How To Come Up With Blog Post Ideas People Actually Read [Podcast Ep. 27]

Updated on March 24, 2024

Curious about how to come up with blog post ideas?

Then you’re in the right place, as in this episode of The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast, we’ll be discussing how to pinpoint hot topics for blogging people will truly be excited to read and share!

More specifically, in this episode, you’ll learn:

How to come up with fun blog ideas your audience can’t wait to read
Tips for writing content that helps you stand out and rank in Google
How to organize your content in a cohesive manner
Examples of content that meets audience needs
Inspiration for different types of engaging blog content
How to get over writer’s block as a blogger
And more!

Basically, if you’re interested in learning how to come up with blog topics that are truly engaging — no content idea generator required — this podcast episode has the answers you’re looking for.

Note that this episode includes affiliate links to trusted partners!

Table of Contents

How To Come Up With Blog Post Ideas – Podcast Episode Audio

…or click the links below to tune in on your preferred audio platform:

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts/iTunes

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Free Travel Blogger Resource Library

To help you really jumpstart your blogging success, I’ve added 55+ blogging resources like printables, video tutorials, and workbooks into a FREE resource library for travel bloggers.

This includes a Content Creation + Promotion Workflow Trello Board to help you streamline your content creation process. It shares the exact steps you should take when planning, creating, and promoting your blog posts.

I’m all about implementation and I really want to make sure you don’t just listen to the episode and forget about it, but that you actually use what I share to make your blogging life easier.

Tools Mentioned In This Episode On Content Ideas For A New Blog Post

Keysearch (use code “jessieonajourney30” for 30% off!). This is a powerful keyword research tool that can help you optimize your blog content to rank higher in the search engine rankings.

Here is a quick tutorial showing how I use Keysearch to find keywords I can actually rank for:

Google Trends. Monitor search trends over a given time. This can help you post about things people are truly talking about.

Pinterest Trends. See what topics are trending on Pinterest. This tool can help your content marketing efforts by helping you get more traffic to your Pinterest pins, which translates into more visitors to your blog.

How To Come Up With Blog Ideas [The Ultimate Guide] – Podcast Episode Transcript

Have you ever sat down at your laptop to write a blog post, and your mind just went blank.

Or maybe you’ve found yourself figuratively banging your head against a wall as you try to determine what your audience actually wants from you.

Are you curious about how to become a travel blogger and make money, and what to actually write to support that goal?

Stay tuned, because in this guide we’ll be going over how to come up with blog post topics your community actually wants to read.

Now some quick housekeeping with this episode:

It’s part of a series. This episode will discuss pre-creation work, the next episode will discuss a content creation checklist, the next will discuss content promotion, and the next will discuss creating your content calendar.

On that note, let’s start off with…

Step #1: Know your blog’s mission.

In previous episodes, we’ve talked about niching down and creating a profitable blog brand and pinpointing a mission statement.

Basically, you want to know exactly who you help and how. This gives you clarity and can help you grow your blog faster and easier.

For example, “I help women feel confident traveling solo” or “I help hikers find the world’s most scenic trails.” Or maybe you want to use your platform for good.

Knowing your mission, deeply understanding what you blog about, and pinpointing your target audience gives you a good starting point for what content to create.

Step #2: Break your blog mission up into 3-5 themes to create content faster.

For instance, if you help travel photographers take better pictures, your buckets might be taking photos, editing photos, and monetizing your photography.

By doing this, you can start to keep your content cohesive, which helps people know exactly what to expect.

Additionally, it can help you increase your authority in Google for specific topics.

For example, because I live in New York and write about New York hiking trails often, I’m typically able to rank for my New York trail guides as Google sees me as an authority on the topic.

Step #3: Monitor blog audience conversations.

Once you’ve defined your audience and your content buckets, you can start to monitor the conversations your audience is having online within niche Facebook groups, niche forums on Reddit and Quora, and on social media by searching hashtags your audience uses.

Pay attention to what questions people are asking, and if answering these questions within a blog post could be fitting.

Also take notes on the conversations you have directly with your audience — such as when readers email you, send you a direct message, or leave a blog comment.

Keep a list of the questions being asked of you, as this tells you what people really want from you.

Then, try to create content that truly solves problems and enriches people’s lives.

Step #4: Do keyword research for your blog posts.

Keyword research should absolutely be a part of any content marketing checklist.

We’ll dive deeper into this idea in the next podcast episode on physically creating your content, but note that doing keyword research not only helps you rank your posts in Google search, but by looking at the search volume of a keyword — and how that search volume changes over time — you can start to focus on highly-searched queries and truly create content around what people need.

Personally, I use Keysearch, an extremely powerful tool for keyword research.

Here is a quick tutorial showing how I use the tool to find keywords I can rank in Google for:

Moreover, if you’re new to keyword research, the tool has straightforward tutorials on how to get the most out of using it.

Bonus:

Click here and use code “jessieonajourney30” for 30% off!

Now, whether you use a keyword research tool or not, one helpful tip is that long-tail keywords can be easier to rank for and can also help you stand out from the sea of other bloggers in your niche.

If you’re unfamiliar with this term, long-tail keywords are niche keywords that are typically three-or-more words and are narrower in focus.

For instance, instead of trying to rank for the keyword “NYC hotels” you might try for “family-friendly hotels in Manhattan with pools” or “romantic Brooklyn hotels with private hot tubs.”

Again, not only will this help your post rank in Google — since you’re not competing with as many other posts — but you’ll be creating truly unique content.

Step #5: Focus content ideas on trending topics.

Speaking of Google, you can use tools like Google Trends, Pinterest Trends, and Twitter Trends to see what topics are hot at a given moment.

These tools are goldmines when you need travel blog post ideas!

Personally, I like to focus my energy on evergreen content that is timeless and will always be relevant; however, you can combine trending topics with evergreen content.

For instance, this year, 2020 — the year of the coronavirus pandemic — has certainly been an interesting time for travel bloggers, as most of us have been forced to cope with unexpected change and pivot our strategies, including our content.

But I didn’t want to pivot so much that my blog wasn’t a solo female travel blog anymore.

So, I kept my audience in mind while meeting their needs at the current moment.

This mainly included focusing on staycation and travel at home posts like:

I also created a free printable travel journal that includes prompts meant to help people ignite their creativity and relive their past trips.

When quarantine ended and people started traveling locally, I again tweaked my content strategy to focus on self-contained stays, hiking trails, and cycling routes — all trending topics that will still be interesting in a year, two years, or even 10+ years from now to a travel audience.

Step #6: Consider fun blog ideas & engaging content types.

Looking for a new post idea?

As a blogger, it can be helpful to experiment with a variety of content types to see what helps you best tell certain stories as well as what your readers respond best to.

A few ideas include:

Tutorials and how-to guides. What strategy can you teach related to your mission?

Maybe that means How To Pack Carry-On Only On A Multi-Season Trip, 10 Ways To Use Duct Tape On A Camping Trip, or How To Photograph Animals On Safari.

Videos. People love video, and this is not something to ignore.

I highly recommend experimenting with video if you’re not using it already.

Videos are the future of content, and if you run ads on your site, they can also help you drastically increase your ad revenue.

Lists. These allow readers to get the information they’re looking for quickly.

One tactic I’ve used to help my lists get clicked is making them super long.

For instance, on my tour site, NYC Photo Journeys, I have posts like 73 Winter Experiences To Have In NYC and 73 Unique Ways To Enjoy Romance In NYC (Beyond Central Park).

This helps my content stand out against the typical top 10 lists.

Of course, you want to make sure that the content is still good and you’re not just adding in filler and fluff.

If you’re creating a listicle and you can only think of 12 solid entries, stick with 12.

Something else to invest time into is creating a holiday gift guide, another type of list that tends to do really well.

Interviews. Personally, interviews make up a large amount of the content on Jessie on a Journey.

In fact, I have a series called Inspiring Travelers where I’m able to share interesting stories from other travelers.

Moreover, I’m able to share travel perspectives beyond my own as a middle class Caucasion female from New York.

I’ve interviewed Black women traveling solo, deaf travelers, travelers exploring the world in a wheelchair, senior women hiking around the USA, travelers from the LGBTQ+ community, travelers with passports that make it difficult to travel, and more.

A content series. As in, a series of posts that build on one another to create a larger strategy.

I’ve talked before about how to use a content series to monetize your blog — which is an excellent way to make money blogging while helping your audience.

Podcasts. Like what you’re listening to right now.

I like to include the audio in a larger post to also help the episode rank in Google as well as to more easily provide links and resources.

These are just a few ideas of many, so do some research and start to think about which content types you want to utilize in your annual blog content plan.

Step #7: Add your own unique voice to your blog posts.

While we haven’t started physically creating our blog content yet, I think it’s helpful before you write to think about what your voice is.

This is a blog, not a medical journal or a newspaper article, so feel free to experiment.

Personally, I find it helpful to picture a reader sitting in front of me and to write as if I’m talking to them.

This helps me sound natural and conversational.

Step #8: Make blog posts easy to read.

People don’t read blog posts the same way they read a book or magazine.

Instead of reading every word, they often skim content when online.

Therefore, you want to make sure your blog post is broken up into short chunks — one or two sentences, sometimes three, per paragraph — and have headings that break up the text.

Also think about your font size.

Typically, you’ll want to have a font size of 16 pixels and a line height of 1.5 for the best user experience.

Step #9: Monitor blog analytics.

Before you publish any content you’ll want to make sure you have Google Analytics installed, which will help you monitor how your blog visitors are arriving to your site and then interacting with your site and the content.

I recommend setting aside one day per month to go through your analytics so you can tweak your strategy as needed.

For instance, if you see that a certain type of content or topic is doing really well, this is powerful information for your content plan moving forward. You should also use this time to update old blog posts so they’re relevant and factual.

Keep in mind, this list is in no way exhaustive.

Feel free to get creative — and if you have another idea to add, please share it in the comments or on social media using the hashtag #TPTBPodcast.

Ready to come up with engaging blog post topic ideas?

Alright, now I hope you enjoyed this episode on coming up with unique blog ideas that people actually want to read.

I hope you feel inspired and empowered to go start writing blog posts that are valuable and engaging.

Don’t forget to grab access to my free travel blogging resource library. It contains a ton of resources focused on increasing your blogging income.

And of course, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes sharing these bite-sized strategies for bloggers who want to turn their blogs into profitable full-time businesses.

Happy blogging!

Bonus Profitable Blogging Tutorials [Video Playlist]

Want to learn more powerful strategies for taking your blog full time?

Check out this curated playlist of tips and tactics that work:

Grow Your Blog With These Helpful Past Episodes:

A 6-Step Strategy For Branding Your Blog

A Streamlined Workflow For Organizing Your Blogger To-Do List

Improve Your Creative Storytelling Skills For More Engaging Writing

7-Step Blog Post Promotion Checklist (Trello Board Included!)

How To Create A Free Resource Library That Grows Your Email List

How To Find Niche Keywords That Drive Traffic With Competitor Research

How Niching Down Can Help You Grow & Monetize A Blog

Connect With The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast

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