“Oh Twaddle, I have no idea what to write for my blog.”
me, before my content plan
Has that ever been you at the start of the month? You are so not alone. Coming up with interesting blog topics can be a challenge.
What if I gave you weekly blog topics and set you up for the year? Sure thing. I can do that. Just take the topic, tweak it for your coaching practice, and have some fun.
What to write for my blog week by week
1.Create a quiz. People love taking personality quizzes! Online Quiz Creator is free, and I use QuizCat. You can really have fun with this and your readers will eat it up!
2. Review a product. People love honest reviews; they want to know what you love and don’t love about anything from a lemon zester to an online coaching program to… whatever your audiences uses.
3. Top 10 reads to radically change your life. Make a Top 10 list of your favorite personal development books related to your specialty. Invite your readers to add their favorites to the list (and then do a follow up post with the recommendations)
4. Do a Q&A. Whether it’s a client, peer, or celebrity, question and answer posts are always popular. Focus on how your interviewee solved a common problem your audience has.
5. Answer a common question. If people are asking you questions when they meet you or on social media, other people are curious too. So give them answers!
6. Answer an important question that nobody is asking you. You don’t know what you don’t know, and often our prospective clients don’t even know they should be thinking about something. Educate them.
7. Create a cool infographic. People are visual. A visual piece of information, especially if you’re sharing statistics or other data, helps them understand it better. I’ve been working with infographics for years, and am happy to see that Canva has great templates for them. Not sure what to create, look at the templates for inspiration.
8. Share something you’ve never told anyone. Got any deep, dark secrets? People love, love, love hearing them! It’s a great way to build trust.
9. Share inspirational & motivational quotes. Take your inspirational quote and write a blog about what the quote means to you. Bonus points if you can make your readers sob a little 😎
10. Challenge yourself. Create a challenge for yourself and document your progress in the comments. Invite others to join in. From 21 days of journaling to a month of gratitude, do something fun and inspiring. Share your triumphs and challenges.
11. Create a Best-Of list. Your readers love it when you share information so that they don’t have to do the research themselves. Best yoga pants, best juice recipes, best retreats, or best whatever… share!
12. Share your aspirations. Your readers want to know you’re human, and sharing your own dreams and aspirations is a great way to share yourself. What is a big goal you have? Where do you want to be in five years?
13. Respond to some something in the news. You have opinions. Share them. Be controversial if it supports your brand. This is a great way to practice being visible, because when you share opinions, people respond!
14. Share a client success story. People want results. Do a Q&A with a client, or simply share their story of transformation. If you can get direct quotes and pictures, even better! This is not only a great blog topic, it is great social proof.
15. Invite your clients to submit guest posts. Better than you sharing a client success story is the client sharing the story.
16. Bust a common myth. Every industry has common myths that keep people from doing things or taking action. Debunk them! This is especially great if the myth is commonly accepted as fact. Be prepared to show proof via research… just saying something is a myth isn’t good enough. Show the proof.
17. Share your epic fails. It’s that human thing again. It is exhausting reading blog after blog about someone’s perfect existence. Bleck. Share how you failed (and how your rose from the ashes again).
18. Reveal your biggest regrets. This is a close cousin to the epic fails and another way to show how imperfectly perfect you are. These can be things you regret doing (like being on Girls Gone Wild) or not doing (refusing to go to Hawaii because you didn’t want to miss a graduation party [which was a choice my stepson made that he regretted before the rest of us had returned from the Island]).
19.Find some fun facts. Random facts are a blast. You can do a Google search on “facts about [insert any topic] and get a wealth of random information. For example, did you know that according to the American Pie Council, more than 50 million pumpkin pies are consumed on Thanksgiving. I’m sure one of you health coaches can do something great with that fun fact!
20. Share your Top 10 Life Lessons. Chances are, you’ve learned something that can really help one of your readers. Life lessons are a valuable way to connect with people.
21. Create a fun video post about your day. Some of my favorite blogs are people sitting in the car sharing the random events of the day, or singing songs, or just having fun.
22. Show off your stuff. Love your new car? Can’t leave your beautiful ocean themed office? This sneak peak into your life connects you to your readers.
23. Share your hobbies. What do you do when you aren’t doing what you do? My posts about mushroom foraging get the MOST engagement. People love it.
24. Got any bad habits? Drinking, binge watching Netflix when you have work to do, eating pints of ice cream… share! Even better, share why you are completely okay with this bad habit or challenge yourself to break it. It’s all good.
