Whether you are building a niche site, blog or an authority website you will need a healthy source of blog post ideas to establish yourself and generate traffic to your website.
After reading this article you should have no shortage of things to blog about.
The purpose of this ultimate guide on blog post ideas is to arm you, the reader with all of the tools necessary to start publishing high-quality content and make sure you never run out of ideas and keywords to target.
That doesn’t mean you should publish for the sake of it, you should always exercise a quality over quantity approach but it’s never a bad thing to have plentiful ideas to use when you do publish something fresh.
If you are looking for inspiration on what topics and subjects you should be blogging about then head over to our blog topics and niche ideas article.
Types of Blog Content
I group blog post ideas into two distinct groups, evergreen, and time-sensitive.
Evergreen
Evergreen content refers to articles and posts that should last the test of time and remain largely relevant for at least 1-2 years. Content with this characteristic is the best to invest your time into as it offers the best possible return on investment.
This group includes ultimate guides on different topics, tutorials etc.
Time-sensitive
Time-sensitive is as the name explains only relevant for a certain amount of time. In my experience, I would advise not investing too much of your content time and budget into content that is only going to be meaningful for a short period of time.
This group includes news posts, articles about launches, press releases and anything else that will only remain relevant for a short amount of time.
List of Blog Post Ideas
So now we have established that you want to be investing most of your time into evergreen content let’s dig into a list of different types of blog post you can use for inspiration.
While this is an ultimate guide, it should be worth noting that I am not going to add content ideas that are kitschy and seldom allow you to create meaningful content so your efforts are focused on content that works.
List Posts
You have seen them, 101 Reasons why… or something to that effect. They are popular because they work.
When people see a headline that is obviously a list post it usually tells them it’s going to be a list of short actionable ideas, and when people are in a hurry this is great bait.
One of the benefits of list posts is that it’s much easier to write a thousand words or more when you can write one to two hundred words about 10 or 20 different points you want to make or when you are talking about a number of things that all fit within a topic.
On the Mazepress blog, I have list posts for the best autoresponder services and the best SEO tools for example.
This works in every niche or market sector so try writing down some list post ideas and put them on your content development roadmap.
How-To Post
Blogs are a great tool for educating your readers and potential customer and so how-to posts are a great way to both create content and establish yourself as an authority and leader in your niche.
I have published hundreds of how-to posts over the years but one published on Mazepress is How to Get More Followers on Instagram.
You can create a blog article that is all text with a few images or you could also repurpose your content and make a video version and embed it in your post.
Break your how-to guide into easy to digest actionable steps to keep the readers attention vs an essay type format.
What can you teach people? Offering free educational value to your reader is one of the best ways to start establishing trust and building a relationship.
People tend to remember who taught them things that benefitted them and are much more likely to share your article if they feel they came away with something valuable.
Case Study Post
People like to see results, creating case studies achieves this and also taps into another human trait.
Us human beings are particularly receptive to storytelling and a case study is, of course, a type of story.
Give your readers some real-world scenarios of where someone went through a process from A-Z, cover their progress and then add your own conclusion.
Research Post
Research articles can be a bit more advanced but they work like gangbusters for getting you backlinks since doing your own independent research is hard to copy or replicate and you are more likely to get backlinks.
After doing your own research and producing an article discussing your findings follow it up with outreach and you are much more likely to get a higher response rate from other website owners, bloggers or journalists that want to feature and or link to your research.
Power tip: Repurpose your research into the form of an infographic and use that as bait when working on building links to your website via outreach.
Read our guide on clever ways you can repurpose content to get more traffic without creating new articles.
FAQ’s
Frequently Asked Questions are another great way to create a blog post.
You can use these questions to create a cohesive article on a topic or you can list out the most common questions that get asked about a specific subject, product or service and post in that format instead.
Personally, I tend to prefer using an FAQ page for most websites however if your blog is talking about lots of different products and topics then it might justify having an FAQ blog post for each.
Here’s my preferred approach. Rather than creating FAQ posts, when you create an ultimate guide on a subject, add an FAQ section to the bottom to rebuttal any last concerns and answer short questions.
This may also be even more relevant as Google now understands more natural search queries due to the growth in people using voice search with Google Home, Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri the way we search is different so this should be reflected in the way we write too.
Checklists
Checklists are another great way to create content and provide the reader with a useful tool they can use as a reference.
Like list posts checklists are easy to digest and make it easy for your reader to skim through various points to see if they find something interesting that they haven’t seen before.
Checklists are a fantastic educational resource and for even more benefit you can repurpose your checklist as a PDF download your readers can save for later and make it a content upgrade with a lead magnet so you can build your email list in return.
I have created hundreds of checklists over the years and the chances are you have too.
If you have any internal checklists you use regularly, why not repurpose them into a blog post and share your system with the world?
