The Critical Elements to Finding a Blog Post Idea & Where to Get Your Research

Got a new website? But don’t know where to find great blog post ideas? Don’t understand how to do research for your post? Well, don’t worry I have you covered. I’ll discuss all these topics and more in this post on The Critical Elements To Finding a Great Blog Post Idea & Where to Get Your Research.

 

Table of content:

 

1. Why write a blog?
2. How to start: You can do this:
3. Don’t strive for perfection:
4. What kind of post should you write?
5. Understanding your target audience:
6. Where to get post ideas & research material:
7. Where to find images & pictures:
8. Featured images add SEO value and interest:
9. Using a headline generator:
10. Saving your work:
11. My conclusion:
12. Please subscribe to my e-mail list:
13. My closing remarks:

 

Why write a blog?

The reason I write blog posts is to solve my reader’s problems and provide them with useful information. I do this with clear and focused topics that provide value and answers.

You came to my website looking for help with the topics I cover. So, I want to make my posts informative, useful, and relevant to you and your problem.

 I want to give you quality content and answers to questions you didn’t even know you had. I believe in giving you Quality over Quantity, and I’m sure you’ll appreciate my efforts in doing this.

I provide suggestions for useful products and services that you might find helpful. I encourage you to purchase these products and services through my website. In return, I receive a small compensation from companies for recommending these products and services at no extra cost to you. This is how I make my money.

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How to start: You can do this:

I hear it all the time, “I can’t write” or “I’m not a writer.” Well, guess what? You don’t have to be a writer to write.

I’ll show you that you too can write a blog post that stands out from the crowd and your visitors will love to read. It’s not as complicated as you think it is if you follow a few simple steps and use a good template.

I give you a template and show you how to use it in the second post of this series. Here’s the link,

https://guidetosmallbusiness.com/how-to-structure-the-perfect-post-in-minutes/#top

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Don’t strive for perfection:

Many people think the first draft of their post has to be perfect. Well, I’m here to tell you it doesn’t.

 As a matter of fact, I treat my first draft as an information-gathering process. This takes an enormous amount of pressure off me because I don’t feel it has to be complete or perfect.

The secret no one is telling you is, that the final draft of ALL writers looks nothing like the first, or, the second or third for that matter. I write at least four or five drafts, sometimes more, for each post I write.

Even after I publish my posts they’re not perfect, but that’s okay. Why do you ask? Well, we all learn as we go. With each new post, we learn new ways to make our writing better and how to benefit our readers more.

Good writers always go back and polish their posts as they learn new ways of doing things. I’m always going back to tweak or add new things to make my content more informative and easier for my readers to find things. The point I’m trying to convey here is, DON’T feel pressured to deliver perfection. It’s not necessary.

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What kind of post should you write?

There are many ways to write a blog post. You could write a step-by-step tutorial, or Use the journey approach. What is the journey approach? It’s a system of writing a series of posts on the same subject.

The post you are now reading is a journey post. It’s the first post in a series of five on how to create a blog post from idea to promotion. The whole series consists of, how to find a great idea & do the research, how to structure your post, how to write your post, how to edit your post, and how to promote your post.

To read the other posts in this series go here.

1. The Critical Elements To Finding A Blog Post Idea & Where To Get Your Research 
2. :  https://guidetosmallbusiness.com/how-to-structure-the-perfect-post-in-minutes/#top
3.  Ridiculously Simple Ways To Write A Blog Post: Even If It’s Your First Time
4. Easiest Ways To Edit & Interlink Your Blog Posts Without Forgetting Anything
5.  You’ve published a post, now what? Simple post-editing & promoting ideas

Here’s another example of a journey series:

Subject: Parenting, the posts would consist of:

• Taking care of Newborns
• Dealing with toddlers
• Interacting with small children (age 5-9)
• Preteens (age 10-12)
• Teens (age 13-19)
• Adult children ( age 20+)

Or you could try any of these great post ideas:

• Product reviews
• Community services
• Hobbies
• Sports
• Pets
• Fashion
• Self-help
• The list could go on forever

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Understanding your target audience:

To write an informative post you must first understand who you’re writing for. Who is your target audience? What are they searching for? What issues or problems do they have, and what answers do they need?

Knowing who your readers are and what they want to learn from your post helps you relate to them. Engaging with them helps you write relevant content that draws your audience to your website.

If your website is about becoming a parent, then new moms are your target audience. They are going to want to know about new products for their child and the best ways to deal with their new family member.

For example, these might be some of the challenges they face.

• What to expect with pregnancy
• How to fit exercise into their day with a newborn
• Breastfeeding versus bottle-feeding
• Cloth diapers versus disposable diapers
• Store-bought baby food versus homemade baby food
• Crib reviews
• Teething solutions
• Etc…

If you write these kinds of posts you’ll be providing your audience with what they are searching for. I think you’d also like to know that, you don’t have to be an expert on the topic to write something helpful.

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Where to get post ideas and research material:

There are several ways to get ideas for your posts. I do Google searches on topics that interest me. Pinterest, believe it or not, is a great place to get awesome topics for your posts. I get quite a few of my topic ideas from Pinterest.

I look at other blogs on the same subject I’m interested in. I like to see what other people have to say about the topic I’ve also chosen to write about. I’m looking for content that the other blogs don’t have.

 I  use Jaaxy keyword research tool to find blog post ideas. For those of you that don’t know about Jaaxy and the multiple ways, it helps you with your posts, read these two posts.

https://guidetosmallbusiness.com/jaaxy-keyword-research-tool-the-basics-uncovered/

https://guidetosmallbusiness.com/jaaxy-keyword-research-tool-review-tutorial/

 Here are a few places I do my research.

• Facebook groups on your topic
• Google search the topic
• Other blogs on the same topic
• Use Jaaxy keyword research tool for ideas
• Pinterest
• Social media groups

You want to take ideas from these places, but DO NOT copy the information. Please say it in your own words.

When I do my research I take bits and pieces of each site I go to and combine them all into one post. I look for things I haven’t already jotted down, like things the other posts don’t have.

I don’t get into writing “Fluff” posts or being vague. These are posts that just fill a website without giving their readers very much information. I want something solid, and informative, and that gives a lot of value to my readers.

I’m looking for as many different facts as I can find on the topic. My ulterior motive is to outdo all the other posts by providing as many details as possible. I try to over-deliver with each of my topics and exceed my reader’s expectations.

In doing this I not only provide value to my readers but the search engines love the longer posts and rank me higher because of it.

Pro tip: I also look for features their website has that mine doesn’t. For example, a welcome box with their picture on it on the side of their blog posts, or an ad for a product I use on their sidebar. I’m always on the lookout for items that will make my website better and more professional looking. So make sure you keep your eyes peeled for these kinds of things too.

A tip for you: While you’re doing your research keep an eye out for ideas for future posts. When you find an idea jot down a few paragraphs on a word document so you won’t forget it, then add the document to an idea file folder on your computer desktop. I do this and I have over 250+ ideas and I add to it weekly. This way I will never run out of ideas to write about.

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Where to find images and pictures:

When it comes to placing visual images into your blog don’t be tempted to place just any picture you want there. Every picture is protected by the person who took it.

To make your blog legal you must only use pictures that are either yours or come from sites that allow free use of them. I use either my own pictures or royalty-free photos on my website. I get them from stock photo websites.

Each stock photo website has its own rules for using royalty-free images, so make sure you read the requirements of each site before you use their photos.

To make sure your blog images are legal please get them from reliable stock sources, such as:

• Ivory Mix
• Haute Stock
• Stock adobe
• Dreamstime
• Pexels
• Pixabay

Pro tip: It’s a good idea to create a file of pictures, charts, and images to use for future use in your posts. Most blog writers keep a file of pictures on their computer desktop just for this. I do this and it helps me find pictures very fast while I’m writing a post.

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Featured images add SEO value and interest:

Adding a featured image to your blog post is not only appreciated by your readers but also provides some SEO (Search engine optimization) value too. This is important because it helps you rank higher in places like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

What is a featured image, you ask? It’s an image or picture that appears at the top of your blog post.

This provides benefits for three different issues. First, it helps you to promote your blog post on social media sites. Second, it helps draw the readers to your site. And third, it helps provide an extra layer of SEO so you rank higher in the online searches.

I’ll explain how to set up your featured image and pictures in the next installment of this series entitled,

Ridiculously Simple Ways To Write A Blog Post: Even If It’s Your First Time

Here’s the link to that post: ******place link here*********

Featured images are always used for SEO if they have links attached to them. For that reason, it’s a good idea to place a post link, product link, or service link to these pictures.

Another benefit of using featured images is the ability to place text over the image so it can be used as an advertisement on social media. See the featured image at the top of this post as an example of this.

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Using a headline generator:

If you still feel like you need help coming up with great post headlines I suggest using a headline generator. Here are a few I’ve used.

• Blog title generator:
• Hubspot:
• Portent title maker:

These are all great at coming up with many helpful headlines you could use for your posts. If you don’t find what you like on the first try, just try again within the same generator. They will give you more headlines to try out.

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Saving your work :

You’ll want to save your work often. I save mine every half hour or before when I’m closing my work for the night. WordPress does save your document automatically as well. I believe it saves it every hour, but I like to save my work too, just to be sure. I’m the type that believes it’s better to be safe than sorry. And believe me, I’ve had my internet connection be lost in the middle of my document and I’ve lost work because of it.

You want to save your work as a draft and not publish it until the very end. To do this you just click on the save draft button on the right side of your WordPress document page. It looks like this, see below. 

 

 

You can save as many drafts as you like. Don’t be afraid to save a lot of them. Sometimes I’ve saved as many as 58 drafts before I published my posts.

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My conclusion:

Phew! We covered a few things in this post. Here’s a quick list of everything we covered.

• We talked about why we would even start a blog in the first place.
• I discussed how easy it is to write a post if you use a template and gave you a link where you could get the template.
• Link for a template with instructions on how to use it below:
• https://guidetosmallbusiness.com/how-to-structure-the-perfect-post-in-minutes/#top
• We discuss why you should save your work as you go, and how you don’t have to strive for perfection.
•  I gave you a few suggestions with examples of what kind of post to write.
• We talked about understanding your target audience.
• We discussed where to get blog post ideas from and where to find research material too.
• I showed you how to get royalty-free images and photos from a reliable stock photo company.
• We talked about why you should use featured images.
• And I gave you a few suggestions for using a headline generator.

Now that you understand where to find blog post ideas and research material, it should be a lot easier to get started with your new blog. I hope I’ve taken the mystery out of this process for you. I also hope I’ve alleviated some of, if not all of your fears about the process too.

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My closing remarks:

I hope you enjoyed this article and feel it has met all your needs. I would greatly appreciate a rating from you to let me know how I did. Please leave your 1-5 stars rating at the bottom of this article, just above the comments area.

If for some reason I haven’t met your needs, please let me know how to better serve you in the comments area, or by contacting me privately. I want to make it right.

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Thanks for stopping by,

Lynne

 

 

 

 

 

 

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