35 Blog Post Ideas So You Always Have Something to Say

A relevant, regularly-updated blog is key to engaging customers online. But, finding time to create fresh content can be a challenge. As part of the Double Your Followers with Creative Marketing class, writer and marketing strategist April Bowles-Olin shared 35 different blog post ideas you can use as creative catalysts when you sit down to write a new post. Next time you're experiencing writer's block, check out these new ideas to give your editorial calendar a fresh spin. Major bonus: Some of these blog topics require minimal work from you. 1. How-To Post—Everyone is an expert on something. Use your blog to share how-to tips on a creative technique, DIY project, or common technical challenge. 2. Case Study—Customer case studies tell the story of a customer’s interaction with your brand. This is a great content marketing play as it utilizes your existing audience to bring in a larger potential audience. “If I’m getting bored with hearing myself talk on my blog, I could easily do case studies with customers that have been successful and share their stories,” Bowles-Olin says. “That helps me to take a back seat and change up the content and it also is exciting for my reader.” 3. Tutorial—Like a how-to guide, but a bit more involved, a tutorial walks readers through a specific topic. 4. Infographic—Infographics use graphics to convey data or information and they are especially popular with the many readers who react better to visual content. 5. Book Review or Summary—If you recently read a book you feel would be of interest to your readers, feel free to tell them about it. 6. App or Tool Review—Chances are, you use quite a few apps that might be of interest to your readers. Reviews make for great new blog post content. 7. Giveaway—Everyone loves free products. If you host a giveaway, make sure you encourage readers to share it on social media to bring new customers to your page. 8. Interview—Find an expert in your field and send some questions over for easy, interesting blog content. Guest blogging is a great way to add new voices to your brand. 9. List Post—Turn some of your blog posts into lists of things that might be of interest to your readers. 10. Quiz—Make your blog interactive with a quick quiz. There are lots of free online tools you can use to create these popular posts. 11. Survey—Like a quiz, a survey goes more in-depth. You can use a survey to gather deeper insights about your readers and what they want to read about. 12. Quote—Inspirational quotes can set the tone for someone’s day and motivate readers to action. They are a great piece of content to share with your readers and they are very easy to beautifully format using a tool like Canva. 13. Podcast—With a podcast, the stream itself is the content, which means the blog host only has to write an introduction to the podcast, as well as the benefits of listening to it. “You don’t have to then create extra blog content,” Bowles-Olin says. 14. Photos—You can build a blog post around great photos. For inspiration, Bowles-Olin points to A Beautiful Mess, a lifestyle and home décor site that uses eye-catching photos as the focal point of their blog and attracts hundreds of thousands of readers. 15. News—Your blog is a great place to share news about your brand or your industry. 16. Announcement—If you have any announcements you need to make, consider making those universally accessible by sharing those through your blog, as well. 17. The 'Ultimate Guide'—A step-by-step guide will help readers navigate a task while steering clear of common mistakes. 18. Resource List Post—Bowles-Olin’s audience loves resource list posts, which are pretty easy for her to put together and usually consist of online resources April uses regularly. 19. Research—Keep your eyes out for recent research reports that are relevant to your industry. Make it your own by posting a summary along with an excerpt and a link to the original source. 20. Livestream—Using apps like Periscope or SpreeCast, bloggers can create interesting content like Q&As, which can then be embedded into a blog post. 21. Illustrations—If you’re an artist, your creations can be the main part of your blog. “Lisa Congdon does a great job of this on her blog,” Bowles-Olin says “And I’m constantly looking for more. I always go to her blog to see what’s on it, and it’s not a ton of content but what she puts up there, I want to see.” 22. Downloadable (Print)—This could be an e-book, user manual, or other items that a customer will want to have in printed format. Gated downloads are a great way to build your email list. Just ask readers to for their email address in exchange for the free download. 23. Worksheet or Workbook—Worksheets and workbooks can help readers jumpstart a project or process and are easier for you to put together than a full-fledged e-book. 24. Template—If your readers regularly come to you for advice on printed documents, templates are a great resource. 25. Webinar—Host a webinar that would be of interest to your readers and embed the video on your blog. 26. E-book—If you’re going to make an e-book a blog post, Bowles-Olin recommends keeping it short. 27. Opinion Piece—People love opinion pieces. In fact, one of the big blogging mistakes writers often make is not sharing their own opinion. People want to know the real you. 28. Frequently Asked Questions—These are some of Bowles-Olin’s most popular blog posts. 29. Top Posts or Categorized Content—If you have a week when you can’t seem to come up with something fresh for your blog, Bowles-Olin recommends compiling a list of some of your best pieces and categorizing it. “Your readers love that stuff because it’s all in one place for them then,” Bowles-Olin says. “That’s the kind of stuff that people will share over and over again.” 30. Guest Post—Instead of creating your own content, you can have someone else provide content for your blog. Just be sure the person you ask to do the guest blogging is a good fit for your brand. 31. Cheat Sheets—A cheat sheet is designed to help readers who regularly need to refer to information on something. 32. Checklist—A checklist could be anything from a list of things to take to an industry conference to the supplies you’ll need to tackle a particular art project. 33. Playlist—Bowles-Olin shares her playlist and people loved it. A knitter could share a playlist of songs to listen to while they knit, for instance. 34. Vlog—Some people are more comfortable creating a short video than writing a blog post. YouTube makes it easy to embed your videos in blog post (click “share” then “embed” to get the code). Add a headline, the embed code, and a couple of quick lines of text to your post and you are good to go. 35. Podcast or Service Review—You could also use your blog to review a service or podcast your readers might be interested in. There are so many different types of content, you don’t have to struggle to keep your blog updated. The best blog posts are transparent and offer rich content to their audience. Whether you're blog is a part of a small business or simply stands alone, take these blog ideas and blogging tips to freshen up your content marketing approach. By regularly refreshing your blog post topics, you also keep things interesting for your readers. Get more developing blog post ideas and keep your readers engaged in the clip from Double Your Followers in the video below: Play video