How to Conduct Topic Research to Write Blog Posts

Struggling to conduct topic research for writing blog posts is a common occurrence. Many writers lose track of researching a particular topic halfway through and some of them, get totally distracted.

If you are one of them experiencing difficulty in topic research for blog posts, you have landed on the right post.

You might have tried a whole lot of ways to carry out fruitful topic research. Perhaps, you followed many other guidelines on how to conduct topic research for writing blog posts. But all of them didn’t work out for you.

I have brought together some useful topic research tips, be rest assured, they won’t be those conventional not-so-effective tips. Rather, they will be result-oriented tips guiding you on exactly how you should go about your research.

Let’s get started…

How to Research Topics to Write Blog Posts:

Writing blog posts is easy but writing high-quality blog posts is tough. You need to break a sweat to craft a standard blog post. A bulk of the time you have to invest in carrying out the research and collecting necessary info.

Now, I will give you a framework for how to conduct topic research for blog post writing. Let’s get started…

Focus on your Target Audience:

It’s a no-brainer to write blog posts without setting any goal. There has to be a purpose to write a particular blog post. It can be generating sales, driving traffic, or solely just to educate readers. All of these aims are cool but they are the end result of a blog post.

Initially, you should aim to identify your target audience and try to serve them meaningfully. Make an attempt to understand their needs, likes, and dislikes. Which types of websites do they often visit? Where do they spend the bulk of their time and what sort of questions do they usually ask, etc?

Craft your blog post covering all these essentials. However, without stressing the target audience, you can generate traffic, no doubt. But a big chunk of that traffic is likely to be unprofitable. This is because many of these visitors may not be your prospects.

Comprehend your Topic:

You are clear about your target audience and the purpose of your write-up. Now, it’s time to dig deeper and collect data for your blog post. You can do that in two different ways – Primary research and secondary research.

Through primary research, your aim will be to collect data yourself via sit-down interviews, online surveys, or even Twitter polls. When it comes to secondary research, your data will come from existing resources available online done by others. They can be online surveys, stats, etc.

The best and most efficient way is to adopt secondary research first to compile information and then conduct primary research on gaps in data. With that, you will get a better idea of blog post topics that you should write on.

Don’t Ignore Brainstorming:

Brainstorming is an age-old technique for coming up with ideas. Even though it’s old, it can bring out smashing outcomes to generate blog post topic ideas. All you have to do is open a doc file on your PC and start listing as many ideas as you can.

To conduct topic research, brainstorming can play a vital part as was proven many times before. So, always be serious about brainstorming to conduct topic research for writing a blog post.

Carry out Keyword Research:

By now, you might have already found your topic to write on. But only writing on the topic isn’t sufficient if you want substantial traffic to your blog post. To bring considerable traffic to your blog post, you have to optimize your post.

This is where keyword research will come in handy. Based on your topic, assume probable keywords or keyphrases. You can also get keyword ideas from Google’s autocomplete feature once you type your search term there.

Once you get these keywords, input them on various SEO tools like GetGenie, SEMRush, Ahrefs, and Ubersuggest. These tools will output related keywords, keyword variants, and related questions that you can use in your post. You will also get keyword search volume and competition from these tools.

Execute Competitors’ Analysis:

When it comes to ranking a piece of content organically, knowing how competitors have developed similar types of content is very crucial. This is where competitors’ analysis comes in.

By doing competitors’ research, not only do you know what they have covered but also enhance the chances of outpacing them.

You can learn about the keywords they used in their piece and also trace the content gap. If you want to topple your competition in ranking, you must convince Google that your content piece adds more value to readers. Obviously, other SEO factors have to be maintained alongside it.

Outline your Blog Post:

Once you are done with the core research and analysis part, it’s time to outline all your data. Your outline will list out all the headings and subheadings of the blog post. Without any doubt, the headings and subheadings will show up sequentially as they will appear in the write-up.

Initially, it will be the introduction, followed by the other headings as they deem fit as per your analysis. In the end, it will be the conclusion part wrapping up your entire post. Make sure that your outline contains all the important details as your write-up will be developed following the outline.

Start Writing your Post:

Now, it’s time to start writing the blog post. Make sure to write a killer title and intro keeping relevance to your topic. Once visitors land on your write-up, the first 2 sections they will see and read are the title and intro. So, you can’t miss the opportunity to wow your readers.

After that, move on to the next section, write your heading, and expand the heading with useful and value-rich info. Keep your paragraphs short to maintain the text aesthetics. Follow the same method for the rest of your headings to create a masterpiece.

Don’t Forget to Avail of Visuals:

A blog post full of text is unlikely to engage your readers. That means you have to add something to your post that appeals to your readers. This is where visuals come into play. Visuals in the form of images and videos have the power to pull in readers.

And we know that a picture speaks a thousand words. Many times, readers get hold of different points easily from high-quality images as compared to long text. So, why not make use of such a medium that can kill two birds with one stone?

Share your Content Piece on Various Platforms:

You are done with the research, writing, and optimization of your write-up. What else is left, can you guess? Yeah, you are right! It’s sharing the piece on different social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and forums like Quora and Reddit.

These shares will drive traffic to your write-up, boosting the reach of the content piece. No doubt, your piece will get direct traffic as well as organic traffic if important keywords rank upward on Google. But with sharing, you will maximize the total traffic.

So, sharing your content piece will be the frosting on the cake. Moreover, even if some of your pieces don’t rank upward on Google, sharing posts will ensure that you still get traffic to your post through referrals.

Final Remarks:

Research precedes writing and it’s a mandatory part of writing an organized blog post on a particular topic. That’s why your research strategy has to be systematic. Hopefully, the above tips will guide and ease your research process to the core.

As a matter of fact, all the steps listed above for researching topics to write blog posts can be accelerated using AI content tools like GetGenie. With GetGenie, you can do research, analysis, optimization, and writing, all in one shot!