Content is king, folks.

Businesses that produce content generate 67% more leads than those without a content strategy.

They also receive 437% more indexed pages…

And acquire 97% more indexed links.

With all of that said, you can’t afford to not have a blog.

But, starting a successful blog cannot be properly done without realizing one fundamental thing:

What exactly are you going to write about?

The process of finding topics to cover on your blog is called topic research.

Genius marketers from the likes of Neil Patel and Brian Dean to local marketers spend most of their days brainstorming content topics.

Fortunately, topic research isn’t arbitrary.

It’s a relatively straightforward and data-driven approach.

Do you want to learn more about how you can find topics for your blog?

We’ll break down all of the steps for doing so below.
 

Step #1: Check Google

It seems like everything that entails SEO and digital marketing always goes back to Google.

Google is, in fact, the world’s most widely-used resource and popular search engine.

Google can even be a useful tool for marketers that want to find feasible blog topics.

Here’s how you can do it.

Let’s say that you want to find some prospective topics concerning SEO.

By using Google’s autocorrect feature, here’s what would happen if you type “SEO” into the search bar.

None of those keywords seem like ideal blog topics.

Sure, they can be used for other purposes, but you will have trouble building great content from any of those keywords.

Let’s get creative and add the word “tips” to “SEO”.

Here’s what you should see.

Now, these are some great keywords you can turn into blog posts.

If you don’t see anything you like, you can add the word “methods” to “SEO”.

This is what you should get.

To find more specific topic ideas, get more specific with the keyword combinations you use.

We used the keyword “how to create a SEO…” and saw these promising results.


That’s not all!

Google also posts long-tail keywords at the bottom of search engine result pages (SERPs) like so:

And, they also post long-tail keywords in the “people also ask” section.

If we’re being honest here, this is all free real estate.

Even your top competitors haven’t built content for all of these long-tail keywords.

This is why long-tail keywords are so important and why they generate 70% of all internet searches.

Now that all of this is done, let’s move toward the data-driven methods of topic research.
 

Step #2: Perform Keyword Research

Checking Google is a great way of finding blog topics.

But, if you want to find suitable blog topics based on qualitative data, keyword research is the way to go.

There are countless keyword research tools available.

For your reference, here are some of the best resources on the web.

You will have to conduct your own independent research on which tool will work best for you based on your needs, budget, etc.

You will have to conduct your own independent research on which tool will work best for you based on your needs, budget, etc.

When you make a selection of the keyword research tool you plan to use, you can move forward with typing in both primary and long-tail keywords into the search bar.

You can view semantically related keywords you can develop blogs topics on.

For example, here is a snapshot of a SEMRush session on…

Cat memes.

If you are into cat memes, look at all of those potential blog topics you can use.

Then, you can be sure that your topics will be effective.

Look at the volume each of those keywords receives.

If you play your cards right, you can generate some valuable web traffic, but we digress.

Let’s move on to the next step.
 

Step #3: Spy on Your Competitors

If you’re new to keyword research, the previous section may be difficult to understand.

Fortunately, this step won’t be.

The simplest way to find new topics for your blog is to spy on your competitors and see what they’re doing.

The caveat here is to only observe competitors that are successful.

In the internet marketing industry, we can generally look to HubSpot for possible blog topics.

Now, let’s get one thing clear.

You can spy on competitors like HubSpot, but you won’t have much success in ranking for the same posts initially.
Frankly, copying or spinning posts from competitors are lazy and considered to be black-hat SEO.

Don’t do it.

Instead, you can try these tactics.

  • Make your content longer than the topics from your competitors.
  • Tackle a topic from a different angle.
  • Expand upon an existing topic and provide more insight.

HubSpot produces some exceptional content, yet it’s not always perfect.

They leave out things and don’t expand on everything.

You can take advantage of where your competitors fall short and create better content.

For example, let’s take a look at the first blog we see on HubSpot.

This is the table of contents and it doesn’t look like HubSpot has covered everything.

You can create a more extensive blog without doing any topic research.

Pretty neat, huh?

Let’s move on to the final step.
 

Step #4: Check Social Media

Social media networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have great content topics you can get inspired from.

The best thing about this method is that you can see which content types are effective based on engagement metrics such as likes and comments.

When all else fails, check the social media networks of your competitors to see what types of content they are posting and sharing.

This is a beneficial way of staying ahead of the competition.
 

Choose Optuno Today!

As you can see, a lot of effort and preparation go into brainstorming topics for your blog.

Do you have the tools to get the job done?

If so, we can be of assistance.

To speak to a member of our dedicated sales team, give us a call today at 1-888-678-8662 or click here to schedule a free consultation.