Blog Post Ideas Your Readers Will Love [2025]

In this guide:

• Use your experience to become a thought-leader
• Think beyond basic, generic AI-produced topics
• Do your keyword research, then use keywords wisely
• Focus on your target audience and readers
• Remember that you’re writing for humans

When you’re struggling to come up with topics for your small business, it’s easy to rely on ChatGPT. The problem these days is that most people don’t know where else to go to get ideas for blog topics. Many businesses struggle to think outside the box. Most are too busy doing the important things, like running their business, to deal with content planning. While larger businesses have the luxury of in-house writers, smaller businesses either have to do it themselves or find help.

It also gets harder the more specialised your niche is… if it’s fairly broad, it is easier to find ideas. It’s easier to find topics about home appliances than it is to find topics about highly specialised pet health products, to use a random example.

So, what do you do first when the ideas just aren’t flowing? For most people, heading over to ChatGPT is the usual move. AI is great for content planning, especially when you’re trying to find fresh blog ideas. With that said, there are times it isn’t always as easy as it seems. There’s a difference between finding topics… and finding topics that will engage your ideal reader. This is where it’s time to rethink your content planning strategy a little bit.

Crafting Blog Post Ideas for Your Target Audience

With the huge volume of content found online today, reaching your readers has become more important than ever. It takes just seconds for a reader to decide whether your blog posts are worth reading. The best way to ensure that your posts get maximum engagement is to craft content that is genuinely appealing to your target audience.

Jumping straight in, here are a few ways you could start hunting for quality, relevant blog topic ideas that resonate with your target audience.

Start with keyword research

However you find topics, always start with keyword research. Keywords will form the basis of every content plan. They will be used in every blog post, so make sure you have the right keywords to kick off your content plan. HubSpot has a great guide to keyword research, which covers everything you need to know.

There are several keyword finder tools out there, including free and paid tools. You don’t have to spend a lot. However, many free tools have a limited number of searches per day. Free tools for keyword research include Keyword Magic Tool, Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, Wordstream, and KWFinder.

Besides acting as guides for your topics, you can find plenty of related ideas for new topics as well. Have a look at search volume (how many searches are done for the term), ranking (how well it ranks in search engines) and competition (how easy or hard it is to rank for the term). You’ll also see related terms. This is where it becomes very useful as a way to find topic ideas. To get the best results, make sure your keywords are specific and not too vague. For example, if you enter ‘rooibos tea milkshake’, you’ll get a list of related terms that can be used as topic ideas.

Lean into your experience

Your readers want blog articles that are interesting, informative and inspiring. They also expect your content to show that you are an expert in your industry. Factors like Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) are highly important for blogging in 2025. Content that adheres to these guidelines typically ranks higher in search results as it shows Google’s human reviewers that your content adds value. Essentially, blogging is more about producing genuinely useful, quality articles than fluff that has no real value. It’s better to produce one high-quality blog per month, based on topics that showcase your expertise. Churning out multiple blogs on topics that don’t have much relevance will affect your rankings.

How can you leverage your experience? What do your customers want to know about things relating to your industry? Blog article ideas focusing on E.E.A.T guidelines include:

• Cornerstone industry guides
• Industry insights
• Product showcases
• Service use guides
• Broader category articles
• How-to guides
• Product use guides
• Q&A articles

As an example, if you have a skincare store, you could look at a combination of product-focused guides (new launches, specific cleansers or product reviews); general product type guides (serums for various skin concerns), how-to guides (K-Beauty routine), Q&A articles and various other topics relating to products, category types, skincare trends, ingredient highlights, expert tips from dermatologists or any other relevant topics.

Use your audience demographics

For this, you’ll need to have insight into your current website traffic as well as general demographics. Who is buying your products? Who is your ideal customer? What are their pain points? Your search dashboard can give you a wealth of helpful information. Creating buyer personas can be equally useful.

From their locations to gender, language and even interests, this sort of info can help you create blog posts that are relevant to the people who visit your blog. This is very useful for local businesses and those with online and physical stores. Tying in content based on Google My Business can be very useful. Article ideas could include:

• Location-based guides
• Service or product guides
• Products or services for men/women/kids
• Common pain points for your audience
• Solutions that your product addresses
• Case studies
• Q&A based on audience concerns
• Articles using local SEO terms
• Behind-the-scenes glimpses
• In-store sales and promotions
• Neighbourhood events
• How-to guides
• Local flavour articles
• Collabs with other businesses
• Mistake and tip guides

As an example, let’s say you have a speciality cat food store in a city. You know that your target audience is primarily made up of cat ladies within a certain age range. You know they live in your general vicinity and that they shop online, but also visit your store.

Understanding your target audience, you could look at a variety of blogs, including location-based guides (where to buy cat treats in {city}), product guides (best cat food for senior cats), behind-the-scenes (your team, your philosophy, why you got started, or the founder’s resident feline), collaboration (pet beds + cat treats), neighbourhood events for pet lovers, tips for choosing cat food, signs you’re feeding too much, mistakes to avoid when choosing cat food, common concerns that pet-owners have, and anything relating to cats.

