Digital marketing & website development lists of ideas, links and resources

Forums

Find inspirational content and title ideas by browsing and searching through forums for questions and discussions related to your business or industry.

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Online groups

Find topic ideas by joining and browsing through groups on social media. Look for groups in your industry that have a lot of questions, answers and discussion.

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Industry publications

Discover the media sources in your industry that publish news, trends and tips, and look for the articles that have the most engagement (comments, social shares, etc) that you can then repurpose on your site.

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Comment sections

Find the industry publications that are sharing information and content for your industry and review their post comment sections. See what people are talking about and questions they are asking.

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People you follow

Identify your ideal content audience or customers on social media and follow them or browse their profiles to see the types of content they engage with.

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People who follow you

Ask questions to your current social media followers that might inspire content. For example, you can ask your followers a question like 'What is your biggest challenge at work?'

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Hashtags

Follow certain industry-related hashtags on social media, see what people are posting, discussing and asking.

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Industry influencers

Identify the leaders or influencers in your industry and follow them on social media. Review comments and questions on their posts. Most questions will go unanswered, but you can step in to provide answers to questions or turn those questions into more le

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SlideShare

Search popular slide decks related to your industry and create content that builds on popular topics or presents your unique spin.

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YouTube

Research the most popular videos or channels in your industry and find the ones with the most engagement. Engagement means interest and will help you find what you should create content about.

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Instagram

Find your industry's leaders and influencers on Instagram and read through the comments on their posts for unanswered questions or discussions.

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In-person conversations

Talk to people - your customers, prospects, fellow industry members, coworkers, employees. Ask questions, hear their perspectives and find inspiration or a new take on something that could be turned into a piece of content.

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FAQ

Are any of the frequently-asked-questions on your website worthy enough to be turned into their own post where you could take the extra time to provide your full response and perspective? You could also look at competitor websites and their FAQ sections.

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Conferences

Attend an industry-related conference and take notes during the presentations and question-and-answer sessions for inspiration.

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Conference agendas

If you can't attend an event, find and review the agenda to see what the big topics are. They should provide you with an idea about the current events, issues or highlights are for your industry.

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Customer service

Ask the customer service team for commonly-asked questions, issues or concerns. Get inspiration for new content and create posts that may benefit the service team and your customers going forward.

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Salespeople

Since the sales team talks with customers frequently and is often the most aware of positives and negatives about your industry and business, source them for content ideas.

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Your popular posts

Find the most popular posts on your site going back a year or more and see if there are any similar posts that you could create or piggyback off of the successful ones.

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Announcements

Share an exciting or noteworthy change or update about your business. Even if it's not enough to turn it into a news article or press release, you can still create a short announcement.

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Industry outsider

Have a discussion with someone who has little to no interest in your industry. They'll likely have questions that might help you brainstorm content ideas.

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Search console

If your site is connected to Google's Search Console tool, you can look through the performance of your site to see what content is generating the most traffic, and which keywords could be the focus of future content.

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Website analytics

Review the analytics of your website, how visitors are finding your site and which pages they're visiting. Consider what type of content or in which funnel content can be created to improve the site's effectiveness.

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Ubersuggest

Search relevant keywords in Ubersuggest to get content ideas based on previously created content on other websites.

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Controversy

What are controversies in your industry? You can share your side and perspective of the situation, or even just describe the debate and open it up for discussion.

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HARO

Help A Reporter Out is a platform that media members use to find supporting content for stories. You can browse the platform and look for trends that you could turn into your own content.

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Popular newsletters

Find and subscribe to popular industry newsletters that your customers might subscribe to. Browse the topics being discussed and repurpose for your own website.

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Google Alerts

Google Alerts lets you set up alerts for certain topics or keywords. Set up some for topics or keywords that your customers care about and be alerted when something is published and see if you can repurpose that content or fill in any missing gaps.

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Internal data

Review past and existing projects and services and determine if there are any statistics that you can recognize. For example, maybe you find out that 80% of your customers use a certain type of software, or have similar traits.

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Industry statistics

Search for recently-published articles or reports containing statistics related to your industry. Can you identify any trends, concerns or opportunities that you can share in an original post?

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Experiment

Run an experiment with your work, customers or projects and share the results.

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Internal searches

If your website has its own search functionality, track and review what users are searching for on your site. If a particular search doesn't return many quality results, think about creating a piece of content to better answer the query.

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HubSpot Topic Generator

Try HubSpot's blog topic generator by entering a few words and considering the results for a new post.

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Portent's Idea Generator

Try Portent's content idea generator by entering a few words and getting a few ideas for new content.

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Networking events

Attend a local business after-hours event and have conversations with at least a few people. Make a mental note of anything interesting that you could use as inspiration for a new post.

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Local newspapers

Browse stories in local newspapers, opinions and letters to the editor.

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Amazon's book lists

Search Amazon for the top books being sold in your industry. If people are paying for books on a particular subject, then you know they will likely also be interested in a blog post about it.

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Idea notebook

Carry around a little notebook (or use a note app on your phone) and jot down little ideas as you think about them throughout the day.

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Reddit

Browse the Reddit site and join subreddits relevant to your business or industry. Get involved or simply browse the subs occasionally for content topic inspiration.

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Google News

Search for keywords or phrases relevant to your industry on Google News. See what's been recently posted and where you might be able to fill in the cracks.

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Trade magazines

Flip through trade magazines for your industry and see what topics are being discussed, what's trending and what new products are being released.

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Flipboard

The Flipboard application helps you to better organize and aggregate content. You can also browse through other people's shared boards. Find people in your industry to see what they're sharing. Set up your own boards for future inspiration.

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Flickr

Find inspiration through photos, particularly Flickr which is a photo-sharing website.

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Regulating organizations

For industries that are heavily regulated, find and follow updates from industry regulating organizations and share with your audience - help them prepare for what's to come.

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Headline formulas

Follow a formula for building the headline of a blog post and get inspiration for the rest of the content.

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Competitor websites

Comb through a competitor's website and see what type of content they're sharing. Repurpose some of their content or look for gaps that you can create content for.

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Vintage advertising

Google and search for old advertising in your industry. The same ads might not be relevant anymore, or they could lead to topic inspiration. Worst case, you could collect some interesting or funny ads and create a post about them.

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Famous theories

Are there any famous theories or ideas in your industry? Can you create and share a new rule, or share your perspective on an existing one?

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Knowledge base

Find common software solutions used in your industry and search their documentation and knowledge base content for questions and answers.

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Support forum

Whether or not you offer a product that sells to hundreds or thousands of customers, you can create a support forum. A place where you allow customers and prospects to ask questions and you provide answers.

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Your About page

Refer to your own site's about page, history, mission and vision. Can you expound on anything in the form of a blog post?

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