Investing in content marketing can secure exceptional results for your brand. It’s why 97% of businesses had a content marketing strategy in place in 2021. And it’s why 72% of organizations plan to increase their content marketing budgets in 2022.
You probably know that focusing on quality and consistency is crucial to content marketing success. Yet, like most marketers, you’re likely to still struggle with one aspect of publishing and distributing content that delivers results: selecting topics for your company blog.
You may explore and follow current trends, and you may even do competitor research and do your best to cover the same subjects they do. But, without a strategic approach to choosing topics for your blog, you’ll simply be tapping around in the dark, hoping that your blind guesses result in gains.
Fortunately, however, there are more effective ways for selecting topics and ensuring that your content stands out, generates traffic, and encourages web visitors to convert. The key is to have a clear vision of your objectives and to select topics that will align with those goals.
This guide covers the most important considerations when selecting blog topics, depending on what you want to get out of your content marketing efforts.
1. Generate Organic Traffic
If you consider the most common reason marketers invest in the production and distribution of content, you’ll find that brand awareness falls among their top objectives.
According to Content Marketing Institute, 80% of marketers consider content distribution an effective way to enhance brand recognition. Statista’s research discovered that as many as 79% of B2B and 77% of B2C marketers use content to maximize their reach.
The best way to measure brand awareness created via content marketing is to focus on generating organic website traffic. And the way to effectively do so is to invest in SEO.
By doing something as simple as performing in-depth keyword research and creating posts around the search terms you want to rank for, you can effectively select the best topics for your blog and maximize your chances of winning position #1 on Google.
To ensure your work results in positive outcomes for your brand, make sure that you:
- Use a keyword planner tool to identify popular search terms in your niche. This tool will give you an idea of what your target audience is searching for on Google.
- Choose to target search terms with a high search volume and low competition level, as these will be the easiest to rank for.
- Explore keyword trends to ensure you’re using the correct synonyms and providing relevant content that aligns with your audience’s current behavior.
- It’s also not a bad idea to research your competitors. You’ll get an overview of what search terms they’re ranking for and allow you to identify potential opportunities for topics they haven’t yet covered.
For a great example of a business that does all this when selecting blog topics, check out Fire Pit Surplus. This brand creates content around niche keywords such as “concrete fire pit table,” allowing it to secure position number one on Google and a CTR that exceeds 30%.
Source: google.com
2. Build Topical Authority
Building topical authority is another common goal for content marketers investing in publishing blog posts. Essentially, if you want to secure high Google rankings, you can produce content that will:
- Show your experience and expertise on a specific subject.
- Build brand trust and positively impact how your target audience perceives your business.
- Position you as the go-to for potential customers with particular pain points.
And the great thing is, this is all relatively easy to accomplish.
The most important thing to do is to focus your energy on producing blog posts that revolve around the same topics and keywords (basically creating pillars and clusters).
So, for example, if you have a pillar page you want to generate traffic for, make sure that you publish as many other articles about the same topic as possible: target similar and related search terms. Look at how Eachnight publishes multiple blog posts about mattresses and sleep.
Source: eachnight.com
Additionally, ensure that your content employs a robust internal linking structure. This strategy will guide your readers through the various posts that could help them gain value from your website, and it will also help with SEO and establish your brand’s topical authority.
Lastly, remember that covering the same subjects repeatedly might seem repetitive. However, if you change your point of view and look at things from your audience’s perspective, you’ll find many ways to contribute to a subject.
A great way to do this is to identify commonly asked questions in your niche. Or, better yet, explore the “People also ask” section on Google SERPs as done by The Drive. This online publication built its topical authority by covering every single question that has to do with electric vehicles.
Source: google.com
3. Appeal to Your Audience
Another consideration you need to make when selecting topics for your blog is whether the way you cover those topics appeals to your audience.
If you look at how consumers choose what brands to buy, you’ll find that a large portion of their decision-making process has to do with authenticity and ESG factors (in addition to price and convenience, of course). So, by ensuring that you hit the right approach to the subjects you cover, you can maximize the chances of your audience finding value in your blog posts, agreeing with your point of view, and choosing to support your business.
Investing in content that solves or addresses your audience’s specific pain points is the most important thing. But that’s not all you can do. By taking a step further and ensuring that you align your tone and voice with your target audience, you’ll guarantee even better results and arrive at blog posts that your potential customers value (and look forward to reading).
For example, if you look at two competitor brands, such as Sendinblue and MailerLite, you’ll see how their tone of voice vastly differs. The reason is super simple: they’re aiming to attract different users.
Sendinblue, on the one hand, is geared towards professionals who don’t mind paying a premium monthly subscription price for a powerful piece of software. The company uses more complex language (like in the example below), doesn’t shy away from employing niche-specific jargon, and chooses to cover topics that will bring new value to experienced email marketers.
Source: sendinblue.com
MailerLite, on the other hand, employs a much more conversational and playful tone in its content. Plus, the topics it covers are more general (even beginner-oriented). This brand’s core audience consists of small businesses that may not need all the bells and whistles that come with a product such as Sendinblue.
Source: mailerlite.com
4. Add Value Indefinitely
Selecting topics for your company blog can be challenging when you don’t know what to write about. However, if your content marketing objective is to provide your readers with indefinite value, your best bet is to focus your attention on producing evergreen content.
