Consistent blogging and high-quality content are key to broadening your appeal and generating website traffic. To most efficiently utilize your blog as a marketing resource, you should be publishing blog posts regularly and providing a diverse array of content. However, coming up with content ideas can be a struggle! In this post, we’ll discuss unique and creative blog content ideas for your business blog.
Related: Business Blogging 101 (free eBook)
Frequently Asked Questions
As an expert in your field, you are in the unique position of being able to answer a wide range of questions that relate to the interests and needs of your target customers. Depending on your industry, you likely field many of the same questions from different customers on a daily basis. These questions make for great blog content! Not only will this maintain the interest of your current customers, but you will be capitalizing on other individuals using search engines to search for similar answers online as well—meaning that more people will find your business online.
Expert Interviews
When you feel like your own blogging voice is becoming stale, interview someone else who has expertise in your field. This blog content idea provides a great format for reinforcing previously iterated information through a new voice, thus building a wider repertoire of authority. Small snippets from the interview also make for great social media posts too!
Customer Testimonials or Success Stories
Relaying the success story of a customer can be an excellent strategy not only to diversify your blog content but also to showcase your work and to provide inspiration to future customers. Such accounts promote strong feelings of trust, communicating personal appeals that encourage potential customers to enlist your services. You can follow an interview format, case study format, or highlight select quotes, photos, and general descriptions of a customer’s experience in order to convey how beneficial your business was to them.
Guest Posts
Enlisting the services of an expert in the same or a related field through guest blog posts is an excellent way to appeal to your target audience members. With this type of blog content, you can share accurate and relevant information on your blog even on topics where you may have less expertise. For example, a fitness studio might ask a nutritionist to create a post of the best pre-workout recipes.
Make Lists
Blog posts don’t need to include huge blocks of text to be relevant or appealing to the customer. Often times, the most successful posts are easily-digestible and to-the-point, so next time you’re running out of content ideas, generate a list of items geared towards a specific target or theme. For example, a clothing store might want to create a post listing the top 10 outfit trends for the month of May.
How-To’s and Tutorials
Step-by-step tutorials and how-to guides within your industry or specific niche will relay practical and accessible advice to anyone searching for it, establishing your expertise in your field and creating a funnel for viewers to become potential customers. Be as specific as possible, providing helpful recommendations and actionable insights along the way. For example, a tutoring site might want to blog about how to most efficiently edit an essay, and a restaurant might want to write a post about necessary steps to making the most delicious risotto.
Repurpose Content
Take a look at your most successful business blog posts from the past and brainstorm ways to reinvent them in new, exciting ways in order to appeal to an even broader range of customers. If a topic has instigated a notable response, think about breaking it down in additional posts and going into more detail on specific categories. Additionally, you can create one large post by combining several related posts together. This strategy can also transcend mediums; think outside of the box and transform a blog post into a creative video, providing an additional way for potential customers of varying learning styles to absorb information.
Event Wrap Up
Do you attend industry events or host events for your business? These make great opportunities to gather excellent content for your blog posts. Describing events is not only a simple way to diversify content but will also generate interest for events in the future. Rather than merely summarizing the entire event, focus on the highlights, main takeaways, and quotes that convey its significance, and include pictures that link to your social media accounts.
Seasonal Posts
Whether it’s winter or summer, putting a seasonal spin on content will increase its relevance to your customers as well as provide you with endless blog ideas. For example, if you own a restaurant, you might post about special ingredients best utilized at certain times of the year. If you own a pest control business, you might want to use seasonal posts as a way to stay ahead of the curve (and your competitors), offering readers special discounts to treat for insects such as ticks before they repopulate in the summer.
Holiday Posts
Practically every day of the calendar year boosts a holiday to celebrate, whether it’s Iced Tea Day, National Compliment Day, or Day of Charity. These obscure holidays will help generate unique content for your blog, so next time you’re feeling stumped, scroll through a calendar—you never know what may spark inspiration and culminate in a fun, original post! For example, a spa might want to blog about the mental and physical health benefits of massage on Relaxation Day.
For a list of holidays throughout the year and associated content ideas, download our free 2017 Marketing Calendar here.
Awareness Month Posts
Each month has specialized causes for awareness—find one that works for your business or industry and write a post about it. For example, dentists can blog about children’s flossing tips for Children’s Dental Health Month in February, while personal trainers can write about the importance of exercise at all ages for National Physical Fitness and Sports Month in May.
Strategizing unique blog content can be as simple as following these tips, but its implications are significant for any business. The consistent provision of a variety of content will solidify your expertise in your industry, distinguishing your business from its competitors and appealing to a wide breadth of customers—all while writing about what you know best.
