How to Pick a Blog Post Topic That People Want to Read [Video]

You’re going to be yeah.

Able to do it more justice.

You’re going to be able to cover it really thoroughly without going insane and making your readers go insane.

So I would really encourage you to stick to a small blog topic.

Oh, you know, what I forgot to say is today is day one of the 25 lives.

So yeah, I’m going to do a live stream marathon 25 lives over five weeks.

So Monday through Friday, you guys can expect it’s a new live every single day.

It’s going to correspond with my blog post checklist.

It looks like this.

If you guys haven’t picked up your blog post checklist, I would pick one up it’s free.

I left a link to it in the video description.

So go get that.

And each day we are going to cover one of the points on the 25 point blog post checklist.

So today’s 0.1, which is pick a blog post topic.

So anyway, what I was saying is you should write, you should narrow your focus unless you are really committed to doing a pillar blog post.

Like the blog post checklist is a pillar blog post, right?

 It’s 6,500 words.

It’s a, an exhaustive list, right?

 But we can’t do that every time.

And maybe we shouldn’t do that every time.

And just because you’re staying small, doesn’t necessarily mean that you are writing short form.

You can stay small and have a really focused attention on one topic and still write long form.

I do it all the time.

Most of the time, there’s a lot to be said about everything.

So the next thing I wanted to tell you guys is where to find blog, post topics that people are actually wanting to know about, right?

 So this isn’t keyword research.

We’re going to cover that tomorrow.

So right now we are just thinking about generating blog, post topics that people will actually want to read.

And I’ve got a couple places that I look that I wanted to share with you guys.

One of them that is a gold mine is Facebook groups, niche, specific Facebook groups.

If you’re not in them, you should get in them and get in a whole bunch of them, get in a whole bunch.

And then as you start to get to know them, you’ll know which ones you like.

A lot of Facebook groups can get kind of spammy.

So you can X out the spammy ones, but if you cast a wide net and then kind of filter out the bad ones then you can be left with your little gold mine of Facebook groups.

So I use this, I am in a whole bunch of, so my niche is blogging obviously.

So I’m in a whole bunch of Facebook blogging groups.

And pretty soon after signing up for all these groups, it became really apparent to me that across all the groups, people were asking the same questions over and over and over.

So me specifically, I’m looking for people who are talking about blog writing.

They want to know about blog posts.

And so anytime I see somebody post a question about a blog post writing, that I is really interesting and I would love to talk on or one that I have seen asked over and over and over across a whole bunch of different groups, I will take a screenshot of it and I put it into a swipe file.

So I have a Google doc swipe file where I keep my screenshots from things like Facebook groups.

I also do this for like sales copy and Pinterest pins that I think look really nice.

You know, I find them really inspiring.

I have a swipe file.

I stick them in there anyway.

So yeah, we’ll start to see after a while the same questions being asked or you’ll find somebody asks a really exciting question to you, and that is a good indication that that’s something you should write about and I would put it in your swipe file or wherever you keep your blog post ideas.

Facebook groups are a gold mine, especially since if you have follow up questions and you want to dig down deeper, boom, baby, it’s right there.

You can dig down deeper, just ask people want to talk about it, right?

 They want to talk about their struggles with you.

And the one thing I will caution here is that you have to be careful about self promotion, right?

 You want to help them, but you have to be careful about self promotion.

So usually if I want to know more about this question that somebody has in my Facebook group, I will ask them gently and see if they’re interested in talking about it.

I will tell you 99% of the time they are.

But I make sure not to cross that self promotion line if it’s not allowed in the Facebook group.

So, and then the next thing is Quora.

So some people swear by Quora, it’s a forum, it’s an online forum where people go to ask questions.

That’s what it’s for.

I use it sometimes I used it in the beginning, but now that I’m really immersed in my niche, I don’t need it as much.

And quite frankly, Cora can be a little disorganized.

I mean, I don’t know how to quite describe it.

It’s, it’s not as easy to disseminate.

Like what’s a good question.

And what’s just a weird off the wall question.

It’s not as easy to get niche specific in Quora as it is in the Facebook groups, but it was a really handy tool in the beginning when I was just sort of feeling things out.

