Keyword Strategies for Finding Popular Blog Post Topic Ideas

There I sat in front of my computer, once again, struggling with the question: “What am I going to blog about this week?” Sure, as a professional writer, I have lots of ideas for blog posts. But, just as with you, not all of them pan out.

I keep a running list of blog post idea generators on hand for just such occasions, so I pulled out my list. Let’s see … I could write about:

• Top 5 favorite ______________
• A review of a book/product/service
• Highlight a before-and-after case study
• Recent experiences with ___________
• My commentary of recent news
• An interview with someone
• Answers FAQ

… or 99 other things. But how would I know that these would be popular with or useful to my audience?

Keywords.

Not only will keyword research give you lots of ideas for blog posts, it will show you the estimated audience looking for information on those topics. Let’s take a look at an example for portable butane gas stoves. (Why? Because I see one sitting across the room on a table <grin>.)

I usually start broad so I typed in “portable stoves” (without the quotes), which brought up these:

Our example isn’t electric or wood, so those terms can be scratched right off the bat.

If we look at related terms for our search, we get…

In addition to having keywords that we can be certain people are looking for, we can also generate additional ideas for topics. An overview of portable butane gas stoves would, of course, be a good idea. Blog post idea #1 … done! However, we can also investigate “gas stove camping portable” to see if it leads anywhere. Our stove has one burner, so the “1 burner” and “single burner” portable gas stove terms deserve more thought.

A search for keywords related to “gas stove camping portable” shows that the phrase “gas camping stove” has significantly higher volume. There’s one topic that relates to one segment of your overall target audience. Blog post idea #2 … done!

Let’s check out the “1 burner gas stove” phrase to see where it leads.

The phrase “single burner gas stove” has the highest volume, but the version with the word “one” (as in “one burner gas stove”) comes in second and would be worth using.

Notice here that you begin to get some clues about things shoppers need to know. Both “price of single burner gas stove” and “single burner stove price” had decent volume. Those could be worked into a blog post about the price ranges of these types of stoves and what causes the costs to vary. Blog idea #3 … done!

That question about price made me wonder if anyone was interested in features. Surely they must be. A quick search on “portable gas stove features” showed … absolutely nothing! Zero search volume. <LOL>

Next thought — if people are interested in these for camping, where else would they be used? Off the top of my head I thought of:

• boats
• for emergencies (when the power is out)

Looking for “portable gas stove for boats,” I found that term as well as “small gas stove for boats.” Blog post idea #4 … done!

Related terms for the “emergency” keyword brought up “survival stove,” “emergency stove,” and “backpacking stove.” All could be the makings of new blog post topics. That gives us #5 and #6.

The whole process took me about 10 to 15 minutes.

As you begin to dig, and one idea leads to another, you can quickly develop a list of targeted blog content ideas that bring a flood of search engine traffic as well as qualified, interested readers.

 

 

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Have questions about keyword research or writing blog posts? Ask them below!