One of the reasons why the Legiit blog continues to receive an increasing number of visitors, aka traffic, is because of our blog.
Many people have asked, “do we ever run out of content ideas?” also “how do we write content that people want to read?”
If your business’ blog is struggling to find content ideas, this guide has you covered. We go over some of our go-to hacks for finding the best content ideas. Once we have those content ideas, we rely on some of the best writers on Legiit to turn them into optimized, well-written, and highly readable blog posts. Let’s get started!
1. Use the “Best By Links” Report
Many business owners and those running blogs want to get backlinks. So, the question is: what type of content will get backlinks? Can you say for sure if your content will get backlinks?
Is it something people will want to link to?
The best way to figure out what content to generate for backlinks is to use Moz Pro and Ahrefs, but there might be other tools that we are unaware of that can do this. The tools will mainly show you pages on a website with the most backlinks. Moz’s best by link report is a feature we’ve used quite a bit to find new ideas.
Once you find posts on your competitors’ websites that have received the most links, you can do a similar article but only better. Applying the Skyscraper Technique is your best bet here. However, you can also use Surfer SEO for creating content that's keyword-optimized.
2. Reddit’s Untapped Keyword Research Tool
We admit that our team does not use Reddit’s keyword research tool as much as they probably should.
The fact is that most people aren’t using it, and that can be used to your advantage to find at least one good content idea.
Reddit Keyword Research Tool works a little differently than what is used by other social media websites. Instead of taking a specific keyword and showing you suggestions, it shows you hot topics. You will need to add a subreddit to the tool to get a long list of keywords about what people are talking about for that specific subreddit. All of these can be turned into creative content ideas if possible.
Some can be turned into great headlines by adding a few words. The cool thing about this tool is that it even pulls up monthly search volumes directly from Google’s Keyword Planner tool.
3. Using Google Image Tags For Blog Post Ideas
We’ll tell you this isn’t something we came up with right off the bat. It isn’t our idea, but we can’t remember how we learned it.
Nevertheless, the strategy works by typing in a broad topic idea into Google Image Search. Go through all the images that Google suggests, but more precisely, look at their tags. The tags will have terms that Google values in the context of what you typed into the search box. So, just combine the tags with the initial keyword you entered to find a blog topic.
Take, for instance, “plumber Newcastle.” Some of the Google Image tags we ran into were “hot plumber,” “expert plumber,” “gas geyser plumbing,” etc. We then combine the keywords and tags instance “gas geyser plumbing Newcastle” and write about it.
Alternatively, you could also google “gas geyser plumbing Newcastle” to see what type of content ranks and if you can write a better piece than what’s already ranking. You can also check out Google search suggestions for more ideas.
4. Use Exploding Topics
One of the ways to draft blog posts that pull in lots of fresh traffic or at least has the potential to do so is to find emerging topics of interest.
The best thing about targeting new topics is they aren’t competitive just yet. If you are one of the first to create the post, this huge momentum is in your favor.
Blog posts are posted early on with less competition, rank faster, and their rankings stick. Once interest grows, so does the traffic to the blog post. Furthermore, it makes it easier to establish yourself as an authority, thanks to possibly dozens of links back to your post. How do you find topics that are about to explode? Use the Exploding Topics Tool. Don’t worry; the tool is free.
However, it scans the internet for topics that are growing in popularity. You can also search for topics in your niche or sort them by broad categories. Once you find the topic, do the keyword research for it, and hire a writer to draft an optimized article quickly. Page 1 rankings are almost guaranteed.
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5. Leverage Facebook’s Ad Library
Many people may not know this, but Facebook’s ad library is one of the best sources of content ideas in our experience.
Start by searching for a Facebook page within your niche.
For instance, if you are a plumber, then search for “plumbing services” or “plumbers.” Facebook, will then pull up a bunch of ads that are running for the keyword. Most of the ads you see are run-of-the-mill stuff that sends people to the business’s landing pages. These aren’t the ads we are interested in.
We are looking for ways to generate content ideas. We want to find boosted posts. In other words, people are paying to boost or promote these specific pieces of content published on their websites. Consider the fact that if people are paying to promote this content, it is doing well. The other advantage of this approach is that you also see what exact phrases they are using to promote these posts.
