You’re ready to begin writing – but there’s just one problem. What should you write about? Unless your target blog is in your exact niche, you will need to come up with a different topic than what works on your own blog.
And even if you’ll be writing in your own niche, chances are you’ll need to make some adjustments to your tone and style to fit in with that of the blog for which you are guest posting.
If you’ve carefully researched the blog, you’ll have an idea of what its readers are interested in, and what they want to know more about. If you haven’t already done so, take the time to jot down some of these general topics.
Your task now is to find the overlap between your own niche and expertise, and what the readers of this blog want.
The following steps will get your synapses firing and generate ideas for guest post topics:
Check back through the comments on the blog. Which posts moved the readers to tears, which ones did they really rave about? If you can touch the readers’ emotions in a deep way, your post is sure to be successful.
What questions are the blog readers asking about in the comments? Compare this with your notes on the most recent posts and also the popular posts – what’s missing? Is there a hole you can fill?
If the blogger responds to comments, also take note of his or her stance on particular subjects. Your guest post will have a better chance at getting published if it is in line with the blogger’s belief system. Consider that as you home in on your topic for this blog.
Although many bloggers bemoan it as a time-suck, social media sites like Twitter can be mine of fantastic ideas for blog posts – both as a guest and for your own blog.
You’ve already followed the blogger on Twitter. If this blog is in a different niche, make an effort to find other people in this niche to follow. Make a Twitter list for this niche, and then check that stream regularly to find out what people in this niche are talking about.
What types of posts are they sharing? What questions are they asking? This information will stimulate your imagination for ideas on writing for this niche. Ideally you want to come up with a slightly new twist on a popular topic.
This step will do wonders to steering you toward a topic that people want to read about, and a post that could potentially go viral on a big blog.
Let’s say you have a gardening blog, and you’d like to guest post on a blog about natural health. What have you learned about gardening that can be applied to natural health (or any niche)? What is there about gardening or plants that can solve the natural health readers’ problems? How can plants and/or gardening improve one’s health?
These are the sorts of questions you can ask yourself to identify the overlapping themes between the two topics.
If writing out your topic ideas on your spreadsheet or document isn’t working that well, you might find better success with mind mapping.
A mind map is a great strategy for identifying the overlap in your topics. You can create one by hand (adding artistic flourishes), or create one online. Mindmeister is a excellent, free online tool for mind mapping.
Read more on how to set up a mind map (and get lots more creative brainstorming ideas) in the article How To Crank Up Your Creativity by Mary Jacksch.
It may seem like list posts are overdone (10 Tips For a Healthier Garden), but believe it or not these types of posts get the most shares and bookmarks. The more items on the list the better, though, because that shows you’ve gone the extra mile to do some extensive research and/or thinking and imagining.
An advantage of list posts is that they’re easier to write because they don’t require as much narrative flow. The super big lists posts (79 Ways to Improve Your Writing) look impressive but each item on the list only requires a sentence.
If you’re having trouble coming up with a topic, think about a list post that could incorporate information suitable to both your niche and that of your target blog.
Author: A-List Team