TLDR:  Thinking about the questions that your prospective clients and current clients ask on the phone is a great way to identify blog topics. If you hear the same questions several times in a month (or find yourself saying the same thing over that period), those are excellent blog starting points. Yes, there are all sorts of online tools to look at, but don’t overlook this kind of grassroots research.

“What should I blog about?” This is one of the most common questions I hear when talking with my clients about blogging and proclaiming its need and benefits. Their fear of not being able to come up with good blog content consistently stops them flat in their tracks. Look, I’m not asking for you to be the next Steinbeck or Asimov. 

As long as you can organize your thoughts and put them down in clear sentences, we’re in good shape.

Good blog content on your small business website enables you to stay engaged with existing customers and attract new ones while consolidating brand awareness.

Strong blog posts can attract a lot of traffic to the areas of your site where your calls-to-action are strategically placed – generating leads likely to result in purchases.

Many clients of The Research Department understand the necessity – and potential benefits – of blogging but find it challenging to decide what they should be writing about.

If you’re struggling to develop ideas for blog topics, here are some ideas to get you started.

Connecting with Your Audience

An obvious but often overlooked source of blog material is always available to you – your customers and potential clients, who can provide a rich mine of ideas for blogs.

There’s a good reason why many of the best blogs are headed by titles such as:

• How to…
• What is the Best Way to…?
• Why You Need…
• Benefits of…
• Comprehensive Guide to…
• Top Tips to…

Blogs like these give people like your customers valuable information. This is why they tend to be ranked highly in search results by Google, which favors content that gives users a good experience, answers their questions, or offers valid, detailed, authoritative advice.

What Blogging Means for Your Business

Think about planning regular blogs with informative, pertinent content that answers the questions your clients and prospective clients regularly ask or help solve common problems.

Keep a list (either on paper or on your computer) of issues or questions that regularly crop up in your interaction with clients and prospects. Review the list after a few weeks. Are there any topics that keep coming up? Blog about these subjects. If you don’t answer the phones, ask the people who do to let you know common themes they hear when talking with callers.

Similarly, if you find yourself explaining something over and over when meeting with customers and potential clients, that’s potentially a good blog post.

Example

Let’s say you run a dental office offering several types of treatments. You could create blogs with titles like:

• How to Improve Your Oral Health.
• What is the Best Way to Keep My Teeth Clean?
• Why You Need Regular Dental Exams.
• Benefits of Dental Implants.
• Comprehensive Guide to Cosmetic Dentistry.
• Top Tips to Prevent Bad Breath.

The content that follows needs to deliver on what the title offers or promises. This usually entails a little research and your experience and expertise, which can lead you to other blog ideas.

Expanding Your Blog Topics

Search engines can be a big help in expanding your blog base with new ideas – especially Google, the largest online search facility in the world.

You’ll find that Google acts as a vital research tool if you already have an idea for a blog. It can suggest topics for future blogs. 

Let’s see how this works with our hypothetical dentist as they start looking for ideas for their “Benefits of Dental Implants” blog.

They type the search term “benefits of dental implants” into Google, which straightaway pops up with half a dozen recommendations relating to the topic, including;

• Benefits of dental implants over dentures.
• Benefits of dental implants vs. bridges.
• Benefits of mini dental implants.

This gives our dentist three subsections for their blog that they may not have considered themselves.  This is what it looks like on Google:

They glance through the main search results and immediately get a rough idea of how other dental practices blog on the subject – helpful food for thought for their own blog. 

However, before clicking on one of these sites, our dentist is savvy enough to scroll down the page, where they find a list of “Searches related to benefits of dental implants,” including:

• Types of dental implants.
• Dental implants procedure.
• Best dental implants.
• Uses of dental implants.

Way at the bottom of the page, you’d see this:

Our dental blogger now has four more ideas they can incorporate into one long, 1,500 words-plus blog – and “Benefits of Dental Implants” becomes “The Ultimate Guide to Dental Implants.”

