Blog Post Ideas (2021): How To Plan A Year Worth of Content in Next 30 Minutes

If you have ever followed a successful blog in its beginning, then you’d know that continually pumping up new articles every day or week has helped them a lot in establishing authority and getting traffic.

And not just any random posts but useful and interesting posts that drive people to take actions and keep coming for more.

But the question is, “How do you come up with such cool blog post ideas every time?”

Background story:

When I started blogging, I had 7 articles written and drafted on my WordPress blog ready to be published. I scheduled them to go live on every alternate day while I focused on creating social media pages, commenting on other blogs, and getting familiar with the community.

It helped me a lot in starting days, but when all the posts were posted, I was struggling to come up with new ideas. 

Thanks to writer’s block, I ended up posting nothing for the next 30 days and just recycle my old posts to get traffic.

Coming back to the topic, continually coming up with new blog post ideas is a hard job. You can’t just write on any other subject and expect people to visit and share.

Your articles need to target an audience and solve their needs. And hence it becomes a necessity to research and only create high-quality posts.

In this freshly baked article, I’m going to share the 13 most useful sources to find new blog post ideas that would take your blog to new heights.

I’ve also included a bonus material (more details below), so make sure to stick to the end – or directly scroll to the bonus section!

Before Starting, Get Organized

Although I am not an organized guy in my personal life, I like to keep things account when it comes to blogging. Organizing your upcoming posts and keeping track will help you in many ways. Each time when you look on to the calendar, you’ll know what you have to do.

I use Trello to create content calendars, but you can use any application or an excel sheet.

List out all the categories of your blog as columns and write down the respective blog topics under them. It’ll give you a clearer idea of what categories you’ve been avoiding and help you balance.

Under each title, you can add links or descriptions of what you exactly want to write. You don’t need to research the entire topic, but a quick overview.

Creating the content calendar will also be of great help if you outsource your articles. You can create a Google spreadsheet or Trello board and add the content writer who is more productive and time-saving. You can also suggest changes and revision right there – what else could you ask for?

Okay, so now let’s talk about the resources I have used to come up with new blog posts ideas on a regular basis. 30-minutes research on any of these resources (or a combination of them) will churn out hundreds of blog posts ideas that can be scheduled for a year.

13 Powerful Ways to Get A Year Worth of Blog Post Ideas

Let’s dive in.

#1 – Browse Quora

Quora has grown to be the biggest Q&A site with millions of monthly users asking questions about stuff that matters to them.

I have seen a good spike in traffic since I started using Quora on a regular basis and it has an excellent potential to drive traffic to your site.

More importantly, the questions asked on Quora often appear on the first page of Google, so you not only get traffic from Quora but Google also. And that’s why Quora works as an excellent source to get blogging ideas. The questions are legitimate and often related to some real-life problems the users are facing.

For example, if I search for “dog food,” I get these results. The third question gives a good topic to cover, i.e., best dry dog food.

Browse more, and you’ll find more exciting blog posts ideas such as –

• Difference between dog food and cat food
• How to choose healthy dog food?
• Best vegetarian dog food
• How to make dog food at home?

I can keep listing hundreds of ideas, but I think you got the strategy. You can further research the topic by reading top-voted answers and what things they covered.

#2 – Study Your Competitors

The worst thing you can do in blogging is to hate your competitors or avoid them. Instead what you should learn is to spy your competitors.

Do not hate or avoid your competitors. You’re ignoring a powerful source to get inspired and grow yourself.

Continually analyzing your competitor’s site and content gives you a good idea of what works best in your niche. You can observe the type of material they post, headline style, and what kind of graphics they are using to rank higher than you.

Every time I visit one of my competitor’s article, I thoroughly analyze the piece regarding:

• The topic: How good it is and have I covered this thing before?
• Length of the article: How long the article is and how they have broken it down?
• Social shares: Which platform has the most number of shares and did they used any specific call to action to ask for shares?
• Number of Comments: What their readers are saying and if they have any specific query which is missing from the article?
• Visual information: What kind of graphics and videos they’ve used and whether or not they create it themselves or use someone else’s?
• Flaws or missing information: How can I make a better version of it?

