Skellie is a regular writer for ProBlogger. Get more unique blogging tips at her blog, Skelliewag, or subscribe to her feed.
ProBlogger readers are absolutely spoilt when it comes to great articles about coming up with post ideas. But what about thinking up the post topics your audience has been craving?
In this post I’ll be outlining six strategies you can use to determine exactly what kind of posts your audience wants to see on your blog.
1. Listen to comments
One thing you might have noticed is that commenters will sometimes ask you to expand on a section of your post. Either they wanted more information on a specific point, a more thorough exploration of one of your ideas or a clear explanation of something that’s confused them. Instead of answering in comment form, you can turn your answer in a post (and use the answer to drive more traffic back to your original article.)
2. Listen to emails
Part of being a blogger is receiving and answering reader questions by email. These questions can be a great source of ideas for posts your audience is craving.
After receiving the tenth or so email on how I find and use great Flickr images in posts on my own blog, I decided to write a complete guide to the process after sensing it was something a lot of readers were interested in. The resulting post went on to become one of the most popular articles I’ve ever written!
Listening to reader emails can result in some fantastic post ideas.
3. Ask them
A fairly obvious option, but one I don’t see many bloggers explore. Ask your readers to submit ideas for posts they’d like to see on your blog. Do this every couple of months and you’ll have a list of ideas you can turn to when your well of inspiration runs dry. If you notice several ideas on the same topic or area you can bet that it’s something quite a few of your readers would like to see more of.
4. Turn wants and needs into post-topics
Grab a notebook, open to a new page and put a pen in one hand. Write down all the possible niche-related wants and needs of your target audience.
If your target audience is interested in debt elimination, for example, their wants and needs cloud might look like this:
- To develop a workable budget and stick to it.
- To spend less without sacrificing quality of life.
- To find cheaper versions of the things they need.
- To find new ways to make a bit of extra money.
- To avoid getting into future debt.
- To become debt-free as soon as possible.
- To eliminate unnecessary expenses.
If we give each want/need its own space on the page, we can start to branch out post ideas from each one. Because each of these post ideas is based on something our target audience wants, we can almost guarantee that it will be useful to them.
Photo by nattu
5. What do you want?
You’d be hard pressed to find a baseball blogger who’s not into baseball, a copywriting blogger who’s not into copywriting, a travel blogger who doesn’t like travel, and so on. You are part of your target audience. The things you’d like to see someone else in your niche write may just be what your target audience is also searching for.
Expanding on this premise, you can use your own niche experiences, problems and triumphs as fodder for blog posts. If you struggle with something related to your niche on a daily basis, maybe your readers are struggling with it too? If you’re worked out a solution to a problem related to your niche — something you were experiencing — maybe your readers would find the solution truly useful themselves?
If there’s a skill you’ve always wanted to learn, a problem you’ve always wanted to solve or a resource list you’ve always hoped to see, stop waiting for someone else to use your good idea, execute it yourself and turn the result into a truly useful blog post.
6. Reverse engineer what worked
Look at your blog’s top ten most popular post. They’re examples of posts that your target audience truly wanted to read. You can build on their success by adapting the same format to new content.
Let’s say one of your most popular posts was a list of ways to make money with eBay. You could capitalize on the success of the first article by creating an updated version (25 More Ways to Make Money With eBay), or invert the format by taking the opposite tack (25 Ways to Guarantee You’ll Lose Money With eBay) and outlining don’ts rather than dos.
Another effective strategy is to apply the same post format and headline formula to a new subject. Your list of 10 Insane Firefox Extensions for Web Designers could be followed by a list of 10 Insane Firefox Extensions for Entrepreneurs, or Journalists, or anything/anyone you can imagine (as long as it’s of interest to your target audience).
The crux of this strategy lies in combining what has worked well previously with something fresh, new and interesting.
Points to review:
- Find ideas in comments.
- Find ideas in emails.
- Ask your readers what they want.
- Use your audience’s wants and needs as a springboard for post topics.
- Find inspiration in your own wants and needs.
- Transfer the best qualities of your most popular posts into something new.
