How to Come Up with Content Ideas to Write About

​You need a great deal of content to keep your audience engaged and build a strong relationship with them. Once you’ve established this relationship, you can offer products and services and your audience members will buy. But if you’re just getting started, you may be wondering, what exactly should you be writing about? 

Here are a few ways to think up great content ideas so you’ll never run out of things to write about. 

What Can You Teach? 

What do you know that you can teach others? You have skills and expertise that most people don’t have. Sharing this knowledge through your content will produce a ton of value for your audience. Teach people what you know and make it easy to for them to understand and consume. 

How Do You Help People? 

How have you helped people in the past? Think back to encounters you’ve had with your customers where you’ve answered questions or offered other types of help. If you see a common question you’ve been asked time and time again, this probably is something many more people need help with. This would be a great topic for a piece of content. 

What Does Your Audience Want to Know? 

Establish points of contact with your audience and listen to them when they express their concerns and needs. Follow people on social media and other places online where you can participate in conversations and read comments. You can also ask your audience members directly what problems they need help with, and then see if you can help them.  

Some places to look for ideas on your audience’s needs include: 

Social Media. Follow your audience members on social media. See what they post, what comments they make, and what other businesses they follow for help with their problems. 

Blog Posts. Check out blogs in your niche and look at their comments. People will often ask questions in the comments related to the topics covered in the post. 

Question and Answer Sites.​ Look at Q&A sites like Quora where you’ll find people asking questions for the community to answer. You can answer these questions through blog posts or other types of content. 

Other Content Creators. Follow other content creators in your niche to see what they’re writing about. Don’t forget podcasts, YouTube channels, and social media. Don’t cover the exact same topics but use their content to get ideas on what’s trending and gaps you can fill. 

Keep an Idea File 

The above is enough to get you started. Start building an idea file. When you sit down to create content, you’ll often have to brainstorm to get you started. Instead of needing to brainstorm a new topic each time you write, you can refer to your idea file to simply pick one and get started. 

Find some other good sources of ideas and bookmark them. When you need further ideas, you can refer to these sites. 

Remember that marketing is all about trial and error. Try something new and see how your audience responds. Sometimes a totally unique idea will give you a piece of viral content. Keep track of what your audience likes, and you’ll be able to find more great ideas for them.  


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Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.