How do we come up with blog ideas for a professional services website?

Often, when I talk to subject matter experts at professional services agencies, they explain that they don’t write blogs because they just don’t know what to say. At first, I didn’t get this. These people are EXPERTS for heaven’s sakes! Any one of them could talk for hours about one single aspect of their business. How hard can it be to commit that expertise to paper (or pixels)? 

But, as I thought about it, I started to get the issue. It isn’t that they don’t know what to say, it’s that they don’t know how to get started. The blink of the cursor is never so loud as on a blank page. As an organization that writes bunches of blogs for bunches of organizations in bunches of industries, this is a problem we can help with. 

Making it Easier to Write Blogs

Before we talk about how we come up with blog ideas, here are some tips on creating a blog writing mentality:

• Titles one day, blog writing another: The best way to set yourself up for failure in writing blogs is to set aside a day to write and sit down with no topic. You always want to have a topic and point of view in mind before you sit down to write it.
• Two reasons: first coming up with blog ideas and writing them are two parts of your brain. Expecting both to be firing on all cylinders on the same day is a big ask. Second, as soon as you come up with an idea for a blog, your unconscious mind will start working it through.
• Have you ever noticed that often when you procrastinate on something it turns out to be way easier to do than you expected? During that time you were procrastinating, your subconscious mind was shuffling information, editing ideas, and getting the process started.
• Tired of answering a question? That is a blog post: You know those questions that you have received so often that they drive you crazy? Stop cringing and start writing. Those questions are the perfect fodder for blog posts. If your clients are asking them, others are too. Bonus, you know the answer and know how to express it well.
• Keep a running list of topics: The more accustomed you are to writing blogs, the more you will notice that blog ideas just come to you. I can hear you shaking your head at me. Trust me, there will be a time when you think, “I should write a blog about this.”
• Most of the time, you aren’t going to drop everything and start writing at that moment. So, the hard part in that scenario is capturing that idea and saving it for later. That is where your list comes in, whether it is a literal list in a journal, a section of a digital to-do list, or a notebook on your project management system. Find somewhere that you can track blog ideas. You will be thankful to have them.

Hopefully, those tips and tricks give you a sense of how to keep and generate ideas from your surroundings and get started.

Our Super Secret Method

Still adrift? Okay. (Erika looks both ways to see if anyone is around before typing the next sentence.) We can help. Here is our super-secret list of questions that never fails to generate a blog post:

• What is something tactical in your business you can explain how to do? (For instance, in my business it might be “How do you come up with blog ideas?”) 
• What is a top-five list about your business? (Top five red flags to beware of, top five publications to keep an eye on, top five most important items to keep in mind, etc.)
• What is something you wish prospective customers knew about the cost of your product or service? (What is included in pricing, why your pricing is more or less than others, etc.)
• When are the important times of the year for your business? How does seasonality impact the work you do and when clients need your products or services?
• How are your products and services different from your competitors?

This list of questions should get you started. But, if it doesn’t, we have you covered. Spring Insight recently developed a blog creation workshop. Our team will work directly with you to generate a list of over 75 strategic, compelling, and SEO-rich blog topics for your website. Want to learn more? Here you go.