What’s for Dinner? or 10 Recipes for Figuring Out What to Blog About
Posted: Tuesday, March 22, 2011
by Carol Hess
Tame the Writing Monster
The only question that’s harder to answer than, “What’s for dinner?” is “What should I blog about?”
It’s time to get out your Blogger’s Recipe Box for inspiration.
“My what?”
Okay, it’s not exactly a recipe box. But you know what I mean.
Of course, when you set up your Blogger’s Recipe Box, you are thinking about two things all the time – WHO is your ideal reader (probably your ideal coaching client) and WHY you are doing your blog (what you hope the blog will accomplish for you and your coaching business).
1. Solutions
What are the most pressing problems your readers face? What makes them toss and turn at night? What challenges are they spending their hard-earned dollars to try to overcome? Write about the solutions to these problems, the ways to overcome their most common challenges. (This post is an example of a solutions-oriented blog post.)
2. Information
The information highway, better known as the internet, is a busy, time-consuming, and overwhelming way for your readers to get their hands on the information they need and want. So do it for them. Jump on the internet, do the research, organize and filter the information, and then deliver that information in an easily consumed format – lists are very popular among blog readers.
3. FAQs
What questions do your clients ask most frequently? What answers do you find yourself repeating? This is great material to mine for blog posts. You may even want to publicize that you will be doing a “Q & A” blog post in the near future and are soliciting questions for it. (This is a sneaky way to do some market research at the same time and find out what’s on your market’s mind.)
4. Topical Issues
Blog about the topical issues that interest and/or affect your readers. Again, depending on your reader and the purpose of your blog, you may want to tackle topical issues that are only of interest to your specific readership or you may choose to address an issue of more general interest. Either way, the timeliness of blogging lends itself beautifully to timely topical issues. Plus, blogging about topical issues can be a great way to spark discussion and generate lots of comments on your blog.
5. Resources
There is nothing more reassuring and valuable than having someone you trust recommend a good resource to you, especially if they have used the resource themselves. And that is exactly the service you can provide for your readers. I’m not talking about beating the drum for everyone with whom you have an affiliation (although there is a time and place for that of course). I’m talking about knowing your reader/market so well, that you want to be sure they hear about (fill in the blank).
6. Interviews
Interview blog posts are a win-win situation times two. The person being interviewed gets terrific exposure, thanks to you. Win #1. Your readers get valuable information, thanks to you. Win #2. You are everybody’s hero. Win #3. You get to give your readers a break from reading and give them an audio to listen to instead. Win #4. (If your readers don’t like receiving blog posts in audio format, then you can have the interview transcribed, but that will cost you some money.)
7. Book or Product Review
People always want to know what other people thing about books, products, programs, etc. (There’s a reason why The New York Times Book Review is so popular.) Imagine how helpful a review of a book or product might be to your readers. Better yet, how about a comparison of the pros and cons of the top five (fill in the blank)?
8. Promotions
I’m talking about promoting not just your own upcoming teleclasses, workshops, group coaching programs, and the like but also the activities of other people. Of course you need to be sure that your reader would be interested in the particular offering you are promoting. And you certainly don’t want every single blog post to be promotional in nature. But it’s a terrific way to get the word out about what you (or someone else) is doing in a not quite so salesy kind of way as a sales letter. Also, be sure some of your blog posts include information about free offerings as well.
9. Your personal life and experiences
Some people will tell you that you should never, ever blog about your personal life and experiences in a business blog. I don’t agree, especially for those of us in the coaching business. However, a little bit goes a long way, and what you are blogging about needs to be interesting and relevant. My very first blog post was about the writer’s block I was experiencing as a first-time blogger and got an excellent response.
10. Guest bloggers
Guest bloggers are the writer’s equivalent of ordering a pizza for dinner. They can be a great solution to the “what on earth shall I blog about next” dilemma as long as you don’t overuse them. Plus, be strategic in who you choose to be your guest blogger – they need to be relevant, interesting, and interested in returning the favor.
So, there you have it – 10 recipes for what to blog about. Set up your Blogger’s Recipe Box and start collecting recipes. You’ll no longer dread asking yourself, “What should I blog about?”
Carol Hess (www.tamethewritingmonster.com), the Coach’s Writing Partner, shows coaches how to harness the power of writing to gain clients, credibility, and confidence. She shows you how to write smarter, not harder for the coach who wants to write less, stress less, and coach more. Get Carol’s new report, “ 15 Foolproof Ways to Bust Through Writer’s Block,” at http://www.tamethewritingmonster.com.
This Article has been viewed 170 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.