Are you trying to make your company blog posts more effective for your audience? On this page, we will discuss how to choose blog topics that can rank and boost traffic to your website.

When choosing a blog topic, you’ll need to research what people want to know, make your content relevant to your audience, know the purpose of your blog, and choose a format.

When everything is said and done, you’ll be able to create a valuable post for visitors, which will benefit your readers, the impression your business makes on visitors, and your site’s SEO, too.

Below, we will discuss each area!

And don’t forget, if you need help creating a business blog, WebFX is here to help! Contact us online or give us a call at 888-601-5359 to learn more about our blogging services.

How to choose a blog topic in 4 steps

Below, we’ve created a four-step process for how to choose a blog topic.

Follow along and be sure to contact us with any questions you may have about choosing a business blog topic that ranks!

Research relevant topics

Choosing topics that you think your customers or clients would be interested in is not a bad idea. In fact, we encourage bloggers to listen to what questions your customers ask since they’re typically fantastic blog topics.

However, you should still research the topics you have in mind based on inspiration from your target readers, since it will help your blog perform well and ensure your topic is relevant.

Specifically, keyword research can help you determine if people search for your topic idea online, and you can also use it to discover new ones! Many times, people will search for questions or long-tail keyword phrases that describe what answers they want or need.

One keyword research tool that can be very helpful with this is Google’s Keyword Planner. This tool will let you choose multiple geographic locations or all locations, which is a great feature, depending on where the audience is that you want to attract.

We also recommend our proprietary keyword research tool, KeywordsFX.

What’s your competition’s content look like?

In addition to keyword research, it’s always beneficial to do research on how your competition performs.

This is a great way to find out what content is popular among your target audience. For example, if you find competitor content that ranks highly, you can write on the same topic and add your own unique spin.

For example, maybe competition for a given web design business discusses the best content management systems. Seeing this, the given web design business could write an article on content management systems that were great for e-commerce. This is a little more specific and has a different spin that visitors may think is relevant to them!

Aside from taking note of competitors that pop up in search engine results or scrolling through your competitor’s blog sites, there are some tools to help with competitor research.

Tools to use to check out your competition’s content include:

• Ahrefs
• MozBar
• Ontolo
• Buzzsumo
• MarketingCloudFX
  

Provide value to your visitors

So, you’ve found keyword phrases that surround a great idea for your business to write about, and you’ve got some ideas from competitors that you know will perform well.

That’s great! Take note of these ideas and start working on one.

However, before you start writing, think about the value you’ll provide to your reader with each topic. If you put some good thought into what you’d like to say about that keyword from your expertise and perspective your blog article will be far more valuable than just simply answering the question. In other words, don’t just answer the question! Provide readers with more than they ask for.

Here are some value and purpose ideas on how to answer your audience’s questions:

• Entertain them with a story
• Provide them with insights, data, and your expert perspective
• Make sure your answer is relevant to readers by providing examples
• Answer questions that haven’t been answered before
• Choose a hot topic

Choose a format for your post

We talked about how to research and how to provide value.

Here are some ideas on how to structure your blog. After all, providing readers with the same blog format will get redundant and boring. Here are some formats you can use for your post:

• Step-by-step how-to’s: Users love the step-by-step format because it’s easy to follow and helps them accomplish something. Adding pictures of each step is a bonus!
• Quick tips: Quick tips are another great format since you can use bullet points to arrange them. This makes for an easy-to-skim piece of content, which saves readers time and encourages them to stick around on the page.
• Opinion or perspective: From your perspective, what does your business have to say about a hot topic, new product, or age-old myth?
• Experience: From your experience, which makes your company the experts, what have you learned that you can share with your audience that will help them?
• Informational: Provide an informational blog post that educates. Your visitors will always find value in this, and you can target a variety of keywords that have the potential to rank in search results.
• Company news: Update your readers about exciting company news. It can be used to enhance your blog and let them know what is happening with your business! These formats may not always target a specific keyword, but they could!
• Reviews: Review a new product in your industry. Say why or why not you’d recommend it. Maybe it’s a new program and your business is an IT service provider!
• Blog series: A blog series is when you come up with a topic that will take more than one blog post to cover. You can pitch your blog series in email newsletters or on social media. They’re beneficial because they keep readers coming back for more. Not to mention, each blog post in the series can target a different set of keywords to help you rank!

For more information on how to format and design your blog post, you can check out some quick design tips in this article which focus on how to make it visually appealing as well!

Do you need help choosing blog topics that will rank?

If you’re still unsure about choosing blog topics, let the experts at WebFX help! We’re a full-service digital marketing company that is equipped with over 300 in-house marketing specialists. We know how to write content that ranks for every business, in a variety of industries.

We’ll get to know your business, your competitors, and top keywords to ensure that your blog topics deliver traffic and conversions to your website.

To learn more, contact us online or give us a call at 888-601-5359!