Writer’s Block?
I’ve always thought write’s block is just a myth for people not enjoying what they’re doing. I mean, if you do something you’re really passionate about, it’s really difficult to have problems on thinking the title for your next article.
Unless you’re a news content website or you’re producing many articles per week/day, you should really have something to tell your readers every time. My mission on this post is to help you write great content with ideas generated by your own audience.
But first…
Imagine you’ve just moved to a new city . You have no neighbours or friends and you don’t know where to start. It’s Friday’s night and you’re just too tired to keep moving and unpacking your things and suddenly you decide to go out for a coffee.
Luckily, there’s a coffe shop 5 minutes away and so you arrive without checking the menu. You want an Irish capuchino and a bagel, so you decide to order them. But when the waitress arrives she tells you there are no “irish” capuchinos on that coffe shop. They only have traditional capuchinos and sandwiches.
A little unhappy, you decide to order something new, because perhaps in that city or in that specific coffe shop you won’t find the same stuff you found in your old town, and you really want to get used to it.
But oh surprise!
The very next friday you decide to go again to the coffe shop and the waitress tells you in a very profesional but happy manner that they now prepare bagels and irish coffee. They actually considered your feedback and decided to add them to the menu just because of you and some other people who really wanted the same meal.
How would you feel about that?
Well, that’s how your readers feel when they find something on your website that they’re looking for.
And you know what?
You don’t really need feedback and comments on your blog to know what people is looking for. Because perhaps you’re just starting and no one comments yet. Everything is on your traffic analysis tools. All you need is to do some research and then you’ll be able to create content your readers will love.
Let’s analyse 3 powerful strategies:
Table of Contents
1. Use Jetpack search terms
If you’re not using Wordpress jetpack I don’t blame you at all. Google Analytics is a great tool. However, you can use Jetpack analytics search terms to create more content for your readers.
For example: let’s say you wrote an article on how monetize your blog. You start receiving some search engine traffic but not all of them are arriving for that same keyword. Some of them are looking the best programs to monetize a blog or perhaps they’re looking alternatives to an existing one.
A great way to know the keywords your readers are using to land on your page is by checking your jetpack search terms. If you find a keyword related to your original article and you think you can write something about it, then do it. Especially if you see the same keywords constantly. You’re sitting on a gold mine and you just don’t know you are.
Personal Tip: if you don’t want to write a complete article about that specific keyword or you think the keyword is totally related to your original article, then just go back to the original and update it. Add the things your readers are looking for so next time they land on it they find what they want.
I recently did this on some of my articles. I included as many topics as I could imagine but after a few days of being posted I started receiving more traffic from people who were looking for discount coupons and other stuff. Instead of creating a new post about it, I just updated it with new content and now more traffic is landing on my review.
2. Use Webmaster tools and Google Analytics search queries
Another great alternative is using Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools to get some ideas for new posts. In your Webmaster Tools dashboard, you can quickly go to the “traffic” menu and select the “search queries” option.
There, you’ll find all the search queries that are resulting on impressions and traffic to your blog. Check them and see what can you do to cover them more. Again, the idea is to write and complete content based on the one you already have without struggling that much to think about new ideas.
3. Keyword Generation
If you don’t have a blog or your blog isn’t receiving traffic yet, it might be difficult to get the statistics from Webmaster tools or Jetpack. But not everything’s lost. You can still create interesting content that gets traffic without it. This is done by doing keyword research and analysis.
The easiest (free) way to do it is by using Google’s search engine. Just open your favourite browser and go to Google.com. Make sure the autocomplete option is enabled and then start typing an idea. Google will automatically give you some results based on what people is looking for, for FREE!
In this case, I was thinking on writing something about SEO in Wordpress. I started typing “how to use Wordpress SEO” and the following recommendations appeared:
From this, I can easily acknowledge that people are looking for information to use Wordpress plugins like the one from Yoast or the “All in One” pack. Some people are also looking for the correct way to use tags on Wordpress to increase SEO.
You don’t need to be a genius to understand what they’re looking for, especially if you’re passionate about your niche. Try typing another word after your result and Google will auto complete it with at least 2-5 results. Imagine how many recommendations can you get if you type all the letters from the ABC.
Level up. Do some Keyword Research analysis.
Now that you’ve gathered some great keywords to create your next post or update your content, you can bring your analysis to the next level: Keyword research Analysis.
I’ve explained how I do this process in the past but here’s one example:
Let’s say I want to get more ideas from the “wordpress seo by yoast plugin“. I’ll go into my Market samurai keyword tool and type that exact keyword in the keyword analysis tool. This will create a lot of variations and keywords from the original one:
Now, the trick here is to see if you can select the best keywords to drive traffic to your blog. So once you’ve generated your keywords then you need to analyze them in the following area:
This way, I’ll know creating a post that explains “how to use Wordpress SEO by Yoast” could potentially bring 2 daily visits to my blog. That’s 60 more visits per month, isn’t it?
But if I happen to find a better keyword with more traffic, I could use it better.
In this case, I didn’t find related keywords, but I still got some ideas around the Wordpress SEO area because now I know I can write an article on search engine optimization basics and get up to 18 daily visitors (500 per month). See?
The idea is to create great content that your readers will love, and drive more traffic to your website by knowing 2 things:
- What people were looking for before they arrived to your website
- What people were looking for after they landed to your website
You’re basically reading their minds because you know what they’re looking for even without comments or feedback. Isn’t it great?
I mean, if the restaurants could know what people want without doing surveys and getting feedback, we would all eat a lot more. Of course the analogy here would be to measure which dishes form the menu are the more requested.
What are you waiting for?
Now that you know this 3 powerful ideas to create more and better content to your site, apply them ASAP and start creating and updating more content!
If you can mix them and then do the further keyword analysis that will be even better. Sometimes we’re trapped on our own ideas and limits, but it’s a lot easier to know what your readers are looking for instead of trying to guess and write content without any direction.
