(Note from Tim: I post here every Wednesday and I’ve posted more than a thousand posts since I started this blog on Entrepreneur.com in 2007. Today I’m proud to offer this space to Melinda Emerson, “The Small Biz Lady,” who is the author of this guest post.)
It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced business owner or novice blogger, everyone has a point when they get stuck for ideas when creating that next great post. You may be staring at a blank page thinking “I know I need to write, but I don’t know what to write about.” For those of you looking for ideas here are a list of some of my favorite ideas that will help you determine what to blog about:
Product reviews: Depending on your industry your blog readers could be hungry for a leader that shares the details on “what hot, right now” better known as a review. Take for example, if you blog about technology you could review the latest devices and if you blog about music you could review newly released albums.
Interviews: Many bloggers have gained publicity by being associated with other notable people. Interviews can help you achieve that. Reach out to authors or other leaders in your field is a great way to build relationships too. Conduct a 30 minute interview and write a blog post about it.
Start a video blog: Everything doesn’t always need to be in writing. If you’re better with video you can record the call using Skype with Call burner or Google Hangout and make it a video blog.
Conference Wrap Up: If you regularly attend conferences in your industry why not do a wrap-up of the sessions or of the overall conference? Give your readers an exclusive peak inside of an event they were not able to attend.
How-to Advice: Often people are searching online for information on “How-to do something.” If you blog about how-to content in a step-by-step format you could become the go-to authority and resource for readers in your industry.
Q&A’s: Questions and Answers and great sources of blog posts. If you clients often ask you questions, turn that into blog content. I love to create Ask SmallBizLady posts from frequently asked questions. You’ll find that more than one person needs that information.
Round Ups: A round up post is when a blogger reaches put to experts in their field, asks one question to each and then compiles all of the answers into an expert post. This is a great way to get comments, likes and social shares and increase your audience fast.
List Post: Magazines are famous for developing list “30 businesses to watch”, “15 best beach bodies” it doesn’t matter what field you’re in, a list is a painless way to deliver high value
Book reviews: People who enjoy reading as a hobby don’t have time to stay up on new authors, book signings and releases. If you find that you are often reading you can share your perspective
Case Studies: If you write a case study typically it’s to share a discovery or teach people how to do something using a real life example. Cases will clearly explain the challenge that the profiled person or business was facing and then take the reader on the journey of how they found solutions and what they learned along the way.
Twitter Post: If you’re a social media ninja like me then putting together a round of your favorite tweets for the week will come natural. If you’re really advanced on twitter you can take a tweet chat and turn it into a blog like I did in this post on How to Find the Mentor You Need.
Debate: People enjoy reading a discussion between two credible sources that have valid points to argue. You can create a debate post by delivering questions to two sources and letting them give feedback to the others responses. This type of post done well will get your readers
Cheat Sheets: Remember back in school when you could read a book using cliff notes? This is still a valuable tool today. People are seeking shortcuts on how to get things done. Take for example Pat Flynn, used his Green Exam Academy blog to post all his notes while preparing for the LEED exam. After delivering value to the readers building the – know, like and trust factor, he was able to monetize the website.
Income Reports: A recent trend primarily amongst bloggers that talk about making money online, are income reports. In these posts the writer shares the amount of money they are bringing in, the sources of the funds and their monthly expenditures. On his website Leaving Work Behind, Tom Ewer shares his financial journey to leaving his 9 to 5 job.
Weekly Challenges: If you want to gain engagement from your reader’s weekly challenges are a way to get them to take small actions. If you blog about fitness you can create a “weight loss challenge” and if you blog about food you could develop a challenge on “how to eat sugar free for 21 days.” It doesn’t matter the audience or topic if you want to get your readers to take action, challenge them to do something and offer a prize for the winner.
What topics have you recently blogged about?
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
