into the topics that will drive traffic to your blog?

3. Google Adwords: Keyword Planner. This is one of the most basic ways to refine your ideas for blog content. Search for keywords and find other similar phrases that may bring in traffic to your site.

4. Google Scholar. You wouldn’t think it, but you can actually find some great ideas by searching for keywords in Google Scholar.

5. Google Alerts. I do this for way too many things. Signing up for Google Alerts is a great way to keep up-to-date on industry news and trends.

Miscellaneous

1. Q&A sites. Using Yahoo Answers, Quora, and other Q&A sites will help you find questions that real people are asking. Why not answer them in a blog post?

2. Webinars. Attending a webinar always leaves me inspired to create content of my own.

3. Internal site search. Check the back end of your site to see what people search for most when they’re on your site. Then create content to cater to that.

4. Repurpose content Repurpose your ebooks, social media posts, and so on as blog posts.

5. Compile data. Data compilation posts can be extremely useful to readers. To find statistics and data to use, check out some of these sites.

6. RSS feeds. These allow you to keep up with what other people are talking about, thus inspiring your own content.

7. Crowdsourcing. Ask your social media followers for ideas. They’re bound to have some suggestions!

8. Email newsletters. Subscribe to a few choice email newsletters in your niche that will provide you with regular content to think about.

9. Controversy. Find a controversial post from someone else and write a response to it.

10. HubSpot’s blog topic generator. A personal favorite of mine. It obviously doesn’t work for everything, but it sure is nifty. Find it here.

11. FAQs. Mine your frequently asked questions for insights into what people want to learn more about.

12. Guest blogging. Running out of content? Have other people write it for you.

Where do you go to find great ideas for your blog? Let us know in the comments below!