Ultimate Guide Post
You are reading one!
Yes, this is an example of an ultimate guidepost.
But wait, didn’t I say it was a list?
Well, that’s a point worth mentioning because oftentimes these blog post ideas have a certain degree of overlap and are not to be seen as mutually exclusive.
An ultimate guide should be a pretty straightforward concept to understand, you create an extremely comprehensive article on a topic that covers everything your reader needs to know.
The best way to create an ultimate guide is to follow the SkyScraper Technique coined by SEO laureate Bryan Dean of Backlinko.
Take the best and most link-worthy content ranking on the first page of Google for your chosen topic or keyword and make something even better.
Series Posts
Some articles are better suited to being a series.
Good examples of this include weight loss plans, progress reports, or news-worthy however series posts don’t have to be time sensitive.
If you were to cover contemporary art you could create an artist spotlight series and do individual articles talking about Damien Hirst, Ai Weiwei and Jean-Michel Basquiat as part of an ongoing series you post each week.
I love creating series posts and have written many in the past on my now defunct GrievousBodilyCharm magazine on everything from classic hip-hop to artists using new and unusual mediums to express themselves.
The great thing about creating a post series is that if it becomes popular it’s like having a blog within a blog(inception moment), with its own following eager to read the next installment every week or however frequently you are publishing.
Profile Post
Write an article about a specific person in your niche or just someone of interest.
If you are writing about somebody in your niche this could work as ego-bait to help you get a backlink or help in promoting the article by the person you are talking about.
You could also do a hybrid of a profile piece with a list post and list out 10 influential people in sector X.
Once you have published your article reach out to those mentioned to let them know and ask if they would share it with their audience.
Of course, that’s provided it’s not a hatchet job.
Yeah, avoid doing that!
It’s just not good eKarma and I’m not talking about the island in the Pacific Ocean.
Crowdsourced Post
Have you ever wished a post would write itself?
I have good news.
Crowdsourcing a post is a smart, if not cheeky way to compile a great piece of content rich with insights from experts.
Seek experts, influencers and thought leaders in your market sector or niche and ask if they would like to contribute a 100-200 word response to your question in exchange of a mention and usually a link to make sure you get a reply.
Ask each person one or two questions and then pick the best answer to each of your questions and hey presto you have the meat and bones of a new blog post without writing more than a list of questions and doing a bit of outreach.
Then you can just add your introduction and conclusion and hit publish.
The bonus is that when you have this piece live and send it to the experts who contributed it’s highly likely they will share it out with their audience.
Building partnerships like this and reaching a wider audience through collaboration is one of the best growth hacks you can put into action.
News Posts
News posts are of course as the name suggests time sensitive and not evergreen however they do have a place. I just don’t think they should consume the majority of any blogger or content creators time as they don’t offer the same kind of rewards that evergreen content does.
Each page or post you create is essentially another digital salesman for your brand, blog or business. This means if you can keep them working 365 days of the year, all year and next year then they are much more useful to you than a one week intern.
If you are already producing regular high-quality content and have the capacity to produce more then feel free to add some news posts, or maybe a news roundup series where you do weekly coverage on the biggest news in your space.
Otherwise, and if you are just starting out I would say skip the news.
Transcribed Podcast or Interview
Another great way to produce content is to start a podcast and the side benefit of doing this is that you can quickly repurpose this audio format by transcribing the podcast into a blog post.
You can do a podcast on your own talking about a subject in detail or you can interview other people.
Share the podcast on your blog in audio format and add the transcribed version underneath for those who prefer to read and to add some high-quality content to your website.
There are tools out there to auto-transcribe your audio into text but it’s always recommended to go over yourself or have a professional clean it up before publication.
Curation / Best of Posts
This is a form of list post where you essentially take the best 20 news articles or other types of articles you have found and publish them as a list with a summary of each one written by yourself.
If you are running a website or blog about homesteading you could list out the best 10 homesteading articles you found each week, list them out with the link to each article along with why you liked it and why your readers might enjoy it too.
Curation posts allow you to create something current when you are short on time but I personally try and avoid them unless you can make them into an ongoing and consistent series like “Monthly Productivity Hacks”.
One benefit is that by reaching out to the sites you mention some might be happy to share it out with their audience and help give you a bit of a push with your blog post promotion.
Problem and Solution Post
This can serve as both a great blog post and also a fantastic sales tool since the best sales funnel always begins with emphasizing the problem your reader is experiencing.
So talk about a common problem your ideal reader or buyer experiences and even better if you have experienced the same problem because this helps people relate.
Then explain the solution you are advising or used yourself and what you learned in the process and if you would have done anything differently if you did it all over again.
Practicing this kind of content is a great way to refine your copywriting as this is the kind of content that converts.
