Learning how to start a blog and get it online is difficult enough. How do you also come up with content ideas?
There are numerous ways to come up with ideas for blog posts.
In this post, you’ll learn a bunch of different ways to come up with your first year’s worth of content.
Why 50 blog posts?
“50 blog posts” is such a specific number. What’s so significant about this number, and why do we recommend coming up with this many blog post ideas?
SEO and consistency have a lot to do with it. As a content creator, you need to feed the content machine used by Google and your readers alike.
After all, the more content you have to consume, the more Google can crawl and index your site and start ranking you for keywords related to your niche.
And the more content your readers can consume for you, the more they’ll visit your site and engage with your business.
50 is also a realistic number to hit in your first year, especially if you’re looking to take blogging seriously. It works out to about one post per week as there are 52 weeks in a year.
However, when it comes to blogging, you should always focus on quality more than quantity.
50 is a very specific goal to reach, but if you find it difficult to create high-quality blog posts on a week to week basis consistently, lower that number to something that’s more attainable for you.
Do not publish low-quality posts in an attempt to reach that number.
At the same time, 50 blog posts is a fantastic milestone to reach in your first year. While some bloggers feel like they can’t reach 50, others feel like 50 in your first year isn’t enough.
One of the biggest struggles new bloggers have is staying consistent with their blogs.
If you can stick with it long enough to write 50 posts in your first year, that’s an amazing accomplishment you should be proud to achieve.
Identify and refine your niche
Before we get started, you’ll need to have a clear idea of the audience you want to serve and the exact niche where your content will fit.
If you’re unsure, we have a dedicated article covering how to choose a niche.
But we need to quickly discuss what a niche is and what a niche isn’t.
This is important if you want your content to rank in Google (which you probably should) because things got a bit weird after the Helpful Content Update (HCU).
It wasn’t about helpful content. We know that for sure.
We believe Google is trying to identify a website’s niche and boosting/demoting them based on how well they stick to that niche.
This means that small authority sites that cover multiple verticals will struggle. Whereas tightly focused niche sites will win.
Now, the problem here is that people have different ideas of what a niche is.
This may include things like entertainment, technology, finance, marketing, business, travel, food, etc.
These are NOT niches. These are huge industries.
Here are some examples that ARE niches:
- Podcast marketing
- VR gaming
- Travel for specific destinations (e.g. Sweden or Italy)
- Guitar pedals
- Email marketing
Don’t get me wrong. Some of these niches are still pretty big but they ARE niches and that’s an important distinction.
So, make sure you keep your content plan as niche-focused as possible.
Create a hub for your blog post ideas
You’re about to come up with a lot of content ideas. Where should you keep them all?
There are a few methods you can use to keep track of your ideas.
Project management apps are a fantastic option. These include tools like Trello, Asana and ClickUp.
Notion is great for project management as well, just in a different way.
You can also use simpler tools, such as a spreadsheet, a Google or Word document, or even a journal.
If you use the journal idea, consider taking pictures of your pages in case something happens to your notebook.
You can even use a reusable notebook like Rocketbook. The ink is erasable, and you can set the pages up so when you take pictures of them, they automatically upload to a specific app, such as Dropbox.
The method you choose isn’t super important. What is important is you having a central location where you keep all of your ideas.
What is important is that the method you choose fits with how you prefer to work.
How to come up with your first 50 blog post ideas
We have several methods you can use to come up with ideas for your blog’s first 50 posts:
- Create pillar pages.
- Come up with content ideas related to your pillar pages.
- Create content for topics your audience would find useful.
- Find low-competition keywords to target.
- Create content for your audience’s biggest pain points.
- Determine your competitors’ best content.
- Create content for special post types.
- Create affiliate content.
As always, let’s start at the top.
1. Start by creating pillar pages
Pillar pages, also known as cornerstone content, are authoritative blog posts you create to target high-competition keywords in your niche.
These are your dream keywords to rank for, ones only the most authoritative sites in your niche are able to rank for.
They should also represent the most important topics in your niche.
For example, a pillar page on our site is our guide on starting a blog. Since “how to start a blog” is a competitive keyword in our niche and an important concept in our niche, we want Blogging Wizard to rank for it.
So, we’ve written a high-quality post that thoroughly covers the topic.
You should do this for your niche as well.
You can create as many pillar pages as you want, but starting with two to three is good enough for a new blog.
Finding the right keywords to target will require having enough knowledge about your niche to understand the most important topics within it.
Use a keyword tool like SE Ranking if you need a little help. Enter broad keywords related to your niche to get the search going.