And I also suspect that it is different niche by niche because Cora didn’t necessarily have like blog writing as a niche that I could look at.

They have a lot of like online marketing and things like that.

So I was having to filter through a lot of stuff that wasn’t really related to me, but maybe if you’re in like a crochet niche or something you know, you might to be able to get some really specific questions on Quora.

And the next one is my favorite, favorite, favorite.

And I’ve shared this guy was, I’ve shared this with you guys before.

Sorry.

My cats are just staring at me at me at me.

Anybody else?

 Cat problems.

I wish they could all be as quiet as Perry.

This is Barry, the Parry he’s named after Bill Hader’s character Barry.

Anyway.

People also ask, so I, I shared this with you guys about how I go back and I add value to my already existing posts.

Google’s people also ask is insanely valuable.

It’s so valuable.

So if you haven’t watched that video, go back and watch it on how to update old posts and try to, I can’t remember the title, but it was something about updating old posts, like adding value and trying to get them to bump into page one of Google.

But this also works for brand new blog posts for generating blog, post ideas.

So if you type, I don’t know, let’s say excessive cat meowing into Google.

Usually a series of questions will come up and they’ll have a little carrot next to them.

And when you push the carrot, a Dropbox comes down and it’s a snippet from somebody’s website and you can get featured on those snippets.

I talked about that last time, but for the purposes of this blog, post topic generation, that is each question is usually a blog post topic in and of itself.

I know you guys can’t see my screen, but I’m going to pop over here real quick and type in excessive cat meowing.

And we’re just going to see what happens.

Oh, boom, baby.

We got four questions.

The first one is how do you get a cat to shut up?

 Oh, that’s not nice.

Is it normal for cats to me out a lot?

What does it mean when a male cat keeps mowing?

Why do cats Meow like crazy?

So you could see people are interested in this.

That might be something that could be a really good blog post topic.

And then if you click on one of the carrots, more questions come up.

So this one populated with four questions, but if I click on one of the carrots, it will give me two more questions and so on and so forth.

And usually the questions that pop up are related to whatever carrot you clicked on.

So if you were like looking for like hot nail Polish trends, 2020, and one came up as like Crimson and one came up as Navy and you clicked on the Navy, it would probably give you more questions related to Navy.

I don’t know if that was the best example.

Well, but you know, you get what I’m saying.

So

We’ll also ask is an amazing resource, and I know I’ve this before, but if you answer those questions, you have a chance to get featured in the people also asked snippet and you also have a chance to be an answer on verbal searches, right?

 So you say, Hey Siri, what’s the latest 2020 nail Polish trends, right?

 And if you have answered that specific question, you have a chance of Siri going, Hey, according to a blog, fidi.com Navy’s in this year,

Is it?

You don’t know?

And then another one that’s really interesting is it’s Google autocomplete.

And I think they call this the ABC technique.

It’s a little time consuming.

It can be a little tedious,

But it’s interesting.

So take your time

Or keyword that you’re thinking about, or even like your broad niche and let’s go back to crochet.

So if your broad niche is crochet and you type in crochet space a and see what Google autocomplete gives you, and then write down anything that interests you or put it in your swipe file and then go crochet space B and then see what it gives you.

And then so on and so forth through the whole alphabet.

And it’s a little time consuming, but you will end up with a crap ton of blog posts, or you don’t really even have to type out the alphabet.

You can just type in your keyword or your broad niche and just see what happens.

If you’re typing in your broad niche, it might be a little too broad for a blog post topic, but who knows, maybe when you type in crochet, like what will pop up is crochet patterns for baby socks, right?

 That is a pretty specific blog post.

I think, I don’t know why I keep going back to this crochet example.

Why do I think about crochet?

Where crystal at?

So the group crochet or here, Oh, Annie says I should make this into a PE course.

Maybe I will girl.

That’s a really great idea.

See, this is why I keep you guys around.

I’m just kidding.

You guys keep me around.

Okay.

And then I wanted to talk about places to find inspiration.

So I’m not talking about just specifically blog, post topics, but places to,

To get inspired, right.

To get those synapses firing and come up with new ideas.

