Determining a blog post topic is an extremely important step in creating quality content for your website. With the following steps, you will easily find new ideas for your articles.

Researching topics and finding content ideas is one of the fundamental factors that determine the success of a Blog or Website. Because choosing an attractive topic that meets the user’s search needs is an opportunity to increase natural traffic, attract potential customers and turn them into your real customers.

In this article, we will learn in detail about the 6 steps of researching topics for Blog posts. From there, you can plan effective overall content development.

How to create an effective Blogging strategy

Blogging is an effective way in a promotional strategy to help create quality content for the Website and attract attention from customers. And to ensure content The article content is always attractive and useful, the topic research and implementation planning are methodical.

A good strategy will be a “guideline” to help you move in the right direction on the way to achieving your goals when building a Blog. Has your business outlined its Blog strategy? If not, the 4 steps below will be useful suggestions for you. 

• Determine the purpose of the Blog post
• Determine the goal of the Blog post
• Identify target customers
• Decide what content you will post

Determine the purpose of the Blog post

To define purpose, you must have clear answers to 3 questions:

• Why do you need to build a Blog?
• What aspect of your business do you want to improve with your Blog?
• What do you expect viewers to do after reading your content?

Your answer plays an important role in finding and selecting content that fits the overall strategy. Moreover, it is suitable for customers’ search needs in each stage of the purchasing journey. Once you have a goal to work towards, you will also know how to put your efforts into developing appropriate content.

Some purposes when building a Blog can be: increasing traffic, creating potential customer files, creating conversions, educating customers about products,…

According to CMI, 31% of content marketers B2B (Business to Business) and B2C ( marketers – those who use Bloggers get 67% more leads than those who don’t. B2B also reports that HubSpot) suggests that Blog posts are the highest performing content type for building brand awareness. Business to Customer

So, it’s time for you to focus on Blog and put it in your business’s overall Marketing strategy. 

Determine the goal of the Blog post

Setting specific, clear and measurable goals is the first step towards making them a reality.

Goals such as increasing organic traffic by X%, increasing conversion rate by X% in 3 months, etc. You can apply some popular models to set goals and measure: SMART, CLEAR, OKRs,…

Identify target customers

Only if you know who your customers are? What are their needs and concerns?… Only you can provide the right content they need to solve the right problem. Sketch a customer portrait with information such as age, gender, occupation, location, personality, interests, etc. 

Decide what content you will post

After determining the purpose, goals, and target customers, it is time for you to decide on the content to produce on the Blog.

Think about the value your Blog brings with that content? How can your content be different and stand out from your competitors? 

Next, create a mission statement for your Blog (the reason your Blog exists). The mission statement can include basic information about the company, the vision for content development, the value the content provides, the audience it benefits, and the principles the Blog will uphold. 

Thinking about all of this will help you decide what content to publish.

Identifying core topics allows you to get a bird’s eye view of your future content plan.

You can build from 5 to 10 core topics. This is also a way to keep the Blog clearly focused and easy to deploy other content while still maintaining consistency. Based:

• Organize content according to Topic Cluster topics
• Determine the pillar topic (Content Pillar)

Organize content according to Topic Cluster topics

Topic Cluster is a model applied by many businesses when blogging. Simply put, Topic Cluster includes:

• One main article (Content Pillar), focusing on the main keyword (Example: Sales website). The Content Pillar must be large enough so that you can deploy other types of content without fear of content diversion. 
• 5 – 10 Articles with additional content (Cluster Content) for the main article. These articles focus on specific topics, long keywords (For example: What is a sales website?, Instructions for designing a sales website,…)
• Internal link to link articles in the cluster 

The advantage of applying the Topic Cluster model helps increase organic traffic for the entire cluster even when only a single cluster in the group is performing well. However, this is only true when the link is optimized. 

How to identify blogging pillar topics (Content Pillar)

To identify pillar topics, start with the products and services you provide and your target customers. Then combine the problem the customer has with how the product you offer solves that problem. Models you can apply: 

Product (product features) > Problems encountered by customers > Pillar theme

How to expand the topic list for Blog posts

After identifying the core topic, it will help you stay on track when expanding the topic list. Sources of ideas for you to expand your topic list: 

• Research your competitors’ keyword lists
• Popular search trends Google Trend
• Keyword research tool

For example, when searching on Google Trend for the phrase “Sales website”, Google will suggest you related search queries with increasing search volume.

Filter and group topics 

Once you have made a list of topics and keywords, you need to continue to choose the topics and keywords that bring the best results when blogging. You can group topics based on search volume and keyword competitiveness.

Filter keywords by keyword search volume and difficulty

This is when you need a keyword research tool that tracks search volume. This ensures that your content plan is based on user search needs. The main tactic here is to focus on keywords with:

• Highest search volume – the higher the search volume, the more popular the keyword
• Lowest keyword difficulty/keyword competitiveness – the lower the number, the less competitive the keyword. Target keywords with low keyword difficulty (around 60% or so), as these are the easiest starting points. 

Group keywords according to topic clusters

At this step, cluster your keywords into 5 – 10 predetermined core topics.

To perform grouping, you need to organize each keyword into a common pillar topic. During the filtering and grouping process, you will most likely come across a common or popular topic that fits into the pillar topic list. At this point, you can replace the original pillar theme, or add a new one.

How to identify potential headlines when blogging

To appear high on Google search results pages, Blog posts must meet user expectations. In other words, they must match search intent.

First step, to do this you must come up with an attractive title. And of course, the content in it must be useful and solve the problem.

To have an attractive title that attracts viewers, here are some guidelines for you: 

• Combine search intent with purchase journey (Buyer’s Journey) 
• Determine search intent for your keywords
• Decide on the Blog post type and title

Combine search intent with purchase journey (Buyer’s Journey) 

The specific purposes when customers search on the Internet usually fall into the following four categories:

• Information
• Directional
• Commerce
• Transaction

Information

Users are looking for specific information about a topic. Searches can contain phrases like “tutorial”, “how to”, or questions: “how to”, etc. (e.g. Topic Research Guide for Blog Posts). Informational keywords can indicate that the user is in the awareness stage.

Directional

The user is searching for a specific Web site. Searches often include brand names, products or services. Navigational keywords can indicate that the user is in the consideration stage, because they want to learn more about a specific product or service.

Commerce

Users are considering a purchase and want to shop around and compare their options. Searches may contain phrases such as “best”, “cheapest price”, “top”, or reviews (for example: Top reputable sales website design companies today). Commercial keywords can indicate that users are in the consideration stage, as they are comparing several products before deciding to buy one.

Transaction

User wants to buy a product/service. Searches can contain words like “buy”, “price”, “coupon”, “offer, etc. Transactional keywords mainly indicate that the user is in the decision stage, they are ready to spend money for product.

Determine search intent for your keywords

Your job now is to base on the above 4 search purposes to determine the customer’s search intent. From there, choose a suitable title that attracts customers. 

How to Decide on Blog Post Type and Title

Now, after considering the above factors, you can think about post types and potential titles for Blog posts. Information topics should start with “how to”, “how to guide”…. Commercial topics should contain phrases like “best”, “review”, or “cheap”, etc.

Prioritize topics based on your blogging goals

Here are a few ideas for how you can prioritize your publishing to align with your goals:

• By topic cluster
• Follow the buyer’s journey
• According to potential search volume and keyword difficulty
• By product or product feature
• Follow the trend

How to blog according to topic clusters

Choose a cluster of topics that cover your specific audience’s problems and create posts around them. You may want to choose a topic cluster that gives your Blog the most visibility (high search volume). So, create a pillar page and then start writing cluster articles based on comprehensive keyword research.

Alternatively, you can start with creating cluster content by focusing on low competition keywords. Thanks to low competition topics that rank well, your pillar page can have more chances to rank higher and boost the entire cluster.

How to blog along the buyer’s journey

Is your blog focusing primarily on a specific stage of the buyer’s journey? If so, you should start developing content for this stage first. Make sure your Blog also helps readers move to the next stage in their buyer’s journey by adding CTAs and inserting relevant links into posts.

According to search volume and keyword difficulty

If you focus primarily on organic traffic, you should produce Blog content that targets keywords with the highest search volume and lowest keyword difficulty. 

By product or product feature 

To support your product release, you can produce content about the problem users have and specifically how your product solves that problem/what benefits it brings. 

You can develop topics and content from the awareness stage and bring them to the end – the decision stage. Be sure to link Blog posts. This is also a way to ensure that the buyer’s journey is not interrupted.

Follow the trend

If your Blog is a news-oriented channel, you should publish articles on trending topics as quickly as possible to build content Website. The constant trend of updates and changes does not allow you to set a content plan for a specific time. But you can still create regular content that attracts a certain amount of interest at a time.

Hopefully the above instructions will help you in the process of finding topics and ideas for blogging. Good luck!