Evergreen content vs hot topics

Topics that will stay relevant for years to come, with a little refreshing, are key. These are the topics that will help SEO over time. Hot topics can be good if you’re sharing on social media to drive engagement on other channels. If your website already has a lot of traffic, these topics can be great. If you’re expecting to rank for highly competitive terms, that won’t happen, sadly. Article ideas could include:

• Focus mostly on evergreen content
• Aim for longer, cornerstone topics
• Guides to using your products/services
• Topics showing your experience
• Benefits and advantages
• Mistakes to avoid
• Broader niche topics
• Use trend topics carefully
• Double fact-check hot topics
• Avoid going off-brand
• Keep topics relevant
• Tie them into your offerings
• Insight from thought leaders

For example, your homeware store blog could feature a mix of evergreen topics (decor ranges, category guides, styling guides, bedroom must-haves or tips on small apartment furnishing mistakes to avoid). Your trend topics could cover decor trends for the current year, Pantone colour of the year, celebrity office trends or interior disasters.

Customer input and feedback

Have you ever thought of asking your customers what they’d like to see on your blog? This one is ideal for brands that already have a loyal following on social media. People love being involved. If you’ve built up a community, try getting feedback to see what followers want to know. Ask them to share their ideas in the comments or use Google Forms to create an easy survey. You could even go one step further and offer some incentive, as a mini-giveaway. Including CTAs on your social media posts when sharing blogs can also be a low-key way to get input. You could frame it something like, “What do you think? We’d love to get your thoughts.” Blog ideas from customers could include:

• Customer support questions
• Step-by-step guides
• This vs that comparisons
• Repurchase case studies
• Repurpose customer reviews
• Trend features based on hashtags
• UGC videos to promote your offerings

For example, if you’ve had several customers contact support about using a product, use that as a topic for a Q&A guide or a troubleshooting guide. If followers are loving your new range of chocolate bites, create a post on the best snacks for mid-morning coffee breaks, and add the bites to the list.

Other Ways to Find Blog Topics in 2025

Here are a few more ways to tap into the ideas out there…

Social listening

You can discover topics that are important within your overall industry through platforms like Reddit and Quora. Tools like AnswerThePublic.com can make this easier (just a note: you only get 3 searches a day). You can use Google by adding ‘reddit’ after any keyword you search for online. For example, ‘pet groomers reddit’ or ‘unique cupcake decorating reddit’. You’ll be able to see what people are asking about pet grooming or cupcake decorating.

Real-life humans

It’s easy to forget that humans can also add value to your blog post creation process. Chat with friends, family, co-workers and other people in your real-life circles to see what sort of content they would like to see from your niche. Who knows – you may end up finding all sorts of ideas that you hadn’t yet considered!

AI tools

You may still want to save time and use ChatGPT for blog ideas. That’s ok. Many people use it for this very reason. Make sure you know the pros and cons of using AI for content creation, though. It’s instant, cheap, and requires little to no experience. But… it does not understand nuance. It will give you ideas based on keywords or broader topics. It won’t know how they apply to your brand specifically. They will apply to your niche. That’s a good thing to bulk up your blog with interesting generic topics. Just remember that your competitors are probably also using ChatGPT. Do you really want your topics to be the same?

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Getting the right balance is key. Mix things up with topics relating to your specific brand, your customers’ pain points and other things your target audience wants to read. Use AI topic ideas, too. That way, you’ll have a well-balanced content plan.

Try These Blog Topic Formulas

By now, you should hopefully have found some good ideas to start building your content plan. You may still be feeling a bit stuck. If you don’t feel like doing any work to find topics, don’t feel too bad. You can still find ideas quickly and easily. Blog topic formulas work by using classic openers and filling in the blanks with anything relating to your product, services or broader niche. These include formulas such as:

• How to…
• Reasons to…
• Why You Should…
• When to…
• Mistakes…
• Common Myths…
• Things You Didn’t Know About
• Best…
• Worst…
• Try These…
• Avoid These…
• Things to Do…
• Top Tips…
• Spotlight:
• Expert Advice:
• Guide to…
• Trends for…
• Ideas for…

Creating Your Blog Content Plan

What comes next, you may be wondering? Once you’re starting to get some ideas, it’s time to put everything together to make your blog content plan. The important thing to know about this plan is that it doesn’t have to be fixed. You can use it to create monthly plans if you want to blog regularly. Or you can keep a list of ideas that you can use as needed. A list of keywords that are relevant to your business, offerings, and niche is essential, as this will act as the foundation for all content plans.

Of course, the simplest method of all is to outsource all of this to someone with extensive experience in SEO, content planning and blogging. If you don’t feel like taking a DIY approach, give me a shout, I’m here to help. Whether you’re looking to boost your ecommerce content with a blog or adding blog posts to your small service business, I’ve got you covered. Get in touch to find out more about how a freelance writer can help you find blog topic ideas that always hit their mark.

This blog post was originally written in March 2017 and updated in July 2025.