To get blog more post ideas from your competitors, check their “popular posts” section. It’s generally placed in the sidebar of the side but may sometime be on the footer or a different page altogether.

These posts are either handpicked by the author or created using some plugin based on the number of shares, views, or comments.

Have a detailed look at those popular posts and try to find a pattern – long articles, graphics, call to actions, shorter sentences, anything you could find, and replicate it.

Note: The strategy of creating a better version of an already existing resource is called the Skyscraper technique coined by Brian Dean.

#3 – Use BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a tool that lets you check the popularity of any page or domain on the social media channels. It gives the total share count of any article on different social media channels which includes Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google Plus.

In case your competitors don’t have a popular posts widget, BuzzSumo would be of great help to dig up their most shared pages.

Alternatively, you can just enter a keyword and get a list of most shared articles about it.

Let’s search again for “dog food” and see what comes out –

Okay, so the first result is a kind of charity-related site where the page owner will give away one pound of dog food for each view. Not what we’re looking for, so skip it.

Second and third results look exciting and can be covered. Look at the share count – over 400k and 237k shares, mostly from Facebook.

You can create a better version of these guides like –

• 15 Healthiest People Food Your Dog can Eat & 5 to Strictly Avoid
• Top 30 Best Rated and 20 Worst Rated Food Brands

(I know you can write better headlines than that!)

Getting blog post ideas from BuzzSumo is fool-proof since you already know that it’ll work and all you have got to do is – write a better version. Also, it gives a better idea of what social channels you should target depending on the social shares.

#4 – Analyze using SEMRush

SEMRush is hands down the best investment for an SEO practitioner and bloggers. It’s a toolbox containing everything you need to optimize your blog, analyze competitors, and how to get better. Not only that, but it can also help you brainstorm some fresh blog post ideas that are worth writing.

How? There are two ways.

1. Analyze your competitor’s already ranking pages

2. Use SEMRush Topic Research Tool

Let’s talk about the above-said methods in more detail.

Method One: Analyze your competitors

SEMRush has an extensive database of search engines, and hence it is a perfect tool to spy and steal the practical post ideas from your competitors.

Step 1 – Enter your competitor’s domain

Visit SEMRush and enter the domain of your rival in the niche (I like to start with a similar-sized competitor)

Step 2 – Click on “Organic Search”

Once it shows information about the domain, click on the “Organic Search” option available on the left side menu.

It will show you the terms for which the domain rank. It also shows the monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, landing page, CPC and Traffic percentage the site receives.

Analyze the given results and see what keywords drive the most traffic to your competitor. Don’t just focus on monthly volume but also consider Keyword Difficulty (KD), Trend, and Traffic %

Click on the results you think are good and export them as a spreadsheet.

Step 3 – Repeat

You can further find more of your competitors by clicking on the ‘Competitors’ option available on the left menu.

Repeat the process until you’ve got a few hundred topic ideas in your spreadsheet.

Method Two: Use SEMRush Topic Research Tool

This one is a more straight-forward approach to finding new blog post ideas using a seed keyword. At the time of writing, the tool is in beta and doesn’t work as perfect as it should.

However, the results are decent and give good ideas to cover for your blog.

Step 1 – Visit the SEMRush Topic Research Tool page

Step 2 – Enter your seed keyword

In the text bar given, enter a topic or keyword which you want to cover. Also, choose the region from the drop-down menu if your target country is not the United States. Hit Enter.

Step 3 – Filter out content ideas

After a *long* wait, the tool will give you content ideas in the form of cards. Each card provides information about a related topic and lists out some of the recent articles about it.

By default, they are sorted by the search volume, and you can change it to Difficulty and Topic Efficiency. Click on any card to get more information like more headlines, questions, and related searches.