For our niche, blogging, we’d enter these keywords:
- blog
- blogging
- wordpress
- social media
- social media marketing
- email marketing
- email list
Then, we’d use the results SE Ranking spits out to find keywords to target that represent important concepts in the blogging niche.
The keywords don’t necessarily have to be competitive. They just likely will be because they are top concepts in your niche.
Once you find keywords to target, treat each pillar page like any other blog post. The only difference is a pillar page may be much longer than your other posts since it represents such a large and broad topic in your niche.
2. Use pillar pages to come up with related content ideas
As you write the blog posts that will make up the content for your pillar pages, you’ll probably mention several related topics you can expand on in additional blog posts.
This is something we’ve done with our pillar page on how to start a blog. That page contains several internal links for additional topics we’ve covered on the blog, including:
- Keyword research
- How to choose a blog niche
- Why you should use WordPress
- Best blogging platforms
- How to choose a domain name
As you write content for your pillar pages, pay attention to topics you can turn into individual blog posts.
3. Consider what topics your audience needs to know about
If you’re familiar with your niche, you should be well aware of a few topics your audience needs to know about to have success within it. You can also consider topics you know your audience would be interested in.
For example, if there’s a specific debate about something in your niche, cover it on your blog.
You should also consider concepts you can write about and topics that can be taught to your audience.
This is where having a deep understanding of your niche comes into play.
Just keep in mind that it’s okay to create blog posts about topics that don’t have a specific keyword for you to target. Not all of your posts have to be SEO friendly. Some can be strictly reader friendly.
4. Find low-competition keywords to target
Creating pillar pages and targeting high-competition keywords is important. Your competitors likely already have posts that cover these topics, so you should have them as well.
However, as a new blogger, it’s important for you to find keywords that are less competitive as you’re more likely to rank for them.
Go through your keyword research tool in search of low-competition keywords to target. This is called “difficulty” in SE Ranking. Low-competition keywords will have a low difficulty score with a green color.
Add a blog post idea for each worthwhile low-competition keyword to your hub.
5. Find your audience’s biggest pain points
Audience pain points make for great blog post ideas. We even have a whole post on turning your audience pain points into blog post ideas.
It’s a great method to use if you’re unsure about what topics your audience might be interested in.
The ultimate goal of any business is to solve a problem a potential customer is having. You do this with your content as a blog.
So, talk to your audience, and see what they complain about on Reddit, on social media, and in comment sections (yours and your competitors).
Do this until you’ve determined what problems they’re facing in your niche. Then, offer solutions to those problems with your content.
6. Research your competitors
Your competitors have been blogging about your niche for a lot longer than you have. This makes their websites treasure troves filled to the brim with content ideas.
You can use SE Ranking to research your competitors’ websites.
The tool will let you see what your competitors’ top pages are as well as which keywords they rank for.
All of these can be blog post ideas for you.
7. Create special post types
Make sure to include special post types in your content calendar.
These include interviews with members of your niche, expert roundup posts featuring insights from professionals in your niche and case studies.
Check out our guide on creating expert roundup posts to learn more.
Pro tip: You can also include expert quotes in any other blog post you write. This works well because those experts will be invested in the success of your content, making them more likely to share it with their audience. Every bit of extra visibility helps.
8. Include SEO-friendly affiliate content in your editorial calendar
It’s never too early to start thinking about monetization for your blog. Affiliate marketing is one of the best options for new blogs.
Fortunately, a lot of affiliate programs are free to join and don’t require you to have a certain number of visitors on your blog.
Think of products in your niche, and see if any of them have affiliate programs.
The best thing to do is try out each product you want to create an affiliate link for, and create a genuine review of it on your site.
There are two primary complaints readers have about affiliate sites:
- The author has never used the product they’re promoting with an affiliate link.
- Affiliates never say anything bad about the products they promote.
You should also use affiliate links sparingly in your posts and try not to create too many list posts that simply act as farms for affiliate links.
Focus on using affiliate links in reviews, guides, tutorials and comparison posts.
Google cracks down on affiliate sites a lot. Focus on creating quality, reader-friendly content, and only promote products you trust.
Pro tip: In Google’s algorithm data leak, we learned that they are demoting sites that they consider to be product review sites. Likely when a specific percentage of product-focused content is reached. This can include best X, versus, and alternatives posts too, not just reviews specifically. Anything product-focused. We don’t know at what percentage Google would do this so, as a precaution it’s best to ensure that the majority of your content is informative.
Final thoughts
And that’s a wrap. Now, it’s time to start your research and write out your list of blog post ideas.
There are plenty of ways to come up with ideas these days but the most important thing is that your audience sits at the core of this research process.
Remember that platforms like Google, YouTube, and social networks are just a means to an end. That end is connecting with your ideal audience and putting your content in front of them.