Something that should help with your own content promotion campaign.
6. Read Blog Comments
We often tell people to “read the comments.” The reason is that it can be a goldmine for blog post topics. Even a YouTube video by an influencer in your niche, with hundreds of comments, will often have ones where people are requesting a particular guide or video.
Use that to your advantage. As an SEO professional, Chris M. Walker gets asked a lot about local SEO.
Not only does that mean a guide on local SEO will do well, but a course that offers to teach it will sell well too. In other words same topic different approach. As a blogger or content creator, you want to cater to an audience that values your opinion or expertise.
Comments offer an insight into what your target audience is thinking and what they want. If they are asking you to write something…there you have your idea! Research and write it. However, this strategy will only work if your blog has a bit of momentum behind it.
The same goes if you’re running a YouTube channel. At Legiit, we run into a bucket load of content ideas by just reading the comments and turning those suggestions into new blog posts.
7. Product Hunt
Heard about Product Hunt?
Now for those who haven’t, here is the skinny: It is a website that shows some of the best selling products, aka winning products of the month, day, or week awards. I wouldn’t recommend that you create content about these specific products, which you can, but address problems that people may have.
For instance, if you see that team collaboration tools are popular on the Product Hunt, you can create a post about the top 5 best ones. Talk about them in detail or compare and contrast two of the best. You can also check out Product Hunt’s “Ask” section, where people ask questions.
You can use these questions to find ideas for blog posts. We haven’t been able to find any good ideas on the “Ask” section yet, but that’s maybe just our niche.
8. Check Google Analytics Report
You probably have a few blog posts that have done better than all the others. Again, we want to be clear here: This will only work if your website or blog has some incoming traffic. Even if your blog generates some traffic, Google Analytics can give you a few ideas.
You will want to check out Google Analytics’ Landing Pages report. You will see a list of all the pages that drive the most traffic.
The report will tell you what is working out in terms of: • SEO • Topic • Promotional strategy • Writing style • Charts, videos, etc. This will tell you what to replicate with future blog posts so that they do as well.
We use this strategy a lot for many of our blogs for two reasons:
1. It is easy; Google analytics reports for landing pages are easy to pull up and read.
2. It is entirely free; we don’t need to pay for anything.
The result is we get proven content ideas, which helps replicate our success. If your blog or website does not get any traffic, you might want to start posting and doing so more frequently so that you know what sticks. Use some of the strategies we mentioned earlier to come up with content ideas.
9. Use Ahrefs’ Content Explorer
Now, if you don’t have or want to use Ahrefs, you can use BuzzSumo.
Both tools do pretty much the same thing. We like Ahrefs for a few different reasons.
You can drill down deep into where the keyword is located on the page.
You can also see where the most valuable traffic is coming from; for instance, is it from CPC keywords or organic rankings.
You can also highlight which sites are publishing content within your niche, but they haven’t linked to your website yet. You can filter by “only broken,” which shows popular content a few months or weeks back, but it now returns a 404 page. This approach works great for getting backlinks by publishing content that can get more traffic.
10. Check Your Competition’s YouTube Channels
We admit that there are some niches where the competition may not have a YouTube Channel or YouTube videos, but that’s an incentive for you to create one.
The technique is quick and easy because it requires you to head on over to their channel. Sort all their videos by popularity. You should be presented with videos that have all-time best views. You might want to head over to a few of the top channels to find out what videos are doing best for them.
Once you figure out what videos are doing well, you can then sort them in terms of topics and work those into a blog post. However, we ask that you check if these topics haven’t already been covered in dozens of other blog posts by your competition. As mentioned earlier, you want to talk about something that hasn’t already been addressed. At the very least, you should offer a unique perspective or take on the subject.
Final Word
You don’t want to spend all your time finding great blog post ideas.
That’s why it is a good idea to build a content calendar. Use all the tips above to build a content calendar, scheduled by articles or posts per week.
Once you have every week planned for the entire month, you can do the next month and so on.
This approach will make it easier to populate your website with content and find a writer that can handle it regularly. It also saves you from having to continue researching. Our suggestion is to plan at least your calendar for the next four months or 16 weeks.
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