译文:
你是一个博客作家还是一个读心者？六种方法教你如何满足你的读者所需
斯克丽是专业博客作家网的常驻作家，想要得到更多奇特的博客写作小贴示，你可以浏览她的博客Skelliewaq或者订阅她的博客。
我们的读者们可以说早就被宠坏了，因为他们总能轻易读到不少有关时下最新观点的好文章。但是，你有没有尝试过去写那些你的读者迫切想读到的时新的话题呢？
在这篇文章中，我将会罗列出你可以用于你的博客写作的六项绝招，以便明确哪些类型的文章是你的读者真正想在你的博客中读到的。
1．慎听评论
你可能已经注意到了这样一件事：那就是有时有些评论会要求你就你的文章中的某个部分做一些扩充。他们或者是想就你的某个特殊的观点得到更多相关的信息，或者是对你诸多观点中的一个、以希望得到更深入全面的探讨，抑或是希望你对于困扰他们的某个观点做出一个清楚的解释。对此，你不必就每一个评价一一做答，相反，你可以以一篇文章的形式对它们做出回应（并且用这个回答吸引更多的读者来就你的原文，同你进行交流。）
2．关注邮件
成为一名博客作家的工作之一，就是以邮件的形式，接收和回应读者的问题。这些问题，可能就是成为你去获悉你的读者们所渴望读到的东西的重要来源。
在收到十多封有关我是如何在我自己的博客上，发现并且使用Flickr图像的邮件之后，我意识到这就是大多数读者所感兴趣的东西，于是我决定就此过程写一份完整的导向指南。结果，这篇文章顺理成章地成了我写过的最受欢迎的文章之一！
关注读者的邮件，有时可以给你的文章带来某些奇妙的思路。
3．善于询问读者
这其实摆明了是一个明智之举，可惜我却并未发现有多少博客作家探索去使用它。询问你的读者们，让他们告诉你他们喜欢在你的博客上读到哪些东西。每隔两个月就这样做一次，那么当你发现自己的思维枯竭之时，你就会庆幸自己已经有了一连串的观点可供参考，以解燃眉之急。如果你注意到，就同一个话题或领域，有好多不同的观点，那我敢打赌它就是你的不少读者想要深入了解的东西。
4．把人们一切所想所需写进博客
随便抓一本本子，翻到新的一页，并握上一支笔。尽可能写下你的目标读者们的所有的合理的所想所需。
比方说，如果你的目标读者们对债务偿清的话题感兴趣，那么，他们的所想所需可能就会像这样：
·制定一份切实可行的预算然后严格按照其实行。
·在不以牺牲生活质量为代价的前提下，尽可能地减少开支。
·对于他们所需的物品，货比三家后，挑选更实惠的版本。
·寻找新的途径，让钱生钱。
·避免将来任何可能负债的情况。
·尽可能快地还清所有的负债。
·消除所有不必要的开支。
如果我们在每一页上，都就读者们每一个所想所需给予其存在的空间，那么我们很快就能够从它们每一个中都得到全新的扩展思路。因为这些时新的想法中的每一个都是基于我们的目标读者所想要得知的，我们当然也就可以几乎肯定地说，它将会对他们十分有用。
5．你想要什么？
你决不可能发现这样的情况：一个不会打棒球的人会写棒球专题的博客；一个不懂撰写的人会写有关撰写的博客，或是一个不喜欢旅游的人会成为旅游方面的博客作家等等。你要知道你是你目标读者中的一员。你所希望看到的那些别人站在你的角度时会写的东西，也就是你的目标读者渴望读到的东西。
基于这个前提再进行扩展，你可以把所有自己生活的经历，遇到的问题以及成功的经验作为素材用于你的博客文章。如果你为你日常生活的某些琐事而烦恼，说不定你的那些读者们也正在为此而烦恼。如果你已经想出了解决你生活麻烦的方法（某个你曾经经历过的麻烦），那么难保你的读者们不会发现那个方法对他们也很有用。
如果你一直想要学会一种技能，想要解决一个问题或者想要看到一份资源清单，那就不要等着别人抢在你前面使用这些好主意，自己把它们一一实现，将它们转变为真正有用的博客文章。
6．玩转你成功的经历
看看你博客中最受欢迎的十篇文章。它们就是你的目标读者们想要读到的文章的典范。你可以通过在相同模式中添加新的内容，来保证它们长期受到关注。
让我们假设，你最受欢迎的文章之一是有关在易趣网上赚钱的诸多方法。你可以利用你第一篇文章的成功，对原主题进行拓展（25.通过易趣赚钱的更多的方法），或者采取完全相反的思路来逆转文章版式（25.确保不在易趣上丢钱的方法），随后罗列出哪些该做哪些不该做。
另一个有效的战略就是采用一个新的主题，但是套用与成功文章相同的版式以及标题模式。你所写的一份网络设计者为之疯狂的火狐浏览器10大扩展软件清单，可以同样改写为一份企业家为之疯狂的火狐浏览器10大扩展软件清单，抑或是你可以想到的任何东西，任何人。（只要它们是你的目标读者所感兴趣的就好。）
这项技术的要点就在于要把你先前取得成功的经历和那些新奇有趣的事情巧妙的加以结合。
重要观点重述：
·在别人给你的评论中捕捉思路。
·从读者的邮件中得到启发。
·问你的读者想要看到哪类话题。
·把你的读者的所想所需作为制定你文章题目的出发点。
·从你自己的所想所需中找灵感。
·把你受欢迎的文章中的精华部分更新并加以利用。
补充：欲想了解所谓的“Flickr”,不妨浏览一下http://niku.bokee.com/3871238.html这一网页。^ ^