This could be used as a cornerstone article, with each of the sections linking internally to its own stand-alone blog – probably shorter but delving into more detail on the particular topic.

Free Tools to Help You Find Blog Topics

You can get help on coming up with blog subjects and their associated themes with free online keyword research tools like:

• AnswerThePublic.
• AlsoAsked. 
• Ubersuggest.
• LSIGraph.

If you have a Google Ads account (formerly Google AdWords), you can source more ideas for blogs by using the Keyword Planner tool. You don’t have to pay for an active campaign to do this – just set up the campaign. 

Other free resources that may not be immediately apparent as you search for blog ideas include:

• News items related to your type of business. A recent example: if you’re an accountant who works with day traders, you could blog about how day traders sent GameStop’s share price sky-high. 
• Ted Talks. With the slogan “ideas worth spreading,” Ted Talk videos can often provide ideas for blogs, mainly if you can find ones relating to your industry or profession. Share them with a few paragraphs about why you think they’re important or inspirational.
• Business research studies. If you have research data from your profession or a local trade association, share it on your blog. Google loves a good table or chart. Don’t be overwhelmed by the use of the word “research” here. Your data might be something that you already have or can easily develop.  
  • For example, If you are an accountant, maybe you track how many tax returns you file in February, March, and April. How many of those receive a refund via direct deposit or a check? Are there any interesting findings in this data that you can share? Is there a correlation between when you file a return and how quickly the refund is received? What data can you find hidden in your records?

Benefits of Coming Up with Good Ideas for Blogs

Blogging with quality content regularly can boost your search engine rankings while increasing visits to your business’s website and helping you to establish yourself as an authority on the topics you write about. 

Posted consistently, blogs consolidate your professional credibility in your niche and form an integral part of content marketing strategy. 

This is one of the critical aspects of what Google looks for on a website…is the information helpful and authoritative?

By providing fresh, relevant, and interesting content to your readers, you give them a reason to keep coming back, which increases the likelihood of future purchases of your goods or services. Plus, websites that get clicks are noticed by Google, it makes the association that people like what you have to say and is inclined to place your website higher in the search results.

However, it’s not always easy to pump out new content, especially if you feel you have nothing to write about anymore. We hope these tips on what you can blog about will help you break through any writer’s block to create many quality posts in the future.

One final, cautionary note: be careful to avoid breaching copyright laws in your blogs.

If your website lacks a strong blog section, you could be missing out on multiple opportunities to expand your business.  Ask yourself these questions:

• Are you informed and passionate about your industry, service, and/or product?
• Do you stay on top of changing trends, new products, and services for this industry?
• Do you find that your prospective clients and current clients ask some of the same questions?  I don’t mean that a single client asks the same question, but how many times in a month would you hear “how long does ______ take?” or “Why do I need to have a blog?” (see what I did there ;)? ).

If you answered yes to some or all of those, guess what?  You should probably consider adding a blog to your site.

A blog with quality content gives you a powerful long-term promotional channel to help your business grow in a highly competitive marketplace.

Originally a blog was simply an online journal – “blog” is an abbreviation of “web(site) log” – blogs have evolved into a necessity for businesses to showcase their brand.

And they can work just as well or even better for your Connecticut business as they do for large corporations – if you get it right. A blog with thin content that provides little or no value to the reader can be worse than no blog at all by reflecting poorly on your company.

So, we’ll be looking at how to ensure good content for your blog, but first, let’s take a look at some of the reasons you need it.

Benefits of Good Blog Content

Blogging with quality content is one of the best investments you can make in your business website. This is why so many blogs from businesses proliferate the digital landscape today.

Businesses operate in a world of ever-changing technology and higher expectations from customers. Consistent blogging with useful content gives you an effective means of connecting with these digitally-focused consumers.

A strong blog lets you build brand awareness while giving your existing and potential customers relevant and helpful information.

