Blog Topics & Ideas
If you’ve ever been tasked with writing blog posts around particular topics, finding a particular angle on a blog topic can be tricky. Coming up with idea after idea can be difficult.
You want to keep the blog fresh. You want to make sure the ideas for the posts are relevant. You want to get readers on the page and most importantly, keep them engaged. It isn’t uncommon for many blog writers to eventually run out of post ideas. You are not alone, so don’t feel bad!
This blog will take you through a number of ways you can turn any blog topic into a blog idea. The templates and blog ideas can help you find an angle that will work.
We thought we’d offer some advice to those blog post writers who are tearing their hair out, scrambling to come up with yet another new and innovative post idea. Think of the following as blog post templates and starting points. Seventeen basic ideas that you can then use to flesh out that next amazing post for your blog.
17 of the Best Blog Post Ideas for Any Topic
Content calendars feel relentless at times. We’ve all been there—it never seems to give you a break. And sometimes in response, the more creative side of your brain tends to freeze up. Knowing what works and doesn’t work for your audience can make like a lot easier when deciding what to write.
We’ve got 17 killer blog post ideas to help inspire your next post. Whether yours is a new blog or one that has been around for a while, these topics are certain to help you think of clever ideas for when you sit down to write.
Check out our list of blog ideas below. Each idea is expanded on further down the page.
Keep reading for more information on each of these blogging ideas. Check out our examples and take inspiration. You are sure to find something that could work for you.
1. The ‘How-To’ Blog Post Ideas
How-to guides and those articles offering useful tips are among the most commonly sought after in this blog category. If you can create a ‘how-to’ blog post that focuses on the intent of the reader, and follow through with genuinely helpful information around a question or issue they have you will have an extremely valuable piece of content on your hands.
The three most common types of queries are the following:
- Navigational search queries.
- Informational search queries.
- Transactional search queries.
It’s no surprise that How-to posts are also among the best performing types of posts. Again, people are largely online searching for information that can help them better tackle a project, a task, or a job. Google, on the other hand, is trying to serve the most relevant and valuable information to the searcher.
For this reason, Wiki-how for example has emerged as an incredibly popular blog. Their posts provide not only step-by-step instructions on how to perform X Y or Z but also illustrate that “how.”
And then when you do answer that question, pay attention to the details. Don’t assume people just know what you’re talking about, don’t assume they “get it.” Lay out as many specifics and details as you can.
Examples of “How To” Blog Post Ideas
If your brand has a specific skill or specialized niche, offering tips or a how-to post outlining certain details associated with a specific aspect of your brand could prove pretty popular. In writing a how-to style post a couple of things to keep in mind: answer your own question. In other words, put yourself in the audience’s shoes. Take a step back and look at what you do, also what questions or questions might you have. Use this as a starting point for your how-to or tips blog post.
2. The Problem & Solution Post Idea
If someone has a problem, and you know the answer or solution, it could very well make for an excellent blog post!
A couple of tips for writing the ultimate problem/solution blogs or guides. First off, be as specific as possible. Don’t try and solve every tax problem under the sun in 1000 words or less. It will just come out to be a muddled mess. Secondly, understand the audience. Who will most likely be reading your blog? The more you know about the readers searching for your post, the more you can gear that post to them specifically.
A couple of tips for writing the ultimate problem/solution blogs or guides. First off, be as specific as possible. Don’t try and solve every tax problem under the sun in 1000 words or less. It will just come out to be a muddled mess. Secondly, understand the audience. Who will most likely be reading your blog? The more you know about the readers searching for your post, the more you can gear that post to them specifically.
Problem & solution posts could be anything from ‘How to change a wheel on your car” to ‘How to Edit an Instagram Post AFTER you’ve Posted’.
Problem & Solution Example:
3. Behind the Scenes Posts
What better way to inform readers about your brand, what you do and the value you bring than with a “behind-the-scenes” blog post. Not only is this an opportunity to more effectively educate people about a certain topic related to your brand, but these types of posts also serve to make you seem more “human.” That is to say, you are putting a real face to a name in a manner of speaking. Hopefully they will be intrigued enough to explore your website further.
In this age of transparency and authenticity, the more you show your audience about who you authentically are, the more inspired they will be to do business with you. A critical tip when creating these types of blog posts: make it more visual than you might otherwise do. With your basic blog post or article, you might include an image or two. With a behind-the-scenes post, you probably are going to want to include multiple images; they may even be used to show your progress for let’s say an office build-out or the lead-up to a product launch. Highlight your productivity. However, irrespective of the number of images, make sure you use a tool to compress them. This would help improve your page loading speed and give a boost to your SEO.
4. The Interview blog
With the classic interview blog post, you have the option of interviewing an expert in your field, someone with specialized knowledge within your own company, perhaps even a celebrity of sorts who can shed some light on a relevant topic. The article/post will most likely take a question-and-answer format. That is to say, you will transcribe the question asked and then denote where the interviewee’s answer begins.
What exactly is the value in this type of post? For one, you help to increase your blog’s authority. You can also look at it from the aspect of networking. By setting up and conducting an interview that you will then turn into a blog post, you are creating at least one new relationship that could help your brand.
