In most cases the general focus of our content will be set by business purpose. Business blogs must focus on topics that support the \u00a0product offering.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
To support the business, with a profitable blog<\/a>, content creators take a static subject area and write about it over and over again in (hopefully!) fresh and engaging ways. It\u2019s a bit like rotating a gemstone and describing how the light bounces off different facets.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n As content areas become saturated, and competition for attention increases, it\u2019s more important than ever to be adept at finding topics closely related to our main subject areas.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In this post, we\u2019ll look at how data can augment our creativity and help us discover endless blog post ideas.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n At times, usually early in the life of a blog, it’s easier to come up with blog post ideas using creativity, intuition, and industry knowledge.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n It\u2019s the honeymoon phase of blogging! We should enjoy it (Also, make a scrapbook – we\u2019ll need some of that inspiration later!)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n But at some point we\u2019ll run out of ideas, or we\u2019ll be asked to justify the ideas we do have.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Customer interactions are a huge help at this point. Ask your customer success team what they think your customers are interested in.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n To make that input practical, try the 10×10 exercise recommended by Stephanie Liu from Lights, Camera Live<\/a>:.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Google Analytics or other tools track site visits, and social signals help gauge audience interest, so we can iterate on our current blog post ideas.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n To track site visits to a particular blog post, you\u2019ll need the Behavior section of Google Analytics.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Apply a filter to limit the results to only your blog pages. This data will show you which of your posts draw the most visitors. And, the Average Session Duration will tell you if they stuck around long enough to really engage with the content.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Social engagements help us to see what audiences are interested in.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n For example, our most shared posts at BuzzSumo this year are lengthy guides or research reports.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Social engagement is a great proxy for audience interest. When we know that content about one facet of our product is grabbing social attention, we can increase our connection with our audiences by leveraging that topic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In addition to looking at analytics and social shares, \u00a0it\u2019s also critical to drill down into industry sources– reading, researching, and documenting trends as we go.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n To truly benefit from this approach, consistency and commitment are required.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Ann Handley, author, speaker, and Chief Content Officer at Marketing Profs, recommends collecting and recording five writing ideas each day.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Here are a couple of sources to get you started:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Finding and qualifying blog post ideas is time-consuming, especially if you write many posts a day or work for multiple clients. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The BuzzSumo Topic Explorer is one way to save time. It suggests related topics, popular content, \u00a0AND a key question for any subject you write about.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The Topic Explorer adds a layer of artificial intelligence to our platform, allowing content creators to expand their reach (and their blog post ideas) to new subject areas.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The Topic Explorer’s question suggestion is curated based on relevance. Each related topic includes additional subtopics to explore.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Once you know your audience\u2019s preferred content formats, it\u2019s easy to combine them with related topics to generate new blog post ideas.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n For example, our audience likes original research and \u201cHow to\u201d posts.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n And, for our main topic area, \u201ccontent marketing,\u201d The Topic Explorer recommends the following related topics.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The table below shows how I might combine the two to come up with blog post ideas.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Another approach would be to look at individual questions in the related topics and work through them, adding How, Why, or List posts formats to create working titles. Infographics are also a great way to answer questions!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n [su_button url=”https:\/\/app.buzzsumo.com\/research\/topics?q=content%20marketing” background=”#416d93″ size=”5″ center=”yes”]Try The Topic Explorer[\/su_button]<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Any source of related topics can be put through this grid to spur creativity!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n If you have ideas from conference agendas, or from Google related searches, or from Pinterest auto-suggest, add them to your grid for even more blog post ideas.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n When faced with a saturated or overly competitive topic area, what do you do?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n More ideas for the same saturated topic won\u2019t necessarily help grab attention if there are already hundreds of thousands of published posts.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n There are two mental models we find helpful to expand topics for saturated content areas.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Hierarchical expansion<\/strong> begins with a broad topic and looks to more and more specific themes. Andy Crestodina described this concept as \u201cniching down.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n For example, if social media markeing is the topic I write about, and it\u2019s saturated with content, I may want to consider narrowing my focus:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Lateral expansion<\/strong> looks at ideas that are related to each other at a similar level of specificity. \u00a0The litmus test for lateral expansion might be this:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n People interested in X are also often interested in Y.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In the example above, Social Media Marketing and Content Marketing would be examples of lateral ideas. It passes the litmus test, \u201cPeople interested in social media marketing are also often interested in content marketing.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Of course, these two models are a little arbitrary! (Taxonomies are tough<\/a> in every field of study.)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Laterally related topics can also be expressed as part of a hierarchy. They would simply be listed with the same level of importance.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n And, specific areas of interest in a hierarchy are only \u201cniche\u201d in the sense that they can be considered a subset of a larger topic area. Niche areas will often have their own experts, big ideas, and areas of ongoing controversy or study.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n However, the concepts of lateral and hierarchical expansion are useful for developing blog post ideas, especially if our main topic area is heavily competitive or already saturated with great content.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The Topic Explorer offers a quick look at lateral and hierarchically related ideas.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n For each laterally related topic, there are more specific, niche keyword suggestions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n And, additional Topic Explorer searches can produce even more related and specific inspiration.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Once you have created a massive file of blog post ideas, how do you decide what to write about?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n At its simplest, qualifying a topic is binanary:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Something is either a good idea or a bad idea.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n But, if you have ever tried to convince your team of either, you know that you\u2019ll need more than a hunch to persuade your boss, client, or colleague.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Qualifying topics is done in two phases – before you publish, and after you publish. In both phases data analysis can help guide the process.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Customer questions, customer surveys, social engagement with existing content, web traffic data, industry trends and thought-leader input all help us to select the best blog topics.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n If you have a file of customer questions or survey responses try running them through a text analyzer<\/a> to see which themes emerge. (Thanks to <\/em>Gini Dietrich<\/em><\/a> who suggested this approach for developing courses.<\/em>) You can do the same thing with conference agendas, etc.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nA Data Driven Approach to Blog Post Ideas<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Data can Augment and Simplify our Blog Post Idea Generation.<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
![\"GA_report_landing_page_BuzzSumo_blog_post_ideas\"](\"https:\/\/buzzsumo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Screen-Shot-2019-02-02-at-9.58.27-AM1.png\")
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<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nUse Related Topics to Find Great Blog Post Ideas in Less Time<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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[su_button url=”http:\/\/help.buzzsumo.com\/content-research\/topic-explorer\/how-to-use-the-topic-explorer” background=”#416d93″ size=”5″ center=”yes”]Find out more about The Topic Explorer[\/su_button]<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n![\"BuzzSumo](\"https:\/\/buzzsumo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Screen-Shot-2019-02-01-at-4.52.54-PM.png\")
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<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBlog post ideas for saturated content areas<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nQualify related topics<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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