Blogging for Success: Finding Topics

2011-10-02

Many businesspeople resist starting a blog in the first place because they have no idea what they can write about every week for the rest of their life. While the idea of blogging into eternity may seem a little daunting, it shouldn't be. Assuming your business is in a niche you enjoy, you should never face a dearth of topics to write about. Have you ever met a football lover who ran out of things to say about their favorite team? Or a golfer who didn't enjoy rehashing each hole of the last 18 holes they played? What about a shoe-lover who can wax poetic over the finer points of stilettos vs. platforms? Or an opera lover who'd love nothing better than to hear about your trip to watch Les Mis in Paris? The point is, if you are excited about a topic – and you are open to discussion and dialogue – the possibilities for interesting posts are endless. All the same, there will be times when your writing well runs dry. That's why I recommend you create a list of ideas so you always have prompts to give you a good start. Here are just a handful of places to find ideas:

1. On other blogs. Follow the leaders in your industry to see what they're talking about. You can provide your own perspective on the latest topics, or you can predict what's happening next. For instance, if everyone's talking about the challenges of outsourcing overseas, you could create a post about the legal considerations of outsourcing to freelancers abroad, or a post about cheap places to outsource domestically.
2. On forums. Reading industry forums can give you the fly-on-the-wall view of what people are struggling with, wondering about, and doing in your industry. Even if you don't actively participate, you can “eavesdrop” on what people are discussing and create blog posts that answer questions or add new insights.
3. In the news. Some of the best blog posts are those where you take a current event and talk about how it impacts your particular niche. For instance, if it's time for the Olympics and you have a photography blog, you could talk about the best lenses and techniques for capturing action shots. A marketing blog could talk about the ways the Olympic committee is marketing the Games, and a fashion blog could talk about how the Olympic games impact fashion.
4. From the past. A great place to find post ideas is to go back in time. For instance, a recipe site could include blog posts on old-time cooking, or on what a typical diet might have looked like in different points in time, or on recipes we're still using today that haven't changed much in the past hundred years.

The overall theme is to take the lens of your niche and use it to look at the world around you. Your job as a blogger is to interpret the world for the rest of the market, letting them know what's important, interesting, and noteworthy. If you look at every newspaper article, every book you read, even every TV show you watch and ask yourself, “How does this impact my market?” you'll have a good start.

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