We’ve all been there. You know your online presence is well overdue for a new piece of content, but you have absolutely no idea what to talk about.
And as you’re sitting in front of a mockingly blank screen, it gets harder and harder to think of something valuable to say.
Naturally, you know your specialisms like the back of your hand, but what aspect should you write about today? What’s going to bring the best value to you and your audience?
If you’re wondering how us content marketers seem to have a list of content ideas as long as our arm, then stick around. I’m going to share 10 tried and true and totally free ways to uncover content topic ideas that your audience will love.
But first, we need to do a bit of prep work.
Forward Planning
There are a lot of valuable best practices to follow in content marketing. Flying by the seat of your pants isn’t one of them!
To make the best decisions as you traverse your content journey, you need a good compass to orient yourself by.
Ideally, any content marketing you do needs to be propped up by a robust content strategy. By establishing what you want to talk about, with who, when, and why can help reveal a goldmine of content ideas.
Thankfully I have a couple of free resources that can help you. Both my webinar The Juicy Stuff No One Tells You About Content Strategy and ebook 80+ Vital Content Marketing Questions to Ask Yourself as a Tech Provider are well worth checking out.
Or you could get me to help you out. Just sayin’!
Anyway, if you’ve already got a good idea of what you want to achieve in the content stakes, let’s get on with the tips!
10 Ways to Come Up with Unlimited Content Ideas
1. Keyword Research
Keyword research is the practice of seeing what search terms people currently use to access information about your niche; usually for the purpose of search engine optimisation. You likely have a website, so I’ll assume you’re already somewhat familiar with these concepts.
Carrying out keyword research provides an idea of which search terms – and by extension, which topics – are particularly popular in your field. Type some basic yet relevant key terms into keyword research tools such as Moz Keyword Explorer, Ubersuggest, or Google Keyword Planner (which sits within Google Ads) and they’ll provide you with a list of popular related search terms.
However, I do have a bit of a caveat when it comes to leaning too heavily on keyword data here in the 2020s. I recall an internet where website owners could take a bit of a “if you build it, they will come” attitude. However, today’s busy online spaces, driven by algorithms and personalisation, are very different. Check out this video for my full explanation.
Let’s not throw the content baby out with the bathwater though. Keyword research is still a great way to gauge demand, and can be a good starting point for your content ideation processes.
2. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is an awesomely powerful tool that gives you valuable information about how Google’s web crawlers see your website.
Once your website is set up to talk to Search Console and it has started to accrue data head to the “Performance> Search Results” page. Under the graph, the left-most tab, “Queries,” should be selected. This tells you what search queries people have typed into Google that resulted in your site being shown in search results.
“Impressions” indicates the number of times your site appeared as a search result for that search term, and “Clicks” shows how many times that search term drove a click through to your site.
These are keywords that people are already using to find you, so there may be some great content ideas hidden in there.
3. YouTube’s “Most Popular” Sort Function
As the world’s most popular search engine, Google is usually the first destination for people looking for information online. However, YouTube is largely touted as the second most popular search engine (third if you count Google Images separately, which I don’t.).
If you’re in a niche that has a strong YouTube presence, there may be a few channels already on your radar. You may have a few direct competitors who are “doing numbers” there. Either way, these are channels that we can learn from if we keep an eye on them – compile them into a list.
Head to each such relevant channel on your list. Click the “Videos” tab and the “Popular” button below that. This will sort their videos by popularity, showing the most viewed first. Shown right, in lime green (like Seth Godin’s glasses).
Armed with this information, what talking points or groups of topics seem to be performing well for others in your industry on YouTube? Could you add something new and unique to the debate in your own content?
4. What Questions Do Your Sales Team Get Asked Frequently?
If you’re fortunate enough to have a sales team – or at least someone who fields a lot of pre-sale queries on your behalf – it can be really valuable to ask them what questions they get asked regularly by prospects.
These questions can be an absolute goldmine for content creation ideas. They are a clear indication of answers your audience needs to hear which aren’t being answered elsewhere. So, answer them! Creating content that directly answers common sales questions can be useful for your sales team too as they can refer to the content and share that resource with prospective clients.
And if your salespeople can’t think of any FAQ’s off the top of their head, ask them to keep their ear to the ground during their future sales conversations – a few trending questions might start to appear!
5. What Questions Do People Ask You About Your Work or Business?
This one might be even easier. As you make your way through this world, you will occasionally have conversations about work. Whether it’s at a networking event; with potential clients; over social media; down the pub; or even visits with friends and family, make a note of the questions you get asked about your company and your industry.
