Struggling for Blog Topics? Check Out WME’s Favourite Go-To Tools

Written on 17 August, 2017 by Trish OLoughlin
Categories Content

Churning out a different blog topic each week, fortnight or month can sometimes feel like scraping at the bottom of an empty jam jar. Once you’ve been writing for a certain industry for a while, chances are you begin to run out of things to talk about. However, a regularly updated blog is key to keeping your website content fresh and on-trend, ripe for the SEO picking.

So, how do you thwart those head-scratching moments and ensure you’ve got a brand spanking new topic to touch on each time your site is due for a new blog post? Well, our copywriting team is upending their trusty toolbox of go-to gizmos to show you just how they discover new blog topics each week.

 

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is kind of like the classic keyword research tool for bloggers – the original Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate, if you will. Herein, you can find out which pieces of content are most popular in relation to your industry: simply enter your key search terms and the tool generates a list of articles accompanied by statistics illustrating social media engagements and shares. Pretty nifty, right?

You’re also given advanced search options so you can filter your results as you wish – by time-frame, country, word count, content type and more. Furthermore, if you’re looking for a way to really jump in on the internet’s current conversation, you can select the ‘Trending Now’ category to unearth what topics are generating discussion and engagement by users – from Donald Trump’s latest antics to the Golden Globe Awards.

Pros:

  • Great snapshot of social media footprint
  • Advanced search options available
  • Easy identification of content that’s performing well

Cons:

  • Requires paid subscription
  • Categories for each given industry sector are somewhat limited
  • No Instagram monitoring available

 

Answer the Public

Self-described as “a goldmine of insight for today’s marketeers”, Answer the Public is a brilliant way to tap into what consumers are actually searching for when it comes to your industry. The free keyword research tool operates much the same as any other of its kind, only there’s one major difference: it focuses on those all-important preposition words that determine exactly what a user is looking for when they enter search queries online.

According to the creators: “We knew that appending a search term with words like ‘for’ or ‘with’ gave a much richer starting point for content ideas.” As a result, users are gifted with a mind map of search queries relating to their keyword based on common ‘in-between’ words that other tools tend to ignore, such as “where”, “who”, “why”, “how” and “are”.

Oh, and one other major difference? You don’t need to create an account to use the tool – just jump on and get typing.

Pros:

  • Free to use
  • No subscription or sign-up required
  • Provides insight into the motivations and emotions behind searches
  • Offers concise graphic displays of complex information
  • Ability to save individual ‘mind maps’ for later reference

Cons:

  • Requires users to be quite succinct with keywords
  • Results not always relevant or applicable

Scoop.it

This innovative content curation service is a bit of a gem, focused on bringing the latest pieces of content to you. Accompanied by the tagline “Shine on the web”, Scoop.it is essentially designed to enable users to discover content on their topics of interest that they can curate and publish to their own web page and share to their social networks; however, it can also be used as a handy blog topic finder.

Basically, users create an account (choosing between the free version or the paid Scoop.it Business version), then select the topics they are interested in. From here, their profile will constantly update to feature the latest articles relating to the industry they have selected. Users can also enter their own keywords into the search engine to generate a more specific list of articles.

From a blogger’s perspective, you are granted a fresh insight into what kinds of topics are being talked about by some of the biggest names in the industry. By pairing this with your own further research, you can go on to create some stellar blog posts for your business’s website.

Pros:

  • Guides users towards best-performing blogs and websites
  • Shows what’s trending right now
  • Offers flexibility with the options of industry filter and customised topic

Cons:

  • Requires users to sign up
  • Can be limiting for certain industries (such as product-based businesses)

 

Blog Post Title Generators

Unlike the previous tools discussed, blog post title generators aren’t concerned with which pieces of content are most popular across the world wide web. Instead, these bad boys are as simple and stripped-back as the name suggests: all users are required to do is enter a topic or keyword into the search bar and the tool generates a list of savvy blog title ideas.

Herein, blog post title generators shift the focus from optimised content to clickbait-rich headlines, making them particularly handy for niche industries. This can certainly be a winner for inspiring fun, innovative and creative new topics to discuss on your blog. Oh, and did we mention they are usually free of charge and absent of a sign-up process?

While there are plenty of blog post title generators out there, our personal favourite is FatJoe, simply because it’s so quick and easy to use.

Pros:

  • Free to use
  • No subscription or sign-up required
  • Great for coming up with listicle-type blog posts and clickbait headlines

Cons:

  • Results not always relevant or applicable
  • No focus on trending topics

 

Keyword Tool

Of course, no keyword tool list would be complete without Keyword Tool. Touted as the second-best thing to Google’s Keyword Planner, Keyword Tool is a free device that is considered “extremely reliable”, generating up to 750 long-tail keyword suggestions for every search term.

Simply put, the tool gives users the chance to discover thousands of new long-tail keywords related to any topic they enter. Additionally, you can choose which search engine you want to draw your trending keywords from – Google, YouTube, Bing, Amazon, eBay or App Store. Naturally, this gives you further customisation based on your particularly industry – bonus!

Businesses and marketing managers can thereby use Keyword Tool to create blog content that capitalises upon words and phrases their potential audience is already using. Evidently, this helps to bait an audience while simultaneously upping website rankings.

Pros:

  • Free to use
  • Great way to elicit long-tail keywords
  • Ability to choose search engine most applicable to your business for trending keywords

Cons:

  • Requires users to sign up
  • Can be limiting for certain industries (such as product-based businesses)
  • Results not always relevant or applicable

 

Google Trends

Last but not least on our list is that spiffy little tool known as Google Trends. As a public facility owned by the infamous Google, this device showcases the latest trends, data and visualisations across the largest search engine in the world. Needless to say, it can be monumental in gathering topics that are bound to garner interest from audiences.

At its essence, Google Trends shows users exactly what stories are trending right now, with the ability to filter content by country and categories (such as business, entertainment and health). However, users can also ‘explore’ their own choice of topics.

The tool also goes tooth and nail in delivering detailed insights into what topics and queries are trending: it generates a graph depicting interest over time, charts depicting interest by region, and shows you related phrases and articles. Basically, it’s a great little marketing workhorse that can give bloggers an A-grade range of tools to leverage trending topics.

Pros:

  • Free to use
  • Allows you to compare the volume of searches between two terms
  • Allows you to identify the rising or falling popularity of various subjects related to your industry
  • Highly granular segmentation of data

Cons:

  • Generally focused on news articles, so can be limiting
  • Requires a bit of comprehensive know-how to use effectively
  • Calculations of data are not 100% reliable

 

So, to sum up…

Rather than plucking arbitrary concepts out of thin air in a desperate bid to conjure up a blog post, give the aforementioned content research tools a whirl. Who knows, your next entry could soar to hashtag-worthy popularity.

Looking for some help with domains, hosting, web design or digital marketing?
 

Send me marketing tips, special offers and updates