Quote Posts
Creating a quote post can be a great way to share advice from experts in your field by quoting what’s publicly available online.
I think it can have limited longevity and repeatability but some websites but it may be worth exploring once or twice on your blog if this kind of content resonates well with your audience.
Everybody has come across these articles in the past “17 Inspiring Quotes That Will Change the Way You See The World” and other titles to similar effect.
Stories
Creating a story post is a great way to capture your readers’ imagination.
Tell a story from your experience and it’s far easier to get your points across since you can make the reader relate to you by seeing how you were once in their shoes or how someone else started from the bottom and now they here.
If you want to make your content more compelling then start adding stories, either by adding a story post or using a story within other types of blog post.
If you are teaching people then there’s no better way to explain something by telling a relatable story.
and it doesn’t need to be a work of Charles Dickens to tug at the heartstrings of your reader.
Product Tips Posts
If you have products that you use often and can teach others tips on how to get the best results why not create tips on how to use different products.
These can work as great promotional content while still delivering value.
Educational sales and marketing convert well for a reason. If you are helping people they will appreciate it and be more likely to follow your recommendations.
Review Posts
Review posts are great for two reasons.
Firstly they are a popular type of content for people searching products and services so oftentimes can offer a lot of search volume but secondly because they tend to have a commercial angle you may be able to monetize.
Monetizing your blog, of course, is an important factor in keeping the lights on and making sure you can keep turning up consistently to blog and serve your audience with high-quality content.
Review products, services, and companies in your niche or that you have used to help your audience make decisions on whether they should buy or not.
There are also lots of products and services offering affiliate programs that are worth looking at to see if you can add a link to your article that makes you a commission on each sale.
Make sure to discuss the benefits as well as the features, this is an essential copywriting tip when it comes to talking about products you are recommending.
Comparison Posts
Comparison posts are another popular content type that is an extension of the review post.
By comparing two or more specific products in the same category you can help your readers at the final stage of their purchasing decision.
Comparison search queries are also popular and often low hanging fruit with low competitiveness in the search engine rankings.
Search for “Product A vs Product B” for example and you will find articles of this variety.
Talk about the benefits as well as the features and if you want to build trust mak sure you point out the flaws and don’t go easy on them, your reader will respect your scrutiny.
Using keyword research you can find the best comparison search terms to target and use for inspiration when creating comparison guides.
Survey Posts
If you have an audience you can reach out to or you are comfortable doing vox-popular (fancy word for an interview with the people) you can put together your own survey data on a trending topic or question you have and use it as the basis for an article.
You can publish your findings and then share your own insights on the data you have collected.
Survey posts are a form of research post but involve you running your own survey to ask a number of people to vote or answer a series of questions.
As with research posts, this content is prime for repurposing and should be turned into an infographic and distributed high and wide with the aim of getting it republished on other high domain authority websites.
Trending Topics
Writing about trending topics and staying at the bleeding edge of what’s going on in your industry is a great way to gain some easy wins.
New trends are often undersaturated and pose keyword opportunities that are easily achievable even if you are a beginner and your website is brand new.
I’m not going to tell you how to keep up with the latest trends in your business as every market differs but doing so will be a sure fire way to stand out and become an authority on something fresh and potentially exciting.
Use Google Trends to validate ideas to see if certain topics are growing in popularity and then take action.
Building on trends why not write an article predicting something you expect to happen.
This could be a trend in your industry that you expect to continue or change.
You can share your bold vision for the future and see if it gains traction.
Get Personal
Readers like it when an author can be honest and talk about mistakes and failure.
It makes you human, which you should be if you are reading this article.
There’s no shame in letting down your guard, it’s a great way to build relationships with others when they internally say “me too” when reading through your experience.
Share experiences that have been both positive and negative and you will also garner the trust of your reader with ease.
Feel free to be self-deprecating, this kind of humility goes a long way when you are constantly writing articles on subjects with absolute certainty like you are some sort of Oracle.
Podcast Post
Okay so not exactly a blog post but you could consider starting a podcast and then adding your podcasts to your website as blog posts.
To do this you would embed your podcast audio player at the top of your article and then add a transcribed version underneath.
This is a great opportunity to offer your content in two formats and reach a wider audience since you can also submit your podcast episodes to different podcast platforms that already have large userbases.
Video Post
There are a few ways to spin this one.
It could be a case of you creating content in video or vlog format and then publishing it on your website using an embed code in a similar fashion the above podcast post.
Then add a transcribed version of the video underneath for those that prefer to read.
An alternative way you can create a video post is by embedding one or more videos from other YouTube channels and then adding your own custom commentary.
You could also connect a series of videos together to help create an educational path for your readers or students to follow.
This is a great way to repurpose other peoples content without stealing however it’s recommended that you make sure to add additional value.