After all, I always say that the best questions can come from people outside of your niche! Keep a record of all interesting or regularly asked questions so you can potentially extrapolate them into content ideas.
6. Google’s “People Also Ask…” Function
All you need for this next tip is ye olde humble Google search. Simply think of a handful of related questions to your field – you may have already identified a few from the previous ideas on this list.
Simply plug those into Google. The “people also ask…” function displays commonly asked questions and shows relevant answers from across the internet. It generally appears fairly high up on the search results page. This example was served to me by simply typing in “bitlocker help”:
And as you likely already know, as you click on the down arrow next to each question to view the answer, more questions appear underneath. This is a great little feature that points you towards relevant topics and content that are already making waves.
You can also use these questions as a jumping off point to ask “if my audience is already asking this, what else might they want to know?”
7. Keep Up with Trending News in Your Field
As professionals, we generally keep an ear to the ground for industry-relevant new developments and talking points. You likely have your own social media, YouTube, and industry-specific sources that you use to do this.
If you need a little further inspiration, news aggregators like Feedly and Flipboard are great places to uncover new stories and developments, regardless of your specialisms or interests. If you want to save articles to read later, Pocket is designed to do just that. It also has a “Discover” tab that suggests articles it thinks you’ll like.
Whichever social media platforms are your favourite, there is usually some way to explore trending topics or hashtags. This can be an excellent way to uncover stories as they are happening, so you can weigh in and share your expertise about a time-sensitive topic.
8. Quora (Not Necessarily For the Reasons You Think)
Quora is a website where you can ask questions and seek answers from your fellow netizens. However, of late, it has become a bit of a controversial place.
Many users feel that its quality has declined in recent years, and don’t feel satisfied by the answers they receive. Users report that biased, not entirely correct, yet popular answers often rise to the top. There’s also the introduction of AI-generated answer summaries – a concept which in itself, can be divisive.
But Quora is a big place. Yes, certain questions seem to attract negativity and bias, but there are interesting, positive conversations taking place there too.
But where does this leave us in terms of our content idea mission? Well, both the valuable and less valuable conversations can give us inspiration for content. Head there and browse the site with an open mind.
If you do see any erroneous information about your field being frequently repeated, you might want to explore how common that misconception really is elsewhere online. If it is something that people do believe more broadly, you might feel inspired to do a spot of myth-busting via content, or simply use your content to add some much needed nuance to the conversation.
[Side note: I’d advise against content that could start a direct flame war with anyone or anything. Any piece of content that starts with “Contrary to what John Robertson on Quora says…” is bound to put you in a bad light!]
When you do uncover one of the many enlightening conversations happening there, this can also be a source of content ideas. If you do see a good argument being raised, an interesting debate happening, or a fresh new take, feel free to explore those ideas through your own content – without copying, of course.
9. Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a remarkably simple tool and a great way to keep on top of hot industry topics and discussions.
Once logged in with a Google account, you can set search terms that you want to be updated about. I used “b2b it marketing” in the example below. Once you’ve set your “alerts” and selected options that work for you, the service sends you new, relevant, recently crawled search results as a frequent email digest.
For example, my Google Alerts are set up to send me a daily update full of brand new search results that relate to B2B marketing, copywriting, content writing, and emerging marketing trends.
And because it runs from Google’s search crawling algorithm, you can use search operators too. Ahrefs have a great video guide on making the most out of operators in Google Alerts.
10. What Are Your Competitors Talking About?
This is a valuable one, and it’s pretty much what it says on the tin. Make a point of regularly checking out your competitors’ websites and social media presence. What kind of blogs, videos, podcasts, or whatever do they publish? What content do they report from others on social media? Don’t forget to check video platforms like YouTube or podcast apps in case they’re hiding there too!
The objective is never to blatantly copy another company’s approach. We’re looking for inspiration and opportunities to add our own two cents into a popular conversation, certainly not copying and pasting someone else’s approach verbatim.
Hopefully with these ten top tips you’ll now have a loo-roll length list of engaging and in-demand content ideas. Happy creating!
Need help creating content, formulating a content strategy, or just need some added content marketing expertise to boost your promotional presence?
Or maybe you need a fresh pair of eyes to look over your business’s online efforts and make sense of all of this content marketing malarkey?
If this sounds familiar, I’m here to help. Just drop me a line and we’ll talk.