The great thing is that selecting topics that have the potential to turn into evergreen posts is not that difficult.
According to Backlinko, there are a few tactics that can help you maximize the chances of your articles generating traffic, shares, and engagement long into the future:
- List posts have a high likelihood of becoming evergreen, which is why you should make sure that you include these types of articles in your content marketing strategy. For example, if you search for “best blue light blocking glasses” on Google, you’ll find that this article from the Strategist ranks in position #1, which might just be because it’s formatted as a list post and includes the number of items in the title.
- Distributing content on Reddit makes for another excellent strategy for turning blogs into evergreen articles. So, as you look for approaches that will help you select topics with the highest future potential, why not browse the social network for some commonly asked questions from people who align with your target audience?
- Adding the current year in the title of your posts can increase their chances of becoming evergreen. Keep this in mind when choosing topics for your company blog.
- Certain publications have an excellent track record of publishing evergreen content; don’t be afraid of looking to them for inspiration. High-authority sites in your industry (like HBR and Hubspot) have perfected the art of selecting topics with exceptional longevity.
Additionally, don’t underestimate the benefit of choosing super-niche topics for your blog. This tactic might be the key to beating your competition and building your brand’s authority, as it relies on covering subjects no one else is talking about in your industry. FE International implements the method spectacularly by creating in-depth guides, like this one on how to value a SaaS business, providing readers with insightful advice they can hardly get anywhere else.
Source: feiternational.com
5. Promote Your Product
The main benefit of investing in content marketing is that it’s an excellent method for building brand awareness and establishing your authority. However, it’s not always the best way to promote your products. Unless, of course, you’re OK with coming off as sales-y.
(In practice, it’s better to stay clear of aggressive sales tactics, seeing that they often alienate audiences and result in poor brand perception.)
However, by knowing how to select the best topics for your company blog, you can effectively create a space to promote your products without making yourself seem too pushy.
For example, check out this guide to invoice data extraction software from Affinda. By taking a close look at the title itself, you’ll discover that the post subject was chosen for its potential to combine valuable information with promotional space.
The emphasis in the article is not necessarily on the brand’s product. However, seeing that it explores the various features of data-extraction software, there is a logical section of the article (towards the end) where the brand can mention its software product naturally and without coming off as aggressively sales-y.
Source: affinda.com
Alternatively, you can look at examples of brands putting together product roundups, like this piece on the best team chat apps by Chanty. In these articles, brands usually advise readers on what software solution or physical product to choose while using the opportunity to logically and objectively show their offer.
Naturally, if this is the direction you choose when selecting topics for your company blog, make sure that you prioritize transparency. Moreover, ensure that the body of the article provides readers with value, as a piece of purely promotional content that doesn’t offer helpful information won’t do well with your audience and will only harm your business’ reputation (and SEO).
Source: chanty.com
6. Boost Customer Loyalty and Lifetime Value
A commonly overlooked benefit of a well-developed content marketing strategy is its potential to drive customer loyalty.
When your readers are engaged, they’re more likely to try your products. Moreover, by consistently presenting them with high-quality content, you’re steadily encouraging their preference for your brand, seeing that people often make purchasing decisions based on familiarity.
So, we could argue that a well-planned content marketing strategy significantly boosts customer retention and increases customer lifetime value. Both of these are essential contributors to the long-term success of your business.
If your objective is to drive loyalty through content, you have to guarantee that the topics you select gear towards delivering existing clients with value. And one of the most suitable post types that can help you do this is tutorials.
By producing educational posts that teach your customers how to get more out of their purchase, you’re actively enabling a better customer experience, which results in higher customer satisfaction and, consequently, greater loyalty and lifetime spend.
Discord has an exceptional strategy for publishing content aimed at customers. The brand regularly introduces new product features with in-depth guides for users, making it more likely that people will use the new functions in real-life. Discord’s content marketing team also takes the time to publish blog posts about topics its audience cares about. They are using articles to build a community and encourage customers to adopt a positive view of the brand and its mission.
7. Create a Market for Your Product
Finally, if your business operates in a niche market or if you’re trying to expand your reach in an industry that’s still not getting sufficient traction, your main marketing objective might be to create a market for your product. And the great thing is that selecting suitable topics for your company blog could help you do this.
By choosing topics that inform readers on how to solve a specific pain point, you can effectively draw their attention to the fact that some products and services meet their needs. This is what brands like Nightwatch do: they create instructional posts on how to accomplish a goal and present readers with solutions from their products.
Source: nightwatch.io
Alternatively, your target audience may be used to businesses doing a specific thing for them. Consider the example of the DIY post by Sola Wood Flowers on making a cascading bridal bouquet. You could put together educational posts that empower your potential customers to do something independently instead of hiring someone to do it for them.
Write articles that encourage readers to try doing the thing by themselves. Then, present them with product recommendations, which will maximize your chances of winning their business and contribute to them knowing what they need and having a positive customer experience when shopping with your brand.
Source: solawoodflowers.com
The Best Topics for Your Company Blog
Knowing what type of content to produce and distribute can be difficult. However, the best way to select topics for your blog is to develop a clear idea of what you want to achieve.
Once you’ve defined your content marketing goals, you can use the tips from this guide to choose article subjects. The result won’t just be a company blog with an extensive reach. More importantly, an entire website section will present your readers with value, nudge them towards conversion, and cement your brand’s authority in your specific niche.
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