WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) among bloggers. It is well-known as it allows you to start your blog without the complicated coding work. With that out of the way, bloggers can focus on making content and growing their blogs. However, finding a good topic can challenge both seasoned and novice bloggers. You can write about anything from a personal diary style blog to discussing the best website development proposal tips.
A successful blog captures leads, increases traffic, and fosters a loyal readership. It involves getting good search engine rankings and staying updated about trending topics. To achieve this and ensure your blog’s survival, consistently pumping out exciting content is necessary.
According to the Hosting Tribunal, 600 million out of 1.9 billion websites globally are blogs. This competition pool makes it more difficult for your blog to stay relevant. If you struggle to find the right topics for your WordPress blog, we have outlined eight helpful tips.
- Google trends and search console
Google Trends is an excellent tool for viewing search interest for keywords and topics over time. If you are unfamiliar with Google Trends, it is a tool that provides search demand data directly from Google. You can view this data by keyword, location, topic, and country. You can then decide whether interest in the topic you want to write about increases, decreases, or remains stable over time.
Source: Google Trends
Google Trends uses direct data from their search engine and presents them with graphs to compare the search volume of each query over time. In addition, it allows you to filter data by keyword, location, topic, and country. As a result, you can either check the trends of keywords you are most interested in or find related keywords and queries.
Source: Google Search Console
Another helpful tool for your WordPress blog is Google Search Console. It is a web service by Google that lets developers optimize their websites and monitor their indexing status. By studying your blog site’s performance, you can easily discern which of your previous blogs are getting traction and which aren’t. That will give you an idea of what your website visitors are looking for.
- Search using hashtags
Most online tools for traditional keyword research aren’t going to tell you the trending topics right now but, rather, the trends over an extensive period. If you want to write timely topics on your blog, track hashtags.
The most simple hashtag strategy is monitoring social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn. All you need to do is search for a hashtag for your desired topic and check what people are sharing and posting. From there, you can find a good blog inspiration to write about.
Source: Twitter
Among these social media sites, Twitter is the most active regarding hashtags. You can check trending hashtags by location and follow topics that interest you using their #explore the feature. Like the example above, you can follow a particular topic like ‘gym workouts.’ Twitter will constantly display related posts on your feed.
Source: RiteTag
There are also online tools that can help you track hashtags on Twitter. Tools like RiteTag or Hashtagify allow you to monitor hashtags and set up alerts for related hashtags. RiteTag even lets you check the metrics of specific hashtags. These include how many tweets are posted per hour, which country is tweeting about it the most, and the time of the day the hashtags are most used.
- Competing blogs
Competitive research is vital for any business or creative venture. The blogging or content marketing field is not any different. A good marketer or content marketing course will always tell you about the importance of competitive research. Despite telling you whether your niche is profitable or not, the research will also give you content ideas for your website.
Therefore, you must identify your top competitors. Next, review their blog posts and note the ones with the most social shares or user engagement. That signifies that the topic generates interest among readers of your industry. It’s your cue to prepare a blog post around that topic if you don’t already have it.
You can spy on your competitors by simplifying browsing through their blogs. That can be time-consuming, though. Luckily, some tools can enhance this process. Ahref’s site explorer, for example, can analyze an entire domain showing you the metrics of each page, including the top web pages. SEMrush has a similar tool as well.
Source: Ahref
Use these tools to identify content ideas from your competitors. However, don’t simply imitate your competitor’s content. Instead, absorb as much information from them as you can and make original content that suits your brand.
- Keyword plugins
As a blogger, keywords are an essential element of your content. Incorporating keywords on your blog posts can increase your visibility, but the question is, how can you find the right keywords?
Analyzing keyword data can help you find the most-searched keywords and discover topics to write about on your blog. Keyword information like monthly search volume, traffic, and difficulty are some essential metrics you should keep track of. You can access this information using keyword plugins.
Source: Yoast SEO
WordPress has a vast collection of SEO plugins to integrate into your blog site, the most popular being Yoast SEO. It helps you optimize your website for search engines. There are also other plugins you can use. Just to name a few, you have the All in One SEO for WordPress (AIO SEO) and SEOPress plugins.
Aside from plugins, you can also use SEO tools like SEMRUsh, Ahrefs, KeywordTool.io, and even Google keyword planner. These SEO tools commonly show you all the keyword data you need. Though most of these tools have free keyword research tools, you can also avail yourself of their paid packages for more technical features.
If you’re not sure how to translate a keyword or topic into a blog post, try using AI writing tools that can create an article outline or even an entire blog post. These tools are not perfect, though. So you’ll still want to go in and refine the articles yourself.