You can add the results as favorite and export as a spreadsheet for later use. Further, instead of a card-based view, you can check the result in the “Mind Map” format.

#5 – Search on Freelancer and ContentMart

This might come as a surprise to you, but these platforms have helped me a lot in getting new blog post ideas for niche blogs. In case you’re new to freelancing, these are the two platforms where clients can hire freelancers to complete their job for a small fee.

Freelancer deals with all kinds of freelancing works whereas ContentMart is only for content writers. They both have a section where one can see a recent order request by clients and a place of interest.

You can filter the list based on your niche and see what others are ordering on the platform. Many-a-times you’d find more details about the topic in the description like the structure, focused keyword, and long-tail keywords all for free.

Grab the topic idea, add your own twist, more information, and you have a new article ready.

Note: ContentMart has been shut down and no longer works in 2019.

#6 – Join Facebook Groups and Niche Forums

I’ve added Facebook groups and niche forums as a similar resource because they both serve the same purpose – help community members.

In both platforms, you can ask a question and get answers from reputable members who know their sh*t. And that’s what makes them a good resource to fetch new blog post ideas.

Newbie, as well as seasonal bloggers, turn to these platforms when they face any issues and there are good chances that many of the users may encounter the same problem.

I’m part of around 10 Facebook groups (trust me I hardly browse Facebook), and each time I visit these groups, I get at least 3-4 new ideas that I can cover.

The same goes for niche forums (except those annoying members who just try hard to increase their post count and get some backlink)

Sidenote: A few of my articles on this blog like Google Analytics Missing Tracking Code error and Block LifeHacker.com spam referral traffic are the results of browsing these platforms.

I see people facing a particular issue, open a new document, research it, publish it on my blog, and then promote it back to those who asked for it. An original post and some free traffic.

#7 – Ask Your Readers

Regular readers of your blog can be a great asset to help you get more ideas and write exciting content. Also, this is the easiest one since you need not do any research but just ask for what your readers would like to read next.

You add a suggestion box in any part of your blog and ask readers to pitch the ideas. You can also send out emails asking your subscribers to suggest if they have got any ideas.

You’d be surprised to see that even a single line at the end of an email can fetch you so many ideas from your secret readers who have never talked to you to date.

Running polls on social media channels or your blog can also be a good idea if you want to verify which one of your *researched* topics would be most helpful.

#8 – Use Constant-Content

Constant-Content is a site where you can buy ready-made articles written by professionals for a moderate fee. These articles are well-researched and cover some of the most popular topics of a niche.

And it makes the site a perfect resource to find new topic ideas. Although you don’t see the complete article, the snippet gives a more precise idea about the topic covered.

Visit the site and click on the ‘Buy Content’ button.

Either enter a keyword or browse the category to find your ideal type.

Click on any headline which you find interesting to get more idea about it. On this page, you’d see a snippet of the article, writer, images used in the post, and keyword analysis.

#9 – Use Reddit

Reddit aka “home of the internet” is a community of some of the most internet-savvy users. You can find these intelligent species discussing any topic with a hint of sarcasm.

I’m not a big fan of promoting on Reddit due to their strict rules and instinct to ban the violators. But, it serves as a great resource to get new blog post ideas.

Technically, it works similar to any forum but the topics discussed here are more severe. Thanks to their intolerance, the Redditors remove the silly questions leaving the only important ones.

Furthermore, if you browse through the comments section, you’d find more questions and answers which will help you write about the topic in depth. You can always come back and promote your piece of content to get traffic (but don’t spam)

#10 – Browse AllTop

AllTop is a directory of blogs adequately organized in a dictionary way. People submit their blogs in a specific category and AllTop displays up to 5 latest posts using RSS feed.

It makes it easier for you to browse through tens of blogs and see what your competitors are publishing. There’s also a section of top reads where you can find the most popular posts in that category.

AllTop is a good platform to get new blogging ideas in your niche with a mere 5-10 minutes of research.

