SAVE FOR LATER
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If you are like me and you’re just starting out thinking about WHAT to blog, it can feel overwhelming. Where do you begin? What do you talk about? So you can write about anything! But if you want to monetize your blog, the key question you should be asking is How do I meet the needs of my audience? Having your audience in mind will be the path to creating content that ROCKS!
Before you get started make sure you know who your audience is. This is super important because knowing who your audience is will be key in helping you write great content. You can determine your audience by deciding if you have an audience that centers around a topic vs. a demographic.
A topic audience means that your blog is centered around a specific topic, think of your topic as an umbrella and all the ideas will be underneath. So for an example, you start a Healthy Fit Mom Blog. Your umbrella is Healthy Fit Moms, your audience is moms who want to get fit and be healthy, your blog ideas that fall under the umbrella are workouts for moms to do at home, healthy recipes, healthy snacks, how to fit exercise in with kids around, etc.
A demographic audience means that your blog is centered around a certain group of people that share common traits, again using the umbrella analogy you are going to have for example the millenial college student lifestyle blog. Your audience is college students and your blog ideas under the umbrella are life on campus, music, fashion, etc.
Even if you are a beginner like me and you don’t actually have a following yet and you don’t have a huge email list or subscribers, you can STILL CATER YOUR CONTENT TO YOUR DREAM AUDIENCE. The first step is recognizing who you want to reach with your awesome blog content.
Now you know the type of person you want to reach, let’s go find them!
1. Write to your audiences’ pain points.
Think about what your reader wants changed in their lives or fixed RIGHT NOW and what can you deliver to help them fix that. Use your knowledge and experience to help your readers solve real problems now.
You may be able to think of your own general problems, but your list from your own sweet brain isn’t going to last you very long. You need to get social, and that leads us to our next step.
2. Facebook Groups
If you aren’t a member of any facebook groups you need to jump on the bandwagon and join! Seriously! You can find great nuggets of content gold by joining facebook groups, because this is where people are talking. This is where people are sharing their pain points, their struggles, and asking questions. This post literally came about because I was “listening” to the conversation in a facebook group.
I have joined 15 facebook groups all surrounding the focus of my blog. It’s super easy to find groups that are related to your field. Simply type in a key word phrase, for example, “work from home mom group” and facebook will show you all the related work from home mom groups. I prefer to join the closed groups, because they are run with rules so it’s not spammy. Remember you are here to LISTEN not to get traffic to your site or sell something.
Then when you see someone ask a question, bring up an interesting topic, or gives you an “AHA” moment just click that little arrow in the right hand corner and click “save for later.” You can go back to that conversation later to get your writing mojo flowing!
Facebook groups are great for 2 reasons they let you engage with your dream audience before you really have one and you are able to hear people’s pain points often ideas or struggles you hadn’t even thought of!
I love Facebook Groups so much that I have started one of my own. We would love to have you over here at Smart Cents Mom. We want to inspire you, encourage you, and help you achieve your goals! And have some fun along the way. You can JOIN my Facebook Group “Smart Cents Mom” Just click Join Now!
You can JOIN my Facebook Group “Smart Cents Mom” Just click Join Now!
Here’s a list of my favorite Groups I’m apart of:
Growing Social Media for Bloggers
3. Research Topics
Use search engines like Google and Pinterest to find out the most popular posts addressing people’s pain points in a field related to you. Since I blog about extra income, work at home, personal finance, blogging tips I can choose any of these fields put it in the search engine and I will see a bunch of blog posts or articles that fall under that topic.
I can also use Google Trends to see what are popular queries related to keywords I put in the search engine. I can also see what are queries are rising in popularity.
4. Read through 5 – 10 blog/article posts and make notes about:
- On Pinterest: How many times was the post repinned? (More repins the more popular) Is this a popular topic?
- What could have made this a better post? What was missing? What value could you add? (DO NOT COPY!)
- Read the comment section. What are people asking questions about? Are people asking for more information? This is a great place to find a way to add value to a topic.
5. Curating Content/Blog Round-up
There is SO much content out there. There is SO much HIGH QUALITY content out there. Make a point to answer questions by researching a pain point and finding 5 – 7 AH-MAZING blog posts/articles that would bring real value to your readers. Think of sites like BuzzFeed or Hello Giggles who share HIGH QUALITY content for their readers. You can easily share their blog site as long as you reference them in the post.
So there you have it, 5 tips on WHERE to find your next blog post. I genuinely hope these tips help you to start writing great content! I would LOVE to have you apart of our communtiy where we inspire and encourage each other to reach our goals.
You can join us by signing up for our Newsletter and join us in our Facebook Group: Smart Cents Mom where you can be apart of the social conversation!
Tell me, Where do you find your content? What content resources do you have?
Great tips, and I am pinning! I don’t do a content calendar – I write/share when I feel a topic become so prevalent in my mind. I do need to spend more time on Pinterest to see what content is connecting with my audience. So many great tips, and I need to find time to sit down and do the research. Thanks for the reminder!
Hi Kim, I don’t do a content calendar either! And when I’ve tried I always end up going in a different direction. Ha! For now, I keep a running list of topics that come across through research. Thanks for stopping by!
Great ideas for when you are drawing a blank or just burned out.
Hey Candy! So true. It’s good to have some place to turn when you’re out of ideas! Thanks for stopping by.
Facebook groups for sure!!
Yes! I love facebook groups. So many great questions are asked it gets my mind racing 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
Ashleigh
Facebook groups are my favorite! I’ll have to check out Google Trends. I’ve never used that. Thanks for the tips! Thanks for stopping by!
Hey Niki!
I love facebook groups too! Google trends is something I just came across and I love that it’s a free way to help you understand your audience better. Thanks for stopping by!
Great tips Ashleigh! I’ve searched for some Facebook groups but didn’t know about a few of these. Thanks!
Hey Jen! I love facebook groups! So much great discussion happens there. Thanks for stopping by!
These are great tips thank you for sharing.
Hi Breharne!
Thanks for stopping by!