- Online forums
Finding topics doesn’t always have to come from studying metrics– they can be found in online conversations, too. Many people turn to online forums for advice and answers. You can transform these queries into informative blog articles for your site. So, the next time other people ask these same questions (and they will), they will most likely go to your WordPress blog for answers.
Source: Reddit
When browsing online forums, look for the most recent threads with the most engagement. If you want to find hot topics for your blog, Reddit is a great discussion website with thousands of users. There, you can find exciting news, Q&As, and comments from users. Discussions on Reddit are often lengthy, which can provide valuable insights for your blog.
Another Q&A website that can be used as a source for blog topics is Quora. Quora allows users to follow specific topics and set up email updates for questions that may be interesting to them.
Take advantage of these sites. They’re valuable resources to have as a blogger or writer.
- Social media platforms
More than 4 billion people all over the world use social media. If you want to stay updated about the latest trends and topics online, social media is one of the best sources of information.
Social media sites are filled with posts about different topics. From there, you can easily see which posts get the most engagement and views. As a blogger, it’s your job to develop topics that get positive attention and initiate conversation.
That said, social media feeds can sometimes be too crowded and confusing since it’s cluttered with various posts and ads. So before starting your social media research, identify the target audience for your blog and visit the social media sites they commonly use.
According to Statista, Facebook remains the most used social media platform globally. You can easily find talked-about topics by joining Facebook groups, following relevant pages or personalities, and analyzing comments and reactions to posts related to your chosen industry or niche.
Youtube comes second to the most used social media platform, with more than 2.5 billion users per month. Even though it’s in a different format, millions of YouTubers frequently release exciting video content. There are more than 51 million Youtube channels out there. Make use of these videos by following famous YouTubers in your niche or industry and monitoring the views and comments of their content.
Now check this out:
Source: YouTube
You can use YouTube’s search function to identify potential topics worth blogging about. It’s actually pretty simple. Simply go to youtube and start typing for the keyword you are interested in. The search function will immediately start suggesting various topics related to that keyword.
Note that these suggestions are usually based on what users normally search for. That means the topics have decent search volume. It’s essentially YouTube’s version of the “People Also Ask” feature found on Google.
Although you may not find topics worth writing an entire blog about, this technique can help you write more valuable and comprehensive content for your readers. You’ll be able to cover topics more exhaustively helping you fulfill the search or user intent.
- Industry news
As a blogger, staying on top of the new trends and issues surrounding your niche or industry is essential. Hence, you should always keep track of industry news from credible and relevant sources like newspapers, magazines, newsletters, and prominent online blogs.
Most, if not all, news sites have newsletter subscription services that consistently release informative content via email. Once you subscribe to a particular site, you will receive their monthly newsletters. Use them to see what the industry is up to and identify potential topics that could drive more traffic to your site.
Besides the newsletters, you can also follow industry leaders on social media. See what they are talking about and find some content ideas from their discussions.
The entire process doesn’t have to be manual, though. Platforms like Scoop.it can also help you identify topics to blog about. By simply entering data like your target keyword, the platform will suggest trending content relevant to your blog and target audience.
- Blog comments
Blog comments often get ignored by bloggers, yet it’s an excellent source of inspiration. Comments help bloggers and readers engage with each other. It is a medium where bloggers can communicate with their audience, foster trust, and gain a loyal readership.
Valuable comments can come from blogs from your site or your competitors. Writing better blogs involves understanding your audience. Monitoring comments lets you understand your audience’s needs, the topics that resonate with them, or those that don’t interest them.
People often turn their opinions and queries on the comment section, showing active interest in the topic at hand. Sometimes, they even raise questions about issues you did not address in the blog post. You can turn that into a powerful topic for your WordPress blog.
Source: Social Media Examiner
Take this exchange from Mark Schaefer’s website. Here, a visitor openly expresses what he hopes to see from Mark’s content and initiates a conversation with him. By engaging with his commenters, Mark Schaefer picks up valuable insights he can incorporate into his future content.
Wrapping Up
The key to a successful blog is consistently publishing relevant content that generates interest and increases traffic to your website. However, finding a good topic is often a tiresome and complicated task, with the abundance of information and competitors online. This list provided some tips on finding topics for your WordPress blog.
Finding topics requires in-depth research on hashtags, social media platforms, and industry news. It is also vital to track what competitors are talking about in their blogs and what people are talking about on blog comments and online forums.
Aside from these sources, you can get help from online tools like Google Trends, Google Search Console, and some keyword research tools and plugins.
The bottom line is that you need to actively scan your industry or niche for the latest trends and news to maintain a blog that brings value to its readers. Do that, and those blog visitors will just keep on coming.
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