Also keep in mind, that an interview post could potentially reach the audience of the person whom you are interviewing. If they share it with their followers and blog audience/readers, this could help expand the overall reach of your own brand.
5. The Expert Round-Up Blog Post
A round-up post is quite similar to an interview post except in this case you are gathering meaningful thoughts and quotes from a group of experts or professionals within a certain field or on a given topic. A round-up post helps to create a feeling of involvement among readers, as well as the people who reach out for their contribution. For this reason, Round-Up posts are a fantastic way of getting new social media shares. It can really enable you to grow that audience!
Oftentimes, people will feel that because they face a certain challenge or are grappling with a problem, they are alone. You want to make them feel that they are part of a united online world. The round-up post shows your audience that yes, others have “been there and done that” and are now offering their advice on the subject.
As with the interview blog post, the round-up post also enhances the authority of any blog. Here you have a group of like-minded professionals all providing insider insights about a topic. This is bound to generate interest and get people’s attention.
Other Round-Up Examples
How do I Create an Expert Round-Up Blog?
Step 1: Research questions relevant to your audience. What are they clamoring to read about?
Step 2: Generate a list of experts you can consult.
Step 3: Develop a form for them to fill in–this makes everyone’s life easier.
Step 4: Email the experts and kindly ask them if they are willing to fill out the attached form.
Step 5: Sit down and write that post. When you’ve finished and published it, make sure to let your experts know that it is now live.
When writing this type of content, you want to have a tight intro as well as outro. Let readers know what the post will cover and then neatly sum up what they’ve read. Also, as noted, in the actual content creation involved with creating a round-up post, many blog writers find it easiest to send a questionnaire form to their list of experts; this saves a lot of time (for all involved) and helps streamline the process.
6. Profile Posts
A profile post is most often written about a specific member of your team. It could be the CEO, an executive, marketing director, community outreach leader, a new hire, you name it. Someone who can provide a face for the company and offer unique insights that perhaps people may not know about as regards your brand.
Profile posts, much as with the interview and behind-the-scenes style blog posts, also serve to humanize your company and make it more relatable. After all, a business is about its people; by putting those people front and center you have a greater ability to really connect with your blog readers. If you are starting a new blog, this could be a great early post option.
When creating a profile post, beyond the more common features and insights, you could also add a fun element. Have the person answer an outside-the-box question. Quirky questions and answers can sometimes make for the most fun reading.
7. Write a Prediction Post
Among the most shared and touted posts are those posts that explore what is to come, what is trending, and what you happen to be particularly knowledgeable about. Specialized blog posts don’t necessarily go in any one category. But they do have the ability to gain you a lot of traction—and a lot more followers if done right.
Just as the name suggests, a prediction post gives readers your expert opinion on what you believe is to come. So for instance, you can predict what’s hot on the clothing front. You might write about what you foresee as the next big marketing strategies. You can pen blogs about graphic design and where you anticipate it is headed in the year to come.
The key to a great prediction post is to make sure you back up your predictions; in other words, explain a little about what led you to the conclusion for instance that muted and pastel colors are going to be the next big thing in fashion. Give a rationale for your blog topics.
When creating a prediction blog post keep in mind the kinds of things your audience is eager to know about. What sorts of predictions might help them specifically? To this end, you definitely want to do a little research and look for those most asked questions that you can then strive to answer for them via your predictions.
8. Latest Trends Post
The aforementioned prediction post, a latest trend blog post outlines those things, fashions, colors, designs, you name it, that are trending right now. So versus forecasting what is to come, you are highlighting in your blogs what is happening at this moment. Slight difference, but important nevertheless in blog post creation.
What types of articles make for a killer latest trend post? You might talk about the latest trends in home décor. Sites such as Houzz for example, draw in big-time followers with the latest trend posts of this nature.
This idea list here is endless—from fashion trends to health and fitness trends to food trends even. Get creative and think outside the blog post box on this one. Give your audience something that will actually be useful and entertaining. Entertainment in blog post writing is key, otherwise, people are just bound to click off the page.
Sales-Driven Blog Post Ideas
What are you in business for? For most brands, the answer is probably to sell. There’s nothing that says you can’t promote your brand and/or your products through your blog. You just want to be careful about walking that line between being too pushy and actually being informative. A good sales-driven blog post will be useful to your audience and give them genuine insight into how your offering can help them in a meaningful way.
9. Product Promo Posts
Pretty straightforward, a product promo post is exactly that: a blog post that promotes your latest product or perhaps teases a brand new product. The trick with this type of blog post writing is to offer more than just fluff. Dig deep into the merits of the product and use real-life examples of how this particular item can help alleviate one of your audience’s central pain points if applicable. This is a great approach if you’re serious about omnichannel retail.
A good tip when writing a blog post promoting your product/service, create a story around it. Rather than just using pushy sales language, tell an authentic story about how/why this product came to be. Reveal something quirky or funny even about the lead-up to its launch. You want to make it relatable. A little humanizing here can go a long way.