#11 – Find Hot Topics on Google Trends

Google Trends may look like a tool well used for the news website since they’re the first ones to write about any trending topic.

But if used correctly, it can be the most impressive tool to get new topic ideas and drive the fresh wave of traffic. In any niche, new technologies or methods are popping in from time to time.

Not many of your competitors keep track of Trends, and thus, you’d be among the first ones to cover these topics in detail.

Once it goes trending, you can expect some crazy traffic. Also, the competition will be low as not many are covering the topic and/or have very little information available.

Experience Tip: While doing research on any topic, always sort the “Related Topics” and “Related Queries” by rising. This way you can get an idea of what’s about to get popular in the coming weeks and start preparing for it.

#12 – Record Experiments and Case Studies

Frankly speaking, I love case studies and experiments. Although I haven’t done any live case study on this blog, I have followed many from the top as well as small bloggers.

These types of posts help your readers get a clearer idea of behind the scene steps and what action you take in certain situations. Despite the results, you and your visitors get to learn a lot.

Perrin over at AuthorityHacker posts many of such experiments, like this one –

Whether you’re starting a new blog, coming up with a new strategy, or just follow a method to complete some task, record it. And remember, crazier the experiment is, more readers it will attract.

#13 – Go Udemy

Udemy is another excellent place to find meaningful blog post ideas mostly based on tutorials and detailed guides. You can borrow the post ideas from Udemy courses in your respective niche, convert it to a full-fledged article, and give away to your readers for FREE.

The course curriculum shown is an excellent part of Udemy courses as these along can help you cover multiple sub-topics as separate posts each. Moreover, you get a better idea of what’s necessary to discuss in that particular topic and how you can break it down.

Step One: Visit Udemy and search for a topic

For example, I’m searching for the subject “email marketing.” The auto-suggestion feature is also of great help and gives more topic ideas.

Let’s click on the first result itself.

Step Two: Check the ‘What Will I Learn?” section

In this section, the author(s) give a brief idea of what different topics are covered in the course.

You can see that in our case, just looking at this section, I can extract some fantastic post ideas like –

• What is Email Marketing and Marketing Automation
• How to Drive More Sales using Email Marketing and Marketing Automation
• How to Increase Customer Engagement
• What are the best Email Marketing and Marketing Automation Tools

Step Three: Check the “Curriculum for This Course”

To get more detailed ideas, scroll down and check the curriculum section of the course. Click on the ‘+’ sign to expand the various parts and drop-down arrow buttons next to the chapter to get brief information.

Moreover, you can see small previews of some lectures to get a clearer idea.

Bonus Idea: Publish Monthly Reports

Similar to the above strategy, we (humans) like to know about behind the scenes of any successful story. It gives a more satisfying view of how something was made or achieved and what steps they took.

Publishing monthly reports is a neat way to keep track of your success as well as keep your readers informed about monthly growth.

Many top bloggers like Pat Flynn, Matthew Woodward, Harsh Agarwal share monthly income reports on their blogs. And trust me, you’d find an insane amount of engagement on these posts where new as well as seasonal bloggers will come up and ask their questions.

Make sure to download the below bonus file and get 15 blog post types you should be publishing on your blog.

Bonus Download: 15 Types of Blog Posts that Works Exceptionally Well (Checklist)

Final Words

Starting a blog is not the problem, growing it is. Unless you own a team of writers, who can continuously provide you with the latest and most significant articles, keeping your blog fresh with new content is a difficult job.

You may become a victim of writer’s block – a situation where you don’t feel like writing – or worse couldn’t find the topic to write about.

If it’s the first one, read this guide from Jeff Goins to get yourself on track and start writing. If it’s the latter, the above post may have already helped you a lot. 

Don’t forget to download the exclusive checklist for some unique posts types that would spice your blog page and keep your readers coming for more. You should also learn these amazing catchy words to write attention-grabbing blog titles.

At last, I would love a helping hand from you. Share this article and help me reach a new audience.

Cheers!

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