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Blog Post Idea
Generation Toolkit
The Complete Guide To Better Blog Post Ideas
Right Mix Marketing Inc.

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Introduction:
Welcome to the Blog Post Idea Generation Toolkit! One of the hardest things about
blogging is consistently coming up with new blog post ideas. In this document, we
provide everything you need to get better ideas for blog posts. The guide includes the
following sections:
1. 166 Blog Post Ideas
2. Where To Find Content Ideas
3. How To Stand Out With Your Blog – Charles Darwinʼs 12 Rules of Blogging
Survival
Make sure you read through the document, particularly part 3, before you get started
and happy blogging! For more examples and ideas, go to our blog at the following URL:
http://www.rightmixmarketing.com/blog/
_______________________________________________
1) 140+ Types of Posts
FAQs, Myths, Pitfalls
• FAQ Post: Detail the Frequently Asked Questions for your company or products
and answer them. You can do individual posts for more important FAQs.
• Myths Post: Present the myths for your industry and write an article to debunk
them.
• Industry Secrets: Write about secrets that people don't typically know about
• Common Pitfalls: Talk about common pitfalls and how to avoid them
• Common Misconceptions: Talk about a common confusing topics for beginners
• Industry Definitions: Define the key terms in your niche
• Beginner Advice: Write advice on topics that seem obvious but aren't to real
beginners
Timely / News
• Industry News (original): Break news or cover a hot topic in your industry in
your own way
• Curated News: Assemble relevant industry news and include snippets or
summaries on your site (properly linking to and referencing the source)
• Weekly News Wrap: Do a weekly news wrap up relevant for your customers
• New Idea: Write about a new or unique idea related to your niche.
• Service or Tool Review: Introduce people to a new useful service or tool
• Meme or Trend: Write your own take on a popular meme, trend or hot topic

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Series or Regular Post
• Weekly Series: Do a weekly series of posts.
• Annual Post: Do an annual top 100 list or yearly wrap up.
• Weekly or Monthly Themes: Do themes for a given week or month.
Research / Reviews
• Research Assessment: Highlight, summarize and write about the key findings
of research relevant for your industry.
• Best Practices Post: Compile a set of best practices for your industry.
• Curated Content Post: Collect resources from around the web and highlight
them in a post. Make sure to include only “snippets” or summaries of the articles
and link to the source. See this article for more about curation:
http://www.rightmixmarketing.com/right-mix-blog/definition-and-tools/
• Compare and Contrast: Compare and contrast your market to markets in other
cities, nationally or other countries
• Book or Video Review: Review an article, book, PDF, video, training program,
or service.
• Advice Post: Write about the current market environment and how that impacts
people or what they should do.
• Different Methods Post: Compare and contrast one way of doing something
from another way
• Two Sides of Issue: Compare and contrast two sides to an issue.
• Experiment: Do an experiment and talk about the results.
• Two Options: Compare two options - choices potential customers need to make.
Thought Leadership/Opinion Posts/ Inspiration
• Future Trends: Discuss future trends or predictions.
• Opinion Post: State your opinion on a topic and explain.
• New Practice Post: Introduce a new practice or way of doing business.
• Write an inspirational post.
• Push For Change: Organize a drive for something and get other people
involved.
• Industry Changes: What would you change about your industry? Post about
that.
• Motivate Action: What helps people move beyond their fear - how people can
be more confident to take an action.
• Industry History: How your industry has changed over time, key milestones.
• Counter-point To Common Belief: Challenge a commonly held belief in your
industry.
• A Manifesto: A manifesto is defined as “A manifesto is a public declaration of
principles and intentions, often political in nature” (Wikipedia). Write a manifesto
about your industry and something different youʼre going to do about some bad

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industry trends (for example).
Stories, Metaphors
• Story Post: Tell a story as part of the post that delivers a certain message or
makes a certain point.
o Talk about how you came to be involved with your industry.
o Include a personal story in a post.
o Write about something unique that you've done or are doing (e.g. lived in
china, running a marathon).
o Company history (especially if interesting).
o Tell a story of a challenge and how you or your company overcame it.
• Customer Case Study: A day in the life of a customer or your company.
• Good or Bad Experience: Talk about a good or bad experience you recently
had and what it means (e.g. how your experience at McDonald's highlights
customer service tips).
• Analogy or Metaphor: Draw an analogy in a post or use a strong metaphor.
Niche Celebrities, Brands or Movies
• Speaker or Keynote Highlights: Summarize and highlight key points for recent
celebrity speaker relevant for your industry (can even be a past video or audio
recording).
• The Mad Men Guide To… Make a connection between a famous person and
your post (e.g. How Lady Gaga would… or The Sopranos Method of Couples
Counseling).
• Big Brand Examples: Use famous brands, products or marketing campaigns as
good or bad examples of a practice.
• Highlighting key points from a longer article: Summarize or give key points
for someone else's long post or article.
• Compiled Tips Post: Compile input from several knowledgeable industry
sources - one sentence or paragraph per expert.
• Interview Post: Interview an influencer or expert and document the interview or
key points (can also include video or audio).
• Promote Other Blogs: Highlight several blogs you follow and why – this can
help give you some social capital with the other blogs.
Customers / Clients
• Case study post about a customer.
• Answer Questions: Take reader questions and answer them on your blog.
• Address Blog Post Comments: Write about a topic or question raised in the
comments section of your blog.
• Biggest Problems: Ask clients, Twitter followers or others about their biggest
problem related to your industry
• Best Readers: Connect in some way with your best readers - e.g. thank them,