Benefits of quality blog content include:

• Helping to establish your authority. The best business blogs solve problems and/or answer common questions their current and potential customers may have. If you know your target audience and consistently create content that’s useful to them, they’re likely to regard you as knowledgeable and, possibly, an expert in your field – crucial to build confidence and increase your customer base.
• Long-term results. Blog posts can help to generate traffic and leads for years to come. In fact, many sales may well come via older posts, particularly evergreen content that’s not time-sensitive and retains relevance.

Driving Traffic to Your Website

Each blog post you create is one more opportunity for your business to show up in search engines and drive traffic to your site through organic search, which – unlike paid-for online ads – costs you nothing.

Blogging on your website can also help to strengthen your social media presence. You – and others – can share your posts on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, maybe introducing yourself to a new audience.

A further option is using a blog to produce an infographic or an explainer video. You could also think about pitching your article to a local newspaper.

Internal and External Links

A further benefit of a quality blog post is that it gives you the opportunity to link to a lead-generating call-to-action on your core site pages, turning someone interested in your products or services into a paying customer.

One word of warning on this, though: don’t get pushy. A blog should primarily convey valuable information that helps to establish your expertise and build confidence in your brand – it’s not the same as the more sales-driven product or service pages on your main site.

Linking to another page on your site – particularly the home page – will also appeal to major search engines like Google, and so will adding links to other, authority sites.

You can also drive more traffic to your site by using broken links (404 error) on a higher-ranking site to get a valuable backlink.

What is Quality Blog Content?

As we’ve seen, good blog content offers useful information – in your case, to people using or considering acquiring the types of goods or services your Connecticut business offers.

We’ve also mentioned that evergreen topics are always a good idea. These can include blogs such as:

• How-to… articles. This type of blog post is hugely popular and favored by top digital marketers because it addresses issues close to the heart of a wide range of consumers – including your customers. Example: if you run a home upgrade business, one obvious topic would be: How to avoid a renovation nightmare”.
• Listicles, including advice in the form of tips, are often featured in blogs and typically use devices like a series of bullet points – perfect for dealing with the very real issue/problem that most online readers tend to have a short attention span.

Using Reviews as Blog Content

Not all blogs have to focus on obvious evergreen content to enjoy a long shelf life, and reviews fall nicely into this category.

For instance, keeping an eye on developments in your industry will allow you to share your insights – and show your proficiency – by commenting on news stories or recent trade publication articles.

You could also:

• Review a product or service you think is useful for your clients or points to ways your business can help them in this area.
• Share someone else’s video, with your take on why it’s beneficial for your customers.

How Long Should Your Blogs Be?

There’s a strong case for long-form blog content, and some content marketing gurus advocate posts of at least 2,000 words.  For some reason, there is a correlation between the length of a blog post and the “value” that Google assigns to it.  The longer the post, the more faith Google appears to place in it.  But, we’re not talking empty fluff here, these long-form blog posts are chock-full of information.

However, shorter blogs have their place. Many posts are around the 500-word mark, and they can still offer useful information to help you connect with existing and future clients.

Writing thousands of words can be a daunting prospect and incredibly time-consuming, particularly when you factor in the extensive research likely to be needed to produce something worthwhile for your audience. This is why many businesses outsource this type of blog to a professional writer.

On the other hand, writing fewer words is maybe something you could handle yourself. Short blogs ranging from 300 to 600 words typically focus on a single idea, and it’s a lot easier to create a brief overview of a topic or quick tips that don’t require much explanation.

On the downside, short blog posts aren’t great for getting good Google rankings or attracting valuable backlinks, and readers may regard you as less of an authority on the subject.

A short blog-entry can be a useful tool as a follow-up item with a prospective client, providing more value than just a standard follow-up.  Being able to send a note along with “I know we talked about how to improve the quality of your iPhone videos, here’s a link to a short post I wrote on that topic.  I thought it might be helpful.”

Keep it Simple – But Get the Basics Right

Whether you opt for long blogs or shorter posts, you don’t have to be a Shakespeare or Dickens to get your point across. In fact, short and simple sentences are best for all web content, including blogs.

