How to Choose the Best Business Blog Topics

A blog on your business website is one of the most effective and efficient ways to promote your business. It can increase your website traffic and help you reveal your expertise in your industry, which is likely to result in more leads. However, as in everything, there are right and wrong ways to write a blog, and we want you to do it right. Therefore, we are starting an article series about the essentials of business blog writing, and this month, we will tell you how to choose the right blog topics.

If you are planning to start a business blog, you should begin with content planning, and choosing the blog topics is the first step of your planning process. You should make a preliminary list of at least five topics for your upcoming blog articles to begin with.

But how does one determine the topics that will create the most benefit?

What should I consider while choosing a blog topic?

Choosing a topic for a business blog can be a challenging task. There are four key factors that you should always keep in mind while choosing your blog topics to make it useful for your business.

• Your audience
• Your field of business
• Your location
• Past interactions

We will get into the details of these factors in a bit, but first, I must inform you that they are only the essentials to begin with. In fact, there are many other factors to consider depending on your business type and industry. Blog writing is an exploratory journey where you will discover what works best for your business, and what not.

Choose blog topics for your audience, not for yourself

As a rule of thumb, you must understand that your business blog is for your target audience. You should do your research to learn more about your target audience. Analyze keyword search volumes relevant to your industry to uncover the potential topics that your audience search online.  This will be a great beginning point.

If your target audience is rather specific, you can also choose topics that directly address them, and their needs. For example, let’s say you’re a Canadian immigration consultant targeting clients from Poland. You may go ahead and write about “7 different ways to immigrate to Canada from Poland”. Simple as that!

Never digress from your field of business

Writing is a creative process, and this may cause you to wander off topics that are meaningful for your business. You should set strict boundaries around your field of business and remain relevant while writing your blog articles.

Make sure that the topics you choose are relevant to your business and offerings whether it be products or services. To illustrate, you may write about fashion, the latest trends, or colors of the season if you are a clothing retailer with an online store but avoid drafting an article about the impact of fast fashion on millennials. It may sound relevant, but you know that it’s not.

You may enjoy writing about certain topics as a person, but you should resist the urge and check if your audience will be interested in the topic you die to write about. Will they be more willing to do business with you after reading your article?  If the answer is yes, that’s great! But even then, make sure that your blog has a variety, and not focuses merely on that specific topic you like.

The location of your business matters, too

Does your business operate within a certain geographical area? Does it target a specific geography (city, province, country)?

If your answer is no, which happens in certain business models, good for you! You’re free from this consideration and may skip to the next.

If you answered yes, you should also consider your geographical limitations while choosing your blog topics. Keep your topics relevant to the cities, provinces, or countries you’re operating in.

Let’s say you’re a realtor operating in London, Ontario. The blog you will write should not be “What you need to know before buying your first home” but “What you need to know before buying your first home in London, Ontario”. You should also cover area-specific issues in your article such as city by-laws or school areas to make your article useful for your target location.

How did your past blog topics do in terms of interactions?

First, you should make sure that you have a web stats tool like Google Analytics on your website to measure the interactions to your articles as well as throughout your website. They’re free and easy to install.

If you have been writing blog articles for a while, analyzing the performance of your past blog articles can help you choose your future topics. You can see which topics your audience is more interested in, or which topics bring more leads to the shop pages. You can also eliminate the topics that brought minimal interactions for your future articles.

Data is power for those who choose to use it. So, use it!

Bonus: A sample blog topic plan

For those who could make it to the end, here’s a sample blog topic plan for real estate agents in London, Ontario. It may not be your field of business, but it can give you the idea how a neat blog topic plan should be.

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Contact us if you need professional help with your business blog strategy or book a free consulting session to discuss your specific needs.