Don’t just steal peoples videos and share them on your blog with just a one-sentence comment, that’s not impressing anybody.
Repurposed Post
Do you have some other content lying around that could be easily turned into a blog article?
Maybe you have an old post that could be republished as an ultimate guide if you revisited it and added more depth.
I found in my role as a web designer and WordPress consultant that I was teaching people how to run their websites and blogs in essay length format via Email.
So I began to save these educational emails as drafts in my WordPress blog and set a reminder to go back and flesh it out into a properly formatted blog post.
This means for an extra 20% effort that email which was only ever seen by one person can be put to good use helping the masses.
Rant Post
Sometimes we all need to have a rant and what better place than your blog?
But wait, you don’t want to be one of those people who just rant for the sake of being controversial or ranting about things that are going to put off your reader but there are times when a measured rant can be the basis for a fantastic piece of content.
If you have something to say that involves ranting and it has a purpose them do it! High-quality posts that talk about pain points and frustrations have a unique kind of virality.
Going Against Conventional Wisdom
Similarly to rant posts this kind of article where you make a statement that goes against conventional wisdom as the basis for your article can attract a lot of attention.
These kinds of articles could start with “Stop doing X” or “Why X is actually the worst decision you can make”
When you read “Stop Eating That Fruit Right Now” you might stop to think, “what, but fruit is good for me?” only to go on and read that it’s an article about dentistry and the damage of acid erosion.
Other examples of this kind of post could be “Stop listening to Gurus” and then an explanation on how reading all this advice from different gurus is just a load of codswallop, but with the right codswallop radar, you can learn to quickly skip through the fakers and spend your time-consuming information from the real experts.
This is a great way to get attention but yes it’s a little bit click-bait.
Organizer Post
Sometimes you might want to create a post that rounds up the best content on your site.
Another way you may use an organizer post is for grouping related pieces of content so you can present it in a cohesive list for readers to work through.
This is like creating a custom path for your readers to help plan the order they go through your content and show them where to begin.
If you have a lot of individual posts on a single subject that all form a larger ultimate guide you can connect them together this way and make your blog more user-friendly.
Merged Post
It’s healthy to perform occasional content audits on your blog to decide if you should do a cleanup.
When you do this you might want to consider taking several closely related articles that aren’t performing and merge them into one ultimate guide that might perform better than when broken up.
Longform content works well so this one adjustment might give you the edge you need.
Share Your Work or Project
If you are the creative type, a serial entrepreneur or work with clients why not use your blog as an opportunity to showcase your work.
You can create case studies, or just share your work in a portfolio type format by introducing the project and either embedding the media or linking out to wherever it’s being hosted.
You can add galleries, videos or other formats to showcase your latest creation and use it to generate buzz.
If you have a loyal following this is a good way to keep your rat people informed about what you are up to.
More Blog Idea Tips
We have covered the most important and useful blog post types you can start trying but here are some additional tips to help you come up with even more ideas and apply the above concepts to your niche.
How do you find blog post ideas in your niche?
Here are some bonus tips.
If you have read the above blog post ideas and now need to find subjects relevant and commonly searched in your niche you can turn to a few tools to help.
The first tool I recommend is AnswerThePublic.
With this tool you start by typing your seed word or topic, in the example below I have chosen the word “blogging” and hit enter.
AnswerThePublic then scans the web to find the most frequently asked questions containing your keyword broken down by the type of questions, preposition and by comparisons and alphabetically so you can work your way through to get ideas.
If you are writing about a specific topic this tool is the best way to make sure you are answering all of the important questions.
Targetting these longtail keywords will give you much better chances of bringing in more traffic and ranking on the first page of Google.
For a power tip, you can take the list of searches you find using AnswerThePublic and then plug them into a Keyword Research Tool so you can find low competition keywords with a moderate to high amount of search volume to maximize your efforts.
Be Unique
Yes, it’s easier said than done but if you want to really stand out and create shareable content that will bring you traffic and backlinks in troves then you want to try and think outside of the box.
It’s perfectly fine to take inspiration from others but when you can find a unique opportunity it makes your job of doing outreach much easier and you will see better results.
As long as it’s high quality of course, there’s a fine line between unique and downright weird.
Conclusion
You have no excuses if you are struggling to come up with ideas and concepts for new blog content.
You could write thousands of articles on even the most mundane topic if you apply the above blog post framework for coming up with new ideas that aren’t scraping the barrel.
There’s absolutely no point creating blog posts just for the sake of it.
Take your time to plan out ideas and then prioritize the most important ones based on the search volume, competition and the importance the piece of contact can have to your blog.
Once you have some blog post ideas to work on, work through our content creation checklist to make sure your content is high quality and gets more traffic and attention.
Want to read my best productivity tips and tools for bloggers? Check out our guide on how to blog more efficiently here.