10. Case Study Topics
Yet another facet of the product promo post in a way, the case study blog post is all about showcasing an actual end-user and their experience with your brand—preferably a positive experience with your brand. That is not to say however that you couldn’t write a case study outlining an initial glitch and then show how you solved the issue.
The good thing about this type of blog writing is that people get to see your product/service in action. They get a glimpse into the life of someone else who worked with your brand and then can read the detailed synopsis of how that went exactly. You could think of this type of post as a glorified review.
When writing a case study post, you want to be prepared ahead of time. So if you know you’re going to create such a case study, start keeping track of the client’s experiences right from your very first interaction with them.
11. Survey Blog Post
When promoting a product or trying to sell readers on a service, you can also have a bit of fun with it. Survey blog posts can be fun to generate and also fun for your audience to read. This type of post after all is putting your customers in the driver’s seat so to speak. Send out a survey or you can post a survey on social media, just have a means of gathering feedback from people. You will then put this all together in the form of an engaging blog post and consequently show readers how their ideas and opinions align with others.
Light-hearted blog posts
The great thing about having a blog and creating posts for it is that every once in a while you get to let your hair down and have some fun with the posts you create. In the world of blogs and blog writing, entertainment is everything. People get up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee and often are searching for more lighthearted pieces to help them kick their day off with a smile. Below are a few fun blog post ideas…
12. Parody Posts
Nothing has a tendency to make people laugh like parody posts. Essentially, these are just blog posts that take an otherwise serious or “real” issue and turn it on its head in a humorous way. Sarcasm can go a long way here in terms of creating a parody post that gets your audience LOL-ing.
To write a great parody blog post you want to use an issue or topic that is fairly well known. Then don’t be afraid to have some fun with it. Of course, you want to steer clear of offensive or crude commentary and/or language in your blog post. But you can push the bounds a bit when writing in the vein of parody.
13. Holiday Posts
hatever the holiday—be it Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day—there is a post just waiting to be written to commemorate the occasion. The key to a worthwhile holiday post is to be sure and cleverly tie it into your brand in some way.
For instance, you might write about how your products can make Christmas time even more cheerful. Or create a blog post that talks about special things that people can do together on Valentine’s Day that in some ways connects with a service you offer.
14. Contest Posts
Who doesn’t love free stuff? Readers will usually clamor to get in on a special contest where the end result is a fun prize. Generally, a company will create a contest post and then highlight that prize: a product or service specific to the brand hosting the contest. This not only gives you a chance to spur the audience to engage with you by way of entering the contest, but also allows you to talk up one of your signature services or offerings.
15. Special Quote Post
People often seek out blog posts that contain a list of special quotes. These can be inspirational quotes, funny quotes, spiritual quotes, you name it. Most often a brand will spotlight quotes that somehow connect to what they do.
The 50 best graphic design quotes of all time (designwizard.com)
The great thing about creating a quote-based blog post is that you are often doing more online searching than actual writing. So if you need a break from actual writing on occasion, this is a good post to create. You will usually write a blurb by way of an introduction and then simply go through and list out those special quotes that tie in with the overall blog post theme.
Creating a blog post from the ground up doesn’t have to be tedious. In fact, it can be quite fun and rewarding. Even if yours is a new blog, you still want a catalog of great ideas and topics to pull from. You need to keep that Rolodex of blog ideas fresh. Any blog creator just wants their readers to look forward to their posts and ultimately enjoy reading what they have to write. Hopefully, this list has just the inspiration you need! And remember to promote your blogs. Tweet about them. Post teasers on Instagram and Facebook. Talk about your blog in your podcast. Anything you can do to drive readers to your blog website and ideally get them to recommend your brand and share.
16. Guest Posting
A guest post is its own unique category in the world of blogging. What is a guest post exactly? Guest posting is basically when you as the expert create a post for someone else’s blog, generally in a niche related to your own field of expertise. Likewise, you might have an expert write a guest post for your blog.
Creating connections and also perhaps more importantly,generating cross-links in this way can be a huge boon to any blog. When it comes to blog posts, you are writing in the hopes of gaining readers and thereby followers. When you create a guest post for someone else, you now have a real chance to tap into their pool of readers. And in having someone write a guest blog post for you, you are hopefully offering their followers a chance to come and “check you out.”
In terms of finding a guest post opportunity you should keep in mind the following:
- Research relevant blogs. That is to say, make sure the topic of that blog is relevant to yours, and then of course be sure to carefully review all guest posting guidelines.
- Make sure the blog owner is active both in terms of the blog itself and social media. You don’t want to waste your efforts writing for a stagnant blog.
- Gauge other guest posts they’ve used on their website. See how these tend to do. And most importantly, see that what you have to say is a good fit.
anne carson
Anne is a former English professor turned content writer. Holding a PhD in Literature, she spent almost a decade in academia putting that degree to use, until finally realizing it wasn't exactly the best fit. A full-time writer, she's learned a great deal about the numerous subjects. She knows a lot about design trends and design templates. A mom of five (two teenagers and three dogs).