So you’re not necessarily looking at direct questions.

People are asking, you’re just coming up with aha moments.

Right?

I do this a lot.

When I listen to blog posts, there’s something about passively listening, right?

 Instead of reading off of a screen, that really kind of allows my mind to like wander and chew on things.

So I listened to a lot of really niche specific podcasts.

And I would encourage you to do the same thing.

It will not only help you with the inspiration side of it, but it will also really quickly familiarize you with the people that are in your space.

So podcasts, niche, specific podcasts are a great resource to kind of get you indoctrinated into your niche and figure out who the big players are.

So I would also encourage you to step outside of your niche for podcasts or maybe like niche, adjacent podcasts.

Some of my best ideas have come when I was listening to podcasts about creativity, which is kind of niche adjacent to me, right?

 I talk a lot about creativity and the creative process, but primarily I talk about blog posts writing, but some of my best ideas have come about like light bulb, light bulb, light bulb.

When I was listening to a podcast that wasn’t super niche specific.

Another thing that is similar is niche related books.

And of course other people’s blogs, don’t play dries.

That’s not cool, bad karma alert, but they can be a great place for inspiration.

And of course you should be keeping an eye on your competition.

And if you are reading a blog post about, I don’t know, 25 ways to style your hair for the summer, and you think they are really missing the Mark and that you could blow that blog post out of the water, go and do it.

If you are reading a blog post and it’s like, kind of making you irritated, how off the market is I would go and do your own version and do it better.

You know, that is fuel for your fire, right?

 That is, that is straight up good harvestable energy to take and write an amazing blog post with another place to look for.

Inspiration is Pinterest.

Again, we are not plagiarizing, but it’s so easy to find blog post topics on Pinterest, because just like the Facebook groups, you will start to see trends.

Kristen says don’t plagiarize.

That’s not cool karma.

That’s right.

Yeah.

That should be your bumper sticker.

Hey Jennifer.

Hi.

How are you?

 So Pinterest.

Yeah.

Okay.

So of like the Facebook groups, you will start to see the same pins, like the same topics across a whole bunch of different authors.

And that is huge.

And if they’re, you know, up towards the top of the search, that’s usually a pretty good indication that these are things people are interested in.

And what I would encourage you to do is take note of that and ask how you can put your own spin on it.

Right?

 How can you like Annie-fy it?

 How can you make it super-Jen?

 You know just how can you make it really you, or if you have a particular take on that topic that you are not seeing talked about, that is perfect.

Be polarizing, nothing is more alluring as a blog post topic than something that is like 100% polarizing.

People are going to love you for it, or they’re going to hate you for it.

You are going to get your ride or die tribe out of those readers that right.

And that leads me into my next and final tip for finding alluring blog post topics.

You need to be energetically aligned with your blog post topics in the blog daily seven day blog writing challenge.

I talk a lot about how I keep a notebook full of blog, post topics.

And I know when I’m writing a blog post, but I don’t peg myself into writing about a single topic until I get there.

I thumb through my book and I see what is energetically lighting me up on that day.

I don’t want to write about things that I’m not excited to write about.

Audiences can tell you shouldn’t write about things that bore you, they can.

Yeah.

And tell if you are not interested in what you are writing about, make sure you are energetically pumped up about your subject before you start writing about it.

I understand that sometimes you have to write for SEO and those can be really boring.

Like I did like a web host comparison and, and that was a pillar post.

And as another little post to kind of prop that up, I did what is a web host.

It was kind of boring dry sometimes.

But I found a way to kind of make it fun and you know what I mean?

 And energetically, I got behind it because I felt like my audience really needed some guidance and they needed somebody to explain it in plain English.

And I couldn’t find that anywhere on the web.

So, so that was where I was pulling my energy from.

Yes, it was a boring topic, but my energy was coming from like the call to serve the call, to fill a need, to help people make a good decision on something that’s important.

You know what I mean?

 So even if it’s boring you know, find a way to flip the script in your mind and get energetic about it.

Yeah.

Jennifer says, this is so true.

I feel it too.

And so to our readers, I’m sure high vibrational energy gay.

Yup.

Tick tock, woo.

A clock guys.

