Business Blogging – Coming Up With Killer Blog Content Ideas

This is a second post in the business blogging series. My aim for the series is to teach you how you can effectively use blogging to grow your business.

Most people are scared of writing. I know, not so long ago I was one of them.

But what used to scare me more was coming up with ideas for content. Let’s face it, it’s one thing to be good at what you do but showing it in any other way than through your work is another.

I am sure you know something about that, right?

Luckily, there is a very easy way to come up with content so good, that it will satisfy even your most demanding clients and prospects. But here is the best part, it will take you no more than 10 minutes a day to do so.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Before I tell you more about it though, I want to talk briefly about one more thing, what actually makes a killer blog content. Without knowing and understanding the mechanics of it, the only way you can write good blog posts is by chance, sorry.

What makes a killer content

In order for your business blog to be successful, and in case of a company blog this is usually measured by how much it helps you with prospect to client conversion, your posts have to pass these criteria:

1. They need to be useful.
2. They have to show your passion and dedication to your work.
3. They must help your clients and prospects to work better and be more efficient.

And that’s all. You don’t need anything else in them but these three things to turn your blog from an average corporate one about nothing to a powerful tool that will help you attract and convince new clients to your business.

How to come up with killer content ideas

You do that in two steps.

Firstly, read all of your recent correspondence with clients. Make notes of questions they were asking you. Do the same with prospect inquires. Both will tell you a lot about what your potential readers would like to learn about in regards to your area of expertise.

Then, once you have your notes, and it will probably take you only a couple of minutes to make them, start looking for content ideas:

Go to sites like ezinearticles.com or other good article directories, Youtube and other video sites and search for all the things your clients have inquired about.

Do the same with Twitterand other major social networking sites. Also check other blogs (the best way is through Google blog search) and set up Google alerts.

Basically, try to see what other people wrote about your topic. You will find posts exactly on the subject, but also a lot of materials that approach it in unusual way, or are only partially related to it. Make notes of all of them, these are your content ideas.

Of course don’t copy those articles, only check what other people write about in relation to your topic. In most cases, they write all this to similar people that you would, so you can easily see what your target audience would like to read about.

I usually spend around 10 minutes a day researching ideas this way. And every time I end up with more content ideas than I can fit into my posting schedule. But what’s most important is that this is the exact content my prospects would be interested in.

What’s Next?

Of course, once you have your content ideas you will have to write those posts. Next week I will show you how you can do so easily, even if you have never written a blog post before!

Tune up next week for part 3 of the series.