Creating useful content and posting on your local business blog is a great way to build up trust and attract new customers and clients. While many business owners agree in principle, the problem lies in generating enough blog ideas to keep the content flowing.
“I just don’t know what to blog about!”
Here’s 31 blog ideas to kick-start your creative juices
Contents
Questions and Answers Blog Ideas
Every business has questions they can answer. It’s perhaps the easiest way to start blogging as the answers show how your products and services can help your prospective customers and clients.
- Ask your customer facing staff to make a note of any questions they receive – answer them in your blog
- Monitor your social feeds for questions and problems. This post started as a comment on the MLBO Facebook page
- Check your blog comments and answer as a new blog post.
- Borrow someone else’s questions. Get ideas from Yahoo Answers, Quora and communities or forums you visit
- Q&A Bonus Tip – create images of your Q&A’s and share on your social profiles – Facebook, G+, Pinterest and more. Link them back to your blog posts.
Make It Local
No, I don’t believe I chose this image either…
Do you need help with your blog? Get in touch
- Take photos of events you hold or attend and blog about the event
- Sponsor a local team or charity and blog about their progress
- Interview a regular customer or a supplier
- Follow a product from creation/stock to final sale. Create a photo or video blog of the journey
- Post photos of your business through the years and celebrate your success so far
- What’s On in your local area and how will you be getting involved?
- Review other non-competing local products and services that your readers may be interested in.
- Local Bonus Tip – use your images to create a slideshow or video to share on your social networks, upload to YouTube and embed in your blog post
Get Others Involved
- Create a survey and publish the results
- Ask for photos and videos of your products in action, publish on your blog
- Create a post from favourite testimonials and reviews and thank your customers
- Ask for guest posts from local community members, customers and suppliers
- Share your customers success with your products or services with case studies
- Involvement Bonus Tip – Create an infographic of survey results to embed on your blog and share on your social networks
Reuse and Recycle
- Publish your event presentations and PDF’s on Slideshare and embed on your blog
- Create videos and slideshows from your photos, distribute and embed in your post
- Republish your email newsletters to your blog
- Do a round-up of last months most popular posts, add additional thoughts and ideas
- Recycle Bonus Tip – Use other peoples content (with permission) and add your own insight
What’s Your Opinion?
- Blog about your view on local industry news and events
- Debunk some industry/sector myths
- What does the future hold? Dig out the crystal ball and share your views
Trusted Favourite Blog Ideas
- Share your top tips
- Create “How to” guides for your products
- Create posts tied into the latest holiday, celebration or national days/weeks
- Share your local business news and how it benefits your customers
How do you get ideas for your local business blog? How many of the blog ideas above have you used? Share in the comments…
Blog On photo credit: futureshape via photo pin cc
A Month of Blog Ideas For Your Local Business Blog (No Excuses! Blog On!) by Jan Kearney
Grab your guide to local search and learn:
- What elements are important on your website
- How to set up your Google My Business Local Page
- How Google Plus can help you zoom past your competitors
- Two things you should not neglect if you want to rank in the local search pack
- How to power past your competitors and dominate your area
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Hi Jan,
Wow! What a range of topic and methods to choose for a blog writer in local business niche! I am seriously thinking of creating another blog for local businesses a bit later, as part of a portfolio, so will know where to get my ideas now. 🙂 Love your blog – looks like you love what you are doing, and this is what really counts. I especially like the ideas which get your readership involved, since it means interaction, and more ideas as a result.
Warm wishes,
Galina
Thanks Galina. Yes, I do love what I do and wish I had done this years ago!
Good luck with your local business blog too, local blogs are always fun to write (well I think so!) Don’t forget to pop over and share what you’re doing when you get things set up. 🙂
This is a great list of blog topic ideas, Jan. I particularly like your suggestions for local and the suggestion to create a post that serves as a ‘how to’ guide on one of your products. This is an easy way to sell without really making it look that way.
Hi Nanette, blogging is a great way to “sell without selling” isn’t it? It takes a little while to gain traction, which is why I think many people give up before they really get started. Thanks for popping in, glad you like the list too 🙂
This a great, I am new to this and I have just got a site that can have a blog. Being a typical UK small local business this is right up our street.
I’m glad you found it useful, Heather! Good luck with your blog 🙂