Nevertheless, you need to have a pretty good grasp of grammar and spelling. Mistakes in these areas will infuriate some readers to the extent they’ll simply stop reading and look elsewhere for the information they want. Relying on inbuilt spelling and grammar checkers doesn’t always solve this problem – none we’ve ever used are perfect, by any means.  Tools like Hemmingway or Grammarly do offer more substantial feedback on your writing, but it still can’t replace the value of having a friend or family member review your article.  In fact, there’s nothing wrong with reading your piece aloud to “hear” any issues you may have missed.

Tell Your Story!

With its journal-type origins, a blog can be a form of storytelling that humanizes your business and explains the passions that drive you and what sets you apart.

This can give small businesses a major advantage over big-budget corporations when it comes to blogs. You can showcase your understanding and belief in your local community in a way that speaks honestly and directly to your audience.

For a business like yours, this helps to make blogging with quality content one of the most cost-effective investments you can make in your website – and your business overall.

There are so many businesses that advertise on the Internet that it’s practically impossible to understand how they do it. Some use paid advertisements, others use social media networks and even more make videos that tie into third-party sales sites. Unless you’re an internet marketing specialist with years of experience under your belt and an eye for analytic analysis, you’re going to be better off hiring someone who has those skills. Besides, you’ve got a business to run and who has time to get up to speed on all that gobbledygook?

How to Create Website Content For A Local Business

Many local business owners have difficulty coming up with ideas about what to put on the website for content. Blogs, vlogs, articles, and other content can be hard to create for many folks.

One simple thing to do is look at other websites in your field and see what they’ve included for content on their sites. Certainly don’t copy their articles, but you’ll get an idea of the topics they are covering and how they cover them.

If you regularly interact with your customers, start a list of the questions they ask on the phone or in person.  If any of those questions come up regularly, those make good blog posts.  There is an excellent article in the New York Times about a business that spent their blog answering the major questions in their industry and had a great outcome doing so.  You can also do this trick by starting to enter questions into Google about your industry and seeing what the auto-complete suggests.  There are tools that offer this same service like AnswerThePublic.

Another way is to think about content subjects that indirectly tie into your product or service. For example, if the website is about a floral shop selling flowers, consider blogs about growing plants or creating office designs with plants as the focus. Ideas happen all the time and it’s important to capture the idea and convert it into content.

Keeping a small note pad handy, using your phones voice recording app or a device’s to-do app will help generate blogs and content much more easily.  Transfer these ideas to a spreadsheet to keep track of them.

How frequently should I post a blog update?

Anything more than 0 is good.  It depends on your workload and how comfortable you are with writing, but if a blog post a month is feasible, start there and see if you can add a few more throughout the year if a topic comes up in the news or you see a very useful Ted Talk.

Divide the work

If you have a few people in your company, maybe consider dividing the writing and editing tasks up, so that each person is responsible for 2 blogs for the year.  The rest of the team can then be the proofreaders.  This can help make the work seem less burdensome and involves your whole team.  If

Keywords Make the Difference

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the keywords used in website content can make or break the marketing effort. Internet searches start with keywords and incorporating the right keywords brings viewers to the website and gets the website rated higher because of that traffic. Discovering the best keywords is part science and part art.

Advertisers tend to focus on industry-specific wording but there is a lot of flexibility when it comes to important keywords that gain attention. An auto shop will want to have keywords like “auto repair” and “accident” in them, but they can also include words like “affordable” or “trusted” or “local” which bring a searcher to their website in addition to the main keywords. By incorporating keywords in blogs, vlogs, descriptions, and other content, a website can gain a significant number of added viewers and that means more business.

Hot buttons Everyone Wants to Push

Small business is as much an art form as it is an economic enterprise. Finding customers and then getting them to buy your product or service can be like pulling teeth sometimes. Everyone knows 90% of the world looks to the internet before going out and buying anything, but how do you get your business the benefits of being on the internet?