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interview them, have them write a guest post, etc…
Your company / products – use sparingly (people care a lot about your products than
you do…)
• Company Differentiators: What makes your company different from the others?
• Service Philosophy: What is your customer service philosophy?
• Specials: Monthly specials, deals, promotions, close-outs.
• New Project: Talk about a new project and invite input or invite people to
participate
• Company Involvement: Talk about a publication you contributed to or a project
you or your company was part of.
• Related Industry Post: Create a post for a related industry. The customers for
both industries should be the same. Potentially involve or interview partners or
complimentary companies.
Tips / How To / Why / Tutorial posts - written, audio, video
• How To Post: How to build something, make something, buy something
• Detailed Tutorial: Write a tutorial on a very specific topic not usually covered in
that detail.
• Curated Tutorial Post: Compile a set of the best tutorials on a very specific topic
and briefly describe each and what they should use them for.
• Teach Via Your Experience: Teach people how you overcame a common
hurdle.
• Pottery-Making 101: Do a “101” (like a fundamentals course in college) post or
series of posts (e.g. pottery-making 101).
• Beginners/Advanced Tutorials: Do a beginnerʼs tutorial or advanced tutorial.
• Break Down Complexity: Simplify a complicated topic. For example, take a
technical topic and break it down or make it simple.
• Why You Should… Why the readers should do something.
• Timesavings: Write about how you save time doing something in your area.
• Curated or Compiled Tips: Assemble a variety of tips and compile them. Can
be from within your company or from other people or resources (credit
appropriately).
• How To Start: How to get started in something.
• Common Hurdles: How to overcome common hurdles.
• What To Do When You… Common triggers for action - write about that and
what to do. For example, “Three Essential Things You Need To Do When You
Get Laid Off”.
Pictures/Graphics
• Infographic: Create an infographic that graphically explains a complicated topic
using pictures or graphics: See this infographic as an example:
http://www.rightmixmarketing.com/right-mix-blog/should-i-move-to-wordpress-

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infographic/
• Pictures Post: Create a post that is mainly pictures related to your industry.
• Single Picture Post: Post one striking picture that conveys an important
message.
• Charts & Graphics: Use tables, pie charts or other graphics to tell a story.
Fun/Humor
• Game/Contest: Provide a game or run a contest for potential readers
• Animation or cartoon
• Funny Comparison: Compare your company to something famous, different or
in the news (e.g. Why Learning a Language is like Baking a Pizza).
• Satire Post: Satirize a popular movie or commercial (e.g. Apple iPhone
commercial satire, Star Wars satire).
• Humor: Add humor to spice up a dry topic.
• Something Unusual or Unique: Write about something unusual or unique in
your industry - web site, blog, book, etc.
• Quiz: Put a quiz for your readers.
• Quotes: Pull together quotes that inspire or relate to your industry.
• Award: Create an award for customers, readers or other industry players.
• Top 10: Rank 10 people in your industry along some criteria (positive is better
than negative!)
• Curate Funny Pictures or Video: Provide funny or interesting video or pictures
(make sure to use and credit appropriately)
• Humorous post: Write a funny post or include a joke.
• New Word: Create a new word and define it.
• Online fun resource: Highlight or include something fun, like a free online
game.
• Favorite Thing: Ask people what is one item, tool, gadget or productivity item
they can't live or work without.
Interviews - Written, audio or video interviews
• Influencer Interview: Interview famous people in your industry.
• Customer Interview: Interview your customers.
• Employee or Executive Interview: Interview people in your company.
• Get Interviewed: Have someone interview you – preferably an industry
influencer!
• Partner Interview: Interview partners or potential partners.
Polls/Surveys
• Twitter Question: Ask a question on twitter related to your industry and write
about the input (e.g. what would you change about making vacation plans
online?)
• Survey/Poll: Run a survey or poll and analyze and write about the results.

