We all want more people to read our blog, whether we admit it or not. There are plenty of tricks for jumpstarting your blog traffic, but when it comes right down to it, interesting content wins the day.
Here are 21 blog post ideas that will attract readers to your blog like flies to honey.
- Write a post about how to do something fast. Whatever you are good at, chances are you have a few tricks up your sleeve to help you do it more quickly than most people. Share. For example, “How to Write a Book in Seven Days”.
- Write a “Q&A” Post. Whatever your area of expertise, right down all the most common questions you are asked. Then write the answers out. Instant blog post.
- Write a review. Whether it's a book, a movie, or product you bought, writing a thorough and accurate review will bring you a lot of traffic for a long time to come.
- Publish a case study. If you do any kind of service work, or consulting, you might consider writing up a case study of one of your successful projects. I did just this when it wrote about the project I did with Jack Bosch, and it has proven to be very popular.
- Publish a manifesto. Not a fake manifesto, designed to sell something, but rather a radical statement of your contrary and beliefs about a popular subject.
- Start a podcast. Okay, this one is a bit of a cheat, because it's a podcast… Not a blog post. On the other hand, you kind of have to have a blog post in order to have a podcast. so I will stand by the legitimacy of this suggestion. If it helps you feel better about it, just think of it this way: write a blog post, and then record yourself reading it and post that to your blog. 😉
- Create a tutorial on how to do something people want to know. For instance, I made this tutorial on how to build membership website using WordPress.
- Publish a list of your favorite bloggers. Go beyond just writing a list, explain a little bit about why you like each blog. You'll get traffic from people who are looking for such lists, and you'll also get traffic from some of the people on the list. They will link to you. Because, hey, you said nice stuff about then.
- Be shockingly transparent. Pat Flynn reveals his monthly income and expenses and posts them prominently on his blog. This takes a lot of guts, but people love Pat for doing it.
- Post inspirational quotes, motivational sayings, etc. People love this stuff, and they will not only read it, they will share it too.
- Write a guest post for a well-known blogger. You'd be surprised who would say yes. I've just started doing this, and I've already published two posts on Michael Hyatt's blog.
- Let rip with a rant. Pick something that you get righteously indignant about, and let her fly. Just be ready to withstand the fallout.
- Link your posts to events on the calendar that everyone is thinking about already. “What St. Valentine Knew about Marketing”, “it's Independence Day… Declare Your Independence from High Mortgage Rates”. Cheesy examples, but you get the idea.
- “Trend Jack”. What's trendy and popular right now? Find a way to relate that to what you want to write about. In the summer last year, Stephen King had a novel on the bestseller list and a TV miniseries version of the novel on ABC. I saw an opportunity and wrote this post, which was a “trend jacking” move on my part. It paid off with a nice burst of traffic.
- Publish an info graphic. People love infographics. Love them, love them. You can get one done inexpensively, or use a service like this to do it yourself.
- Reveal a secret about yourself. The single most popular post I've written is the one where I reveal that I have Parkinson's disease. That's not why I wrote it, and I was really surprised at how much traffic it generated (and continues to generate). My point is: the very thing you don't want to talk about might be the thing that contributes the most to the growth of your blog. And you might bless or help somebody in the process. I know that has been the case for me.
- Write an “epic” post about something in your industry. It'll take some time, and you may need to stick your neck out a bit, but it will get you readers.
- Recap your latest experience at a well-known event. For instance, I just got back from New Media Expo last week, and this past Monday I wrote a post about it.
- Take a survey. We all love to know what other people think, so take a survey and promise to publish the results.
- Publish the best comments from your blog's past. I haven't actually done this yet, but found this idea as I was doing the research for this post. I'll be doing this soon.
- Write a commentary on a current event, and relate it back to your usual topics. This is very similar to “trend jacking”, but in this case we're hijacking the news. Example: “What Obama Care Means to Bloggers”.
What about you? What are some great blog post “idea triggers” you used to create content? Please share in the comments below.