Buyers know what they want; they’re looking for the place to buy it. If you don’t have some kind of advertising or marketing program online, you’re missing out on the opportunity to gain some of this valuable search traffic. Gone are the days of radio ads, billboards, and yellow pages as the only option for getting the word out. Those things all still exist, but they aren’t worth much if you don’t have some kind of presence on the Internet.

Caution! Dangerous Curves Ahead

Lots of businesses let family members handle their web presence with the occasional blog post or photo paste. Others pay someone else to take care of it but don’t really understand what’s happening or why. They just hope the phone starts ringing and the door chime fires off more frequently. Ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s expensive. Ignorance also wastes a lot of time and creates added frustration unnecessarily. The Internet isn’t a wild west show with folks blindly firing bullets off in all directions. The Internet is a highly sophisticated communication tool that requires specific knowledge of algorithms, keyword search tools, analytical data results, and a whole bunch of other terms that make the average layman roll their eyes up into their skull.

Too Much Is Riding On This To Ignore It

Small business has plenty of competition from the big boxes, national chains, and regional powerhouses to deal with. Restaurants, mom-and-pop’s, printers, HVAC installers, contractors, and a million other small businesses work their butts off every day trying to scratch out a living. How can a small business owner or manager ever go up against the big advertising and marketing budgets they have to spend? Easy, you go online with a focused campaign to get your business listed near or at the top of the search engine results for your industry in your area. It takes some smarts and a little creativity but it is doable. What you need is a partner that can handle all the details and that’s what The Research Department does for their clients. They handle it all with an eye toward watching the results improve business for their clients.

All Over Connecticut, Across North America, and Around the World

The fact is The Research Department provides internet and marketing services to companies across Connecticut and into Massachusetts and the surrounding states. The truth is any business anywhere can take advantage of the skills and professional services available from The Research Department.

All it takes is a telephone, tablet, or internet-connected computer and you’ve got access to the kind of talent you want to make your website sing.

The Research Department Has You Covered

There is a resource that takes care of all the gobbledygook as well as many other aspects of promoting and marketing a business. The Research Department, with offices in West Hartford, Connecticut, has the background, training, understanding, and ability to handle any company’s web presence. Flower shops and auto repair shops spend the day doing what they do to put money in the till. Taking the time to produce web pages, blogs, videos, and other important ingredients for successful internet results just isn’t in the picture. That’s where The Research Department can step in and take care of it all in a seamless, logical, and profitable way.

One-Stop Shopping

Why deal with four or five different marketing and/or advertising groups to get the job done when you can go to one place? Unless you have a lot of time on your hands and nothing to do with it there’s a lot of logic to this way of thinking. The Research Department handles any company’s marketing and advertising efforts online and offline. Here are a few of The Research Departments strong suits:

• Internet Campaign Strategy
• Internet Content – Blogs, emails, newsletters, videos
• SEO and Pay Per View (PPV) Campaign Strategy
• Website Creation and Maintenance
• Internet Analytics Reports
• Graphic Design – Brochures, business cards, marketing materials
• Advertising Campaign Strategy
• Sales and Marketing Support Pieces

Let The Research Department Do Their Job While You Do Yours

The folks at The Research Department don’t want to turn their customers into Internet gurus. They want to make their customers succeed using the Internet to its best advantages. Some companies need websites with videos, blogs, keyword frames, and other buttons that get lookers out of the “searching” mode and into the “bought” mode. It’s a science, really. But it’s also a form of artwork as well. Choosing the right images and combining those images with the right text content and then making the whole thing work mechanically takes creativity, skill, and talent. Color, motion, and, most of all, a process that captures sales, isn’t something you can whip up in 15 or 20 minutes. Skip the frustration. Avoid the embarrassment. Get The Research department on it and get back to making money.

You can go online to our website and submit any questions you may have using the inquiry form on the contact page. Or you can call 860-561-1156 and speak to a real live, honest-to-goodness person.