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Events / Holidays
• Press Without A Pass: "Be the press without a pass" at an industry convention -
writing, interviews, short video clips, pictures (check convention policies). See
this example: http://www.rightmixmarketing.com/right-mix-blog/19-lessons-from-
peter-shankman-blog-world-la-keynote/
• Live-blog an event: Create a blog post real-time for an event. There are also
specialized live-blogging tools if you want it to appear online as you type (search
for “live blogging tools”)
• Event/Holiday Posts: Write posts about upcoming holidays or events
(Christmas, Valentine's Day, Super Bowl, World Cup)
• Stages of Life: Write about stages of life or triggers - weddings, new babies,
funerals, etc.
• Events List: Document the events relevant to your audience - local events,
conferences or webinars.
• Deadlines: Key deadlines or information about training in your industry
• Event Takeaways: Write about the key lessons you took away from an event.
Video:
• Product “How To” or Review: Record a product review or “how to” video.
• Curated Video Post: Embed one or more good, relevant videos from YouTube
and describe the key points in text.
• Get to know your company: Film a day in the life of your company over video.
• Convert blog post into video: Create a video of a popular blog post and post
on YouTube and on your site.
Local:
• Local Area or Local Topic: Talk about a local topic or area that would interest
people who are your target market. It doesnʼt have to be about your industry.
• Local events: Highlight or list local events.
• Local Companies: Highlight local partners or other local companies of interest
• Local guides: Provide a guide to a local area.
• Comprehensive Guide: Comprehensive information about a particular region
from a variety of angles.
Short List Post
• Short List Post: Write a short list post. Examples include:
o “5 ways to..”
o “7 Tips For…”
o Ten things you can learn by watching…
o 6 ways __________ can make you ___________
Tools post

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• Tool Review: Detail a useful online tool that customers in your industry could
use.
• Ultimate Tools List: Develop the "ultimate list" for all of the best online tools for
your industry.
• Crowdsourced Tools List Post: Ask your readers or ask on Twitter/Facebook
for most useful tools or resources.
• Tool of the Week (Month): Share a new tool or website each week that people
will find useful.
• Tool “How To: Do a “how to” post or video for a useful tool (or a particularly
useful feature.
Comprehensive List Post (e.g. Ultimate List of …)
• Ultimate List Post: Develop "an ultimate" list of resources for your customers or
others in your industry to reference.
• Top Blogs or Websites: List and describe the top websites or blogs related to
your industry.
• Comprehensive Guide To… Write a comprehensive guide to a topic including
data, companies, trends, sales (or if in travel - top restaurants, how to get there,
weather, top hotels, etc.)
• Best and Worst Lists: Like the "Best Dressed People of 2010" type of post.
• 20 Free resources: Find free things that your readers will love.
• Curated Video Post: Post (embed) several relevant YouTube videos on your
site for a particular topic or product. Make sure you describe or summarize the
contents in text to help the audience decide what to watch and for SEO
purposes.
• Curated Post: Provide a list of the top articles or blog posts in your industry or
on a particular topic. Summarize or include a snippet from the post and link (and
reference) the source.
• Beginnerʼs Guide: Make a guide for your niche or industry. (e.g. “the beginners
guide to refinancing your home”).
• Resources Post: Ranked list of must read journals, magazines, books or blogs.
• Ideas List: Brainstorm a list of ideas on a topic and publish them for input,
feedback and additions (e.g. “50 eco-friendly vacations you can take this
summer”).
Guest Post / User-Generated Content
• Guest Post: See if a partner, customer or industry-relevant blog would post your
article from (describe the article and headline).
• Get Guest Posters: Identify fans, partners, industry influencers or others to
guest post on your blog.
• User-Generated Content: Create a contest or request readers to submit content
(articles, pictures, video).
• Collect Input: Ask other industry influencers the answer to a question and collect

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the answer from several people into one post.
Social Values post
• Charity Post: Write about a charitable event, contribution or volunteer effort.
• Issues Post: Write about a current issue and how people can help.
• Cause Post: Write about a particular cause you believe in. Find a way to help
non-profits in your industry and write about it or use the blog to forward it.
• Eco-friendly / Green Post: Talk about eco-friendly or green steps you've put in
place
• New Uses Post: Fun or interesting ways people can reuse items instead of
throwing them away.
Negative (use with care!)
• A Rant: Write a passionate post about a frustration - about something that is
bothering you
• Satire: Write a satirical post about something.
• Response Post: Disagree with another blogger or other well-known person
• Counterpoint: Do a counterpoint to someone or some trend in your industry.
_______________________________________________
2) Ways to find Content Ideas
Where to find topics
• Every day, everywhere. Keep a “blog post ideas” notebook or document and
capture all of the inspiration you find, wherever you are.
• Website Analytics: Check your analytics and the keyword phrases used to find
your site - write a post about one of those phrases.
• Search on Google - see what comes up for certain phrases. Dig around on those
sites for inspiration.
• Use the Google keyword tool (or other keyword tools) to see what people are
searching for you in your industry. Consider writing about longer tail keyword
phrases.
• Use the Google Trends tool to see what things are on the upswing as far as
interest.
• Look at Amazon book titles or tables of contents to get inspiration.
• Look at Amazon reviