Finding topics for your blog can be a daunting process for the beginner, but fear not, there are some awesome tools out there that can point you in exactly the right direction.
Let’s get started.
1. Google Trends
Google Trends has been around for many years and can certainly turn up some interesting data. There are however, issues with overall accuracy.
A recent study showed that the search volumes can be reasonably accurate at a country level but certainly not at a more granular level, like cities, for example.
“In the considered timespans, Google Trends has proved to be reliable only for surveys concerning RSVs [number of searches] of countries worldwide.”
It’s a good place to start your investigations, however other studies have also found that the accuracy of Google Trends data was simply not reliable, especially for smaller search volumes.
Trends can be useful to show you what are very popular searches and now even includes a ‘real time search trends’ section.
This can even be broken down by category so for example you can see popular sports searches over the last 24 hours broken down by event, as well as any related queries.
Take the numbers with a pinch of salt, though.
2. Answer The Public
Answer The Public is a really good tool for discovering question phrases that exist within a particular topic, rather than unearthing currently popular topics.
It’s very good, however and can certainly help to pick up on areas of a topic that you may not have previously considered.
There is a pro version (from $99) which gives search volumes but you can probably get similar data from something like SPYFU at a lower cost.
The Answer the Public pro service also includes a tool for brand monitoring alerts.
Once you have your popular topic that you plan to write on, this is the perfect tool to make sure you are covering all the angles.
From the homepage you can just enter a search term and hit the search button. It creates some pretty visualisations of topics (above), but you may find the ‘data’ tab easier to use.
It will also allow you to download the whole list in an easy to use CSV file like this:
The free service only gives you three searches though, so use them wisely! Or fire up a VPN and a different browser.
For free, this is a great research tool that you should definitely make use of.
3. Exploding Topics
Exploding Topics was created by Brian Dean, this tool is intended to detect brand new product trends for investors as well as identifying relevant keywords that can be used for content marketing.
You can view the data from 30 different categories or you can search the database.
The tool is aimed at entrepreneurs but definitely can be of use to a content marketer for basic research. It is apparently used by the likes of Google and Microsoft.
Some data is held back from the free version as you can see from this screenshot of the ‘Crypto’ category.
Nevertheless, the free functionality allows you to identify new trending areas and keywords that you may not have been aware of otherwise.
4. Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo is one of the most useful social media marketing tools you’ll find.
Imagine being able to sift through any niche of the Internet for popular content, and see it broken down in a list by the amount of Facebook shares or Tweets that each page got.
That’s what you can do with Buzzsumo. It is indeed the sumo wrestler of trending topic research.
This unique functionality means that you can get the exact research on what sort of content is actually working in your niche.
Below you can see a list of pieces of content relating to Bitcoin then sorted by Facebook shares.
You can also sort the list of articles by the number of Tweets.
As well as this incredibly useful research power, you can also search for popular influencers in a specific niche, sorted by followers for Twitter, Facebook or Youtube.
There is a 30 day free trial which allows you 100 searches and most functionality apart from CSV export.
5. SEMRUSH
SEMRush is the swiss army knife of internet marketing tools and the company have added some exciting new research functions to their existing backlink and keyword research offering.
There are various ways of using SEMRush to find trending topics, here are a few:
Keyword Magic
The keyword magic tool lets you explore high volume relevant keywords that you may not be aware of.
There is a free trial which will give you ten free searches and a limited data output.
Put in your keyword as shown and then press search. Then simply go through the tabs to cycle through the results. You’ll see the ‘related’ tab where there are keywords related to your query that could be of use.
Topic Research
The topic research tool lets you discover high traffic opportunities in your niche as well as suggesting impactful headlines for your piece of content.
This is a powerful tool in the right hands and can be an excellent way of finding real goldmines for content marketing. Above are the results for the word ‘Bitcoin’ in a search.
As you can see, by putting in the word ‘Bitcoin’ we are given various suggestions, one of which is ‘Elon Musk’ which you can then dig deeper on.
The tool suggest possible headings for your article along with search volumes as well as a number of relevant questions for your topic.
Outline Builder
If you have absolutely no idea where to start your content marketing SEMRush also have an ‘Outline Builder’ which you can use once for free.
More searches mean signing up, but the tool is an excellent way to plan popular content and will save you money on brainstorming and other tasks needed for content planning.
Outline builder shows you promising content opportunities that are relevant to your business as well as using the power of AI to plan the best way to structure your article.
