People often ask, ‘How do I generate blog post ideas?’ As a writer, I – too – live in fear of writer’s block. The blank page. The blinking cursor. The empty whiteness, the vacuum of blog nothingness. It’s like a Stephen King novel for a blogger. But don’t be terrified. Here’s one easy tip – use ‘Google Related Searches.’ Let’s investigate.
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Watch ‘How to Generate Blog Post Ideas? Tip: Use Google Related Searches‘ on YouTube!
IDENTIFY YOUR STARTER KEYWORD(S)
First, you need a ‘starter keyword’ or ‘starter keyword phrase.’ I’ll assume you’ve built out a ‘Keyword Worksheet’ for either SEO or Social Media Marketing. You need to know the basic keywords that your potential customers will use. Let’s take the example of ‘cat insurance,’ which is a simple, easy-to-understand search and value proposition. People who have pet cats should get cat insurance! So take that starter keyword ‘cat insurance’ (or, if you like, brainstorm a bit, and generate phrases like ‘pet insurance’ or ‘animal insurance.’)
FIND RELATED SEARCHES ON GOOGLE
Second, take that ‘starter’ or ‘seed’ keyword and type it into Google. I like to use ‘incognito mode’ (top right of any browser), so I see the world as my potential customers do. Then scroll down to the bottom and peruse the ‘related searches’ for ‘cat insurance.’ Google is literally telling you… helping you… to see what searches are related and popular vis-a-vis the ‘seed keyword phrase’ – ‘cat insurance.’ (Note: there are other opportunities, such as Google autocomplete or PAA’s (People Also Ask), but we’ll ignore these for now).
BROWSE AND CLICK ON RELATED SEARCHES
Third, click into the related searches that look like that might interest your customer and repeat this process. Open up a Word Doc or spreadsheet and paste in good questions, keywords, and phrases that you see that can be the foundation of a good blog post. For example –
Finally, as you click ‘into’ each one of these ‘related searches on Google,’ you can generate even more blog post ideas by paying attention to the ‘related searches’ that appear at the bottom of those pages, as for example – best pet insurance or Is pet insurance worth it for indoor cat?. For extra credit – pay attention to the PAA’s / People Also Ask – as these ALSO are great suggestions from Google for blog post ideas.
Happy blogging!
