One of the hardest things about writing a blog is that over time, it can be difficult to keep coming up with ideas for things to write about. It’s even harder to keep coming up with content that will attract new and returning readers. If those ideas are eluding you, here are some audience attracting blog post suggestions that you might find useful.
- Ask your followers
If you want to ensure your content scores a hit with your followers, one of the best things you can do is to reach out to them about the things they want you to write about. You can do this by asking questions at the end of your posts and telling the audience to put their ideas in the comments. Alternatively, you can ask your followers to leave suggestions on social media.
- Write a sequel to popular posts
If you look at your visitor stats, you’ll soon be able to see which of your previous posts have been the most successful. As these posts obviously have content that people are interested in, it makes sense to write about this subject matter again. Rather than just rehashing what you have said in the past, write a sequel to it. You could, for example, explain what has happened since you wrote that post or how your opinions have changed since then. If you wrote about great ideas for a toddler party three years ago, you could now write about ideas for a 5 year old.To help get more people reading the posts, remember to link to the other at the end of each one.
- Summary teaser posts
If you’re struggling for an idea, why not simply write a post that consists of short summaries of others – a sort of round-up post? This could be a round-up of posts on a specific topic, your most recent posts or even your best posts of the last year. Which ones you include is up to you, but the important part is to tempt people to read them.The great thing about this type of post is that people find them interesting to read and they can include links to the posts you’ve mentioned. Aside from helping people read the posts, internal links like this are also good for your SEO.
- Use a different medium
While not strictly an idea for different content, what you can do is create that content in a different medium in order to make it more appealing and accessible to a wider audience. There are various ways you can do this, including image slide shows, presentations, PDFs, videos, podcasts and infographics. Which you choose, depends on how well you think you can create those types of content and how comfortable you are doing them – not everyone can edit videos or likes appearing in them.
- Set yourself a challenge
Everyone sets themselves a new challenge every now and again: it could be anything from decorating the house or learning how to bake, to keeping fit or writing a novel. Setting yourself that challenge publicly on your blog not only creates a situation where your followers will want to know how well you are doing in reaching your goal; it generates an ongoing source of content ideas. You can write about your successes and failures, post images of what you have done and provide useful tips for your audience.
- Play the numbers game
Numbered blog posts (e.g., 10 Ways to Save Money on Your Energy Bills) are extremely popular with internet readers who are looking for ideas, tips and inspiration. What’s more, if you are stuck for something to write about, they are fairly easy to think up – essentially, it is creating a list of things that your readers might find useful and then writing a paragraph or so about each. The options are endless: 7 Books to Read this Summer, 5 Meals You Can Make with Leftovers, 10 Best Plants for Winter Blossoms, 6 Ways to Keep Your Dog Happy, and so forth.
- Invite guest writers
Although it might seem counterintuitive to invite another writer to contribute to your blog (they might steal my readers!), it can pay huge dividends. If you ever come across the Agora Podcast Network, you’ll see that instead of seeing each other as competitors, the podcasters actually promote each other and regularly appear as guest podcasters on each other’s shows. It’s a network where good deeds are reciprocated for the benefit of all. Allowing people to guest post on your blog not only gives you some respite from having to come up with new ideas; it provides your readers with fresh content and can make your blog more appealing. What’s more, if you choose a partner who will do the same for you, you will benefit from your posts being seen by a wider audience and from the backlinks that you invariably get from guest posting.
Conclusion
If you are finding it hard to think of good ideas for your blog content, hopefully, the suggestions here will not just give you ideas about what you can write, but what will attract new and returning visitors at the same time. For fast, secure and affordable blog hosting, check out our cloud-powered cPanel Hosting plans.
