5 Ways to Figure out What Blog Posts You Should Write
Your content plays a key role in your marketing and can convert leads into customers so you don’t want to just guess what your audience wants to read.
If you know what to do and where to look you can easily learn what your audience is telling you.
Do you know what your audience wants from you?
Have you ever taken the time to ask them what they are struggling with?
If you haven’t, now is the time.
As bloggers, we often assume we know what our audience wants from us.
The problem with this is we spend a lot of time creating content that our audience doesn’t care to read.
Or, maybe you are just starting out and are unsure what you should even post.
It’s time to stop guessing and start to figure out exactly what your audience needs from you BEFORE you create content.
In order to successfully serve your audience with content they’ll love, you need to uncover their fears, desires, struggles, and dreams so that you can write content that speaks directly to them.
As you go through this process, keep all of the information you learn in one place.
This can be in a Google Spreadsheet or a notebook as long as you can use it to reference when you are writing new blog posts.
5 Ways to Figure out What Blog Posts You Should Write
#1 - Just ask
I know this isn’t some profound idea, but how will you ever know what they want from you if you don’t ask?
A lot of bloggers are hesitant to ask their audience what they want to learn more about because they want to be seen as an expert or want to portray that they have it all together.
There is nothing wrong with being transparent with your audience and asking for their help.
Come out and ask them what they are struggling with most right now.
If you do not have an audience yet, then tap into your personal or professional network.
Maybe there are people you already know who fit your target audience criteria.
Or, you can even ask if they have any references for people who would love what you talk about on your blog.
The key is to ask open-ended questions about where they can offer their thoughts and feedback.
You don’t want it to be a yes or no question because it doesn’t give them the opportunity to explain their issues and struggles.
One way that this can be done is by asking in an email.
You can either center the email around it asking them a few questions or at the bottom ask them to hit reply and let you know what the #1 thing they are struggling with [insert blog topic].
Let them respond back and start a discussion about the issues.
Hearing their struggles in their own words will help you to not only understand them more but give you a ton of ideas for content.
The point is to start engaging with your audience.
You want to build a relationship with them so you can solve their problems with your content.
This can also be done through direct messages on Instagram.
Find your target audience on Instagram and start engaging with their feeds or even stories. Take the conversation to DM’s and learn what they need from you.
#2 - Surveys and polls
Another way to ask your audience what they need so you can create new content is to make a survey or poll.
Survey - Create a quick survey using Typeform or Google Forms and ask your audience a few questions so you can get to know them better. This literally will only take you a few minutes to create. I send out a survey to my audience every 3-6 months.
The key is to ask open-ended questions about where they can offer their thoughts and feedback.
Here are a few questions to consider:
What are you struggling with most right now? (relevant to your niche)
Why haven't you been able to solve this problem yet?
How have you tried to solve this issue?
Try to get as many people who are your ‘ideal audience’ to answer your survey.
I recommend sending it out to your email list instead of posting on social media.
You don't want to just have anyone answer the questions because their response won’t help you to create this offer since they are not the person you are targeting.
Polls - These can be done using Facebook or Instagram. I don't recommend you going into someone else's Facebook group because you want your target audience to answer, but if you have your own group this is a great place to start.
You can ask a question with options or create a poll post.
If your audience is hanging out on Instagram then their polls is a super easy option to use inside of your stories. Come up with a few easy this or that type poll questions and see what you can learn from your audience.
Related: 3 Reasons Why You’re Not Consistent With Your Content
#3 - Get on a call
This is one of the best ways to learn from your audience because you get to have face-to-face interaction with them.
Reach out to the people you enjoy serving most in your audience and see if they will hop on a call to work through issues they are having right now.
Offer your help and expertise. You will learn a lot from this phone call to start creating content around. This is a great option if you are just getting started and do not currently have an audience.
Interview audience members - ask a select few people in your audience if they will hop on a 15-minute call with. Have a few questions ready and write down what you learn.
#4 - Listen to what they are saying
As bloggers, we are always responding back to questions, emails and comments that we are receiving, but are you taking the time to really listen to what your audience is saying.
Go back to your most popular blog posts and read the comments or questions that are being posted by your audience.
What are you always asked about?
What topics do your audience seek your help with frequently?
Are their questions that keep coming up again and again. Turn those most popular questions into individual blog posts.
#5 - Look at the data
Don’t just rely on what you think your audience wants to hear from you, actually take time to look at data to help you make decisions.
There are so many different places that can help guide you when trying to figure out what blog posts your audience wants to read.
Pinterest - Pinterest drives the most traffic to both of my websites so it is one of the first places I turn to. I love exploring Pinterest Analytics to identify which content is bringing in the highest amount of traffic per month. Then, I’ll come up with a list of related blog post ideas.
You can also use the Pinterest search bar and type in specific keywords that you know your audience is searching for on Pinterest.
Click on some of the suggested search results buttons at the top or scroll through the images that pop-up.
Google Analytics - Open up your account and go into Behavior > Site Content > All Pages to look at your most popular content.
What content is the most popular?
Think about related blog posts that you can write based upon what your account is showing you.
Need help creating content?
Check out my post on How to Plan a Year of Blog Content In An Hour.
I hope this post helps you to figure out the content your audience really needs from you. You can learn so much when you take a little time to plan and come right out and ask.