Sitting and staring at the computer screen hoping for words to flow is a constant issue for me. The best way to grow your blog is by producing new quality content on a regular basis.
1. Answer the Public
I have found Answer the Public resources essential for finding new blog post topics.
This is a service that is now owned by Neil Patel. The free version allows you to search 3 times daily which is more than enough to find blog post topics.
Answer the Public pulls information directly from Google’s autocomplete and frequently asked questions. As of writing this post, this is the only marketing product I have actually paid for. They are offering a lifetime membership for $100.
Simply search for a broad topic that is related to your niche and the program will pull up to 387 search queries. These are actual search queries people have typed in Google. One nice thing about this program is it also shows estimated search volume and CPC.
2. Competition Within the Niche
One method I use for breaking my writer’s block is going through my competitor’s archives. I highly recommend keeping a bookmark folder with at least 10 top blogs in your niche.
Right now I am focusing on writing about blogging. I have a folder bookmarking many of my competitors (Problogger, Coplyblogger, Income School, etc..).
No matter the niche there will be bloggers that have been around and have written on similar topics. I am not saying to plagiarize, but if they are an authority blogger in your niche and have written an article on a topic you should have an article on that topic as well.
3. Google Search and Google News
There are several great ways to use Google when looking for topics to write about. The three methods I use are using Googles general search function, using Google news, and using search operators.
Before writing any blog post it is a good idea to search for the exact title of the post you will write. This will bring up your direct competition.
When looking through the top positions there will be two things you will be looking at. The first thing is the authority of the websites. This will allow you to see what chance you have for ranking. To see the exact authority use ahrefs free authority checker.
The second thing you will be looking at is the subheadings for each page. Copy all of them to a Google doc and make sure you cover all these sub-topics in your post.
Google news is the best way to see trendy topics within your niche. Type a broad topic within your niche into Google then hit news results. This will show you a list of new and trending topics that you can write about within your niche.
The final way I use Google when trying to figure out what topics to write on is by using search operators. I use this method in conjunction with competitor analysis. The site: is a powerful operator that limits the results to pages within a certain website.
An example of this would be site:writersguidance.com blogging. This would bring up every article that I have on this site with the term blogging in it. By using this you can pull up articles written about a subject on a competitor/news website.
4. Quora
Quora is one of my favorite websites to find blog post suggestions. Quora is a website that lists millions of questions from people all over the world about every subject imaginable. I spend many hours per week looking through questions about blogging.
If you know how to answer a question on quora then you probably have enough information on the topic to write a blog post. If there is one person looking for an answer to a question within a certain niche there are probably many people searching Google for that exact question.
Quora is also an excellent place to begin building yourself up as an authority within your niche. If you take the time to answer numerous questions well, you will quickly become known as a person with expertise in the niche.
I do recommend limiting yourself on Quora though. I spent countless hours scrolling through and answering hundreds of questions about blogging. This meant a lot of time that went to Quora rather than building up my own blog as the resource for blogging.
5. Reddit
Reddit is a website that shares a lot of characteristics with Quora but is not question-based. Here you will find many individuals within your niche sharing knowledge on the given topic.
For me I use this site just like Quora. I joined the r/blogging subreddit and post answers to questions and thoughts on certain concepts. Both Quora and Reddit give you the ability to actually create blogs/groups on a given topic which would be a great way to build community and audience.
Conclusion
These are some of the ways that I find topics for my blog posts. Once you decide on a topic by using these methods make sure to use one of the free keyword tools like ahrefs or wordstream to see the estimated traffic volume for the search queries you are targeting. This is not a comprehensive list and will be updated regularly as my methods grow. Please leave a comment on any method you use and would like to see added to this list.