25. Analyze a controversial topic in your industry. This type of post is a little more serious, but also a way to establish your expertise. For example, a health coach looking at the anti-vaxxers movement is something people want to read. Stake your position and back it up with facts.
26. Yin and Yang. Everything has pros and cons. Pros and cons post are a great way to help your readers sort through whether something is right for them. Eating plans, shoes, apps—anything is good for this type of post.
27. The best apps EVER. There is an app for everything. Some are great, some not so great. What are the must have apps to make your client’s lives easier? Write about them.
28. Offer a look behind the curtain. What went into creating your last event or product? Share the story—good, bad, and ugly. This builds connection and your readers want to see you succeed.
29. Write a group post with some of your peers. Take a controversial topic and gather responses from three or four of your peers. It’s always fun to see different opinions! Bonus: you can all post it on your blogs and link to each other.
30. Share a story. People love a good story, especially if it’s about you. I like to share slice of life stories and relate them back to something of value to my clients.
31. Kitten videos! Enough said.
32. Respond to Twitter. Twitter provides great fodder for blogs because the posts tend to be a little more controversial or extreme than on Instagram or Facebook. Find a post that could use more discussion and go to town.
33. Lessons from the big screen. Nearly every time I go to the movies, something happens in the story that would be great to share with my clients. Do it!
34. Write an open letter. Has something or someone really frustrated you recently? Write an open letter to whomever is frustrating you. It’s cathartic and your readers will love it.
35. Get passionate. What drives you? What are you particularly passionate about within your industry? Share it. Be visible.
36. Make predictions about the future of your industry/niche. What trends are coming up and do you agree or disagree with them?
37. List your favorite charities. What charities or organizations do you support and why? How do you support them… money, time, both? Provide links so your readers can make donations.
38. Showcase a customer. Chances are, your clients do pretty cool things. Brag on them in a post. Show the love.
39. Share some little known you facts. What are some things that most people don’t know about you? For example, I’m from Kansas. Most people in my life don’t know that. But once they find out, they tell me it “explains a lot.”
40. What are your all time favorite movies? Grease. Casablanca. Fifty First Dates. What movies can you watch over and over again and why? What does this say about you?
41. Tell an embarrassing story about yourself. There is no better way to keep it real with your audience.
42. How did you rock it? Share your biggest success in life so far. Why does it make you so proud?
43. Life lessons. What is an important lesson you learned recently?
44. Favorite podcasts. What podcasts do you listen to? Why? What do you love about them?
45. Run a contest. The contest can really be for anything. Give away a product or coaching with you. The prize doesn’t really matter as much as getting people engaged. I think photo caption contests are fun.
46. How-to [whatever your audience wants to do]. How-to articles are great, and are often easy to optimize for search engines because people search for that. If you can shoot a quick video, even better.
47. Acknowledge your readers. Pulling together insightful comments and putting them into a blog makes your readers feel special.
48. Create a pictures post. Find a beautiful image, post it, and simply ask people to comment. Easy and fun.
49. Write and share your manifesto. Manifestos are a fun way to share your core values. There are tons of sources for how to do it, so I’ll let you ask Google for more info on that.
50. Let Ted Talk. Curate your favorite Ted Talks. This would make a great top 10 list!
51. Showcase your lead magnet. Pull out a piece of your favorite lead magnet for the blog. Then make sure to provide a download link to it.
52. Pull together your best blogs. At the end of the year, make a top 10 list of your favorite blogs from the year. You can base this on the most comments, the most reads, or just the ones you really enjoyed writing.
And there you have it! A blog post idea a week for the entire year.
What about SEO?
Great question. I always believe in optimizing blogs for search. Some of these topics will be easier than others to do. If you really can’t optimize it, don’t worry. Just make sure you are optimizing most of them.
Pick your topic and then do some quick research to find out what people are searching for around that subject. Make sure you work that in to your copy. For example, when I chose this topic, I did some quick research and found “What to write for my blog” was a common search phrase. That is why you see it sprinkled throughout this post.
Want more help writing your blogs and other content?
I’ve got a great free download for you: my content creation cheat sheet. It goes over what to write, how long it should be, and where to publish it.
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OMG this is awesome. I’m so gonna bookmark this post! Thanks for this great list Susan!
My pleasure Lisa! Glad it’s helpful for you.