3 Tips to Fill Your Content Calendar with Blog Posts
Guest Post by Monica Miller
So how do you find the right blog post ideas for your content calendar?
Here are three tips that will give you an endless supply of blog post ideas to attract your ideal audience and begin connecting with them.
1. Frequently Asked Questions
When you tell someone what you do for a living, what questions do they ask you? What are questions that you always get (the ones you expecting)?
Each and every one of us has our “frequently asked questions” that people are always asking us. We don’t even have to think anymore because it’s so common that we know the answer before the question is even done being asked!
These frequently asked questions are perfect topics for attracting your ideal audience. So why not turn your answers into a blog post, a video, a social media post or a podcast?
The added benefit is that you can then point that person to your content when they ask that same question (instead of repeating yourself like a broken record).
2. Market Research
Market research is what smart marketers do to understand their audience. Doing market research will give you an endless supply of blog post ideas, and helps to ensure that your topics are right on target.
Unfortunately, many bloggers make the mistake of writing what they want to write about instead of what their audience really wants to hear. You see, your audience only cares about what benefits them and fulfills their needs right now, not later.
How do you conduct market research for your content calendar? Here are three techniques I have used inside of my own business that can work for yours, too.
Call Your Ideal Audience
Do you know people who need to work with you, but they haven’t yet? You can discover excellent blog post ideas by simply calling these people up and asking them a few questions about what they are struggling with inside their life or business right now.
Here’s what you need:
- 5-7 people who need your services but haven’t bought yet.
- A short questionnaire of 4-5 questions that will answer what they need now.
- Call them.
You can start the conversation like this,
“Hello, I am researching how to better serve you and my clients right now, and have put together a few questions that will only take a few minutes of your time. I would appreciate your time and answers, so I can continue to provide great value to you, and others like you.”
This will not only give you highly targeted blog post ideas, but you’ll build rapport with these people because you’re including them and asking them for their personal feedback.
But what if you don’t know anyone in your target audience? That’s when you break out a survey.
Share a Survey
Turn those same questions from above into a survey. Then share the survey on Facebook groups or on other social media channels to collect responses.
Let people in these groups know who your ideal audience is, and if they fit that description, ask them to answer a few questions to help you out.
Use Google Form, Survey Monkey, or even a Facebook Poll to gather intel!
Do Keyword Research
Another great way to validate your blog post ideas is by doing keyword research to see what people are actually searching for online.
Here are a few websites I have visited to validate my own blog post ideas.
Answer the Public is a free tool that allows you to put in a simple keyword, and then it will find all the questions that are being asked on Google and Bing associated with that keyword.
BuzzSumo is another tool which allows you to find all the most popular content around a particular topic. Just type in a broad topic, and it will sort articles on that topic by the total number of social shares.
3. Study Your Competition
Finally, look at your competition. They are talking directly to your audience right now!
Don’t steal or plagiarize from them, just go to your competition’s website and see what they are writing about. What questions are they answering that you could be answering?
See how you can answer the same topics in your own way, and what gaps they have in their content that you can fill.
Want to get started with your own content calendar planning? Download my Ultimate Content Calendar where it will tell you exactly how to plan, organize and review your content over a period of 30 days!
Click here to download now and get your content planning on!
Author Bio: Monica Miller is an International Speaker and Writer, Author and Coach. She lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, with her husband, Nathan, and their son, Anthony. Coaches, Speakers, and Authors hire Monica Miller to articulate their message into profitable content because she has found that many are at a loss on where to begin so they end up stuck and stagnant in their content. Learn more about her at www.monicawrites.com.
