It can be tough to come up with topics to blog about on a weekly or daily basis. And not only do you need to come up with the subjects for each of your posts, you also need to choose topics that will help bring in readers while still working to build trust and position you as a knowledgeable authority in your industry—so blog posts about how much you dislike kale need not apply (although I would totally be a fan of them).

One way that you can easily bring in more visitors without saturating your blog with posts containing nonsensical keywords and while helping position yourself as a subject matter authority is to use recent news in your industry as a springboard for developing topic ideas.

How the News Helps

Local, national and international news is something that almost everyone pays attention to, including your potential clients and blog readers. But with the Internet, we are no longer relegated to simply watching the news on television or reading the paper—now we can search the ‘net for a more user-friendly breakdown of what the news means to each of us as individuals.

Your clients might see the headlines about the Dow tanking, but do they really understand how that affects them? Your clients might see something about a regulation change for your state’s auto insurance requirements, but will they understand how that change will—or won’t—affect their insurance policy? Not only can creating blog posts about these timely topics bring you new traffic but it can also allow you the power to educate and become the go-to authority for your new readers while also answering questions for your existing clients.

Finding the Newspiration

It’s actually pretty easy to get the news in your industry, albeit sort of time consuming. Here are a few ideas:

  • Set up Google alerts with relevant keywords. This will scrape the Internet—from news sites to blogs—for posts and articles containing those keywords.
  • Subscribe to the RSS feeds for press release websites. Search the feeds for relevant topics. Your RSS reader should have an easy feed search option so that you don’t have to scan the titles yourself.
  • Scan the headlines on your e-reader or other device. Some newspapers, such as the New York Times, offer e-reader subscriptions and even have special desktop reading programs for digital subscribers. These can make it very easy to scan the headlines and get ideas. You can often even “clip” or “highlight” the article and refer to it later for details, statistics and facts for your posts and other content.

A well-run, well-written and conversational blog can make a big difference to a business. Not only does it help cement authority status in your industry and educate potential clients but it also helps readers feel closer to you and makes you seem much more accessible. Finding a workable method to come up with timely topics is just another way to help fit it into your work/life balance.

I’m happy to work with clients on creating a monthly or weekly editorial calendar that blends evergreen topics with dynamic current events. This is just one of the many blog management services I offer. Contact me for rates and details.