Your energy is so important.

And if you think people can’t feel it over the web, they can.

I actually, I would argue that they can feel it more over the web.

I know faith, Mariah says all the time, a lot of us are in faith Mariah’s group.

If you’re not, you should be that are bullshit.

Meters have gotten so fine tuned because of all the bullshit on the web.

Right?

 And so our readers can tell when we are not excited about what we’re writing about and when we’re being a little bit disingenuous, like just trying to get through it, it’s really important that you get yourself pumped about what you’re writing about.

And I think, I think that you can be pumped about what you’re writing about and still stick to a content calendar.

I don’t think it’s one or the other, right.

If, if you’re planning to write about one thing on Monday and you get to Monday and it is not lighting you up, either gotta find a way to flip the script and make it light you up.

Or you gotta go back to your little book and find a different blog, post topic that other one’s not going anywhere.

You can come back to it when you’re more energetically aligned with it.

Okay.

Kristen says, so rundowns ideas from Facebook groups, Pinterest books, other blogs.

Yeah.

Kristen let’s do a recap.

That’s a really good idea.

You’re smart.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the first tip was to stay small.

If it is a very broad topic, don’t try to cover it all in one post.

Like when I first started my first blog was a meditation and mindfulness blog and I would try, I would take these huge subjects and I would try to cover them completely in like 1500 words.

They can’t be ton it’s sometimes, you know what I mean?

 So stay small that doesn’t necessarily mean write short form, just have a really narrow focus that will keep you on track and it will keep your readers entertained.

And then places to find questions.

People are asking Facebook groups.

Even if you guys don’t want to interact, like, I think a lot of people don’t join Facebook groups cause they think they have to interact.

You can just be a fly on the wall, Facebook groups, Quora people also ask Google auto complete and keep a swipe file somewhere.

So like I said, I keep a Google doc.

I take a screenshot when I see a question come up over and over and over.

Or I see a question that really excites me.

I take a screenshot of it.

I put it in my swipe file and then later it goes into my name.

Okay.

And then places to find inspiration.

Yes.

Other blogs don’t plagiarize, bad karma, Pinterest podcasts, niche related books.

Also like talking if you know people within your community, talk it out with them.

I’m a verbal processor.

I get a lot of clarity on what I want to write about when I talk it out.

And then yes.

Be excited about your topic.

Be energetically aligned with your topic.

Don’t write about stuff you’re bored with.

Don’t worry about stuff you don’t want to write about.

It’s that simple.

Are we here to build businesses to do stuff we don’t want to do?

 No, we could.

We could do that at corporate America.

Right?

 That was my purchasing job.

No, I left for a reason.

Yeah.

Podcasts.

Ugh.

Love podcasts.

Yeah.

So

Yeah, that’s it guys.

That’s it for how to pick an alluring blog post topic tomorrow day two of the 25 lives.

We’re going to be talking about how, how to find the keywords that are gold, baby gold.

Anybody else go to Seinfeld when I said that, so now we’re going to do that.

This is the next step, right?

 This is step two on the bang and blog post checklist decide on a target keyword.

So right now we were like in the exploration phase of trying to find blog, post topics.

And now we are going to take those blog post topics and we are going to vet them out via keyword research and see if they are actually worth writing about, see if our hunch that a lot of people are wanting to know about.

This is valid.

Yeah.

Yay.

So yeah.

Join me tomorrow again.

8:00 AM Pacific 11:00 AM Eastern.

If you’re watching this on a replay on IGTV or YouTube, join, the group link is in the description.

That way you can come interact and ask your questions and things like that.

Unless anybody has any questions for me, I’m going to pop off of here.

And he says, awesome.

Can’t wait for tomorrow.

I can’t wait for tomorrow either.

Yeah, Jen.

Yay.

I’m so excited, Jen.

I think I might need you to get my booty in shape.

Jen is a fitness book

For anybody who that didn’t make sense to me anyway.

Hi Rebecca.

No, thank you.

Thank you guys for being here.

I love chatting with you guys.

I love it so much.

You’re welcome, Kristen.

All right.

I will see you guys tomorrow.

I hope you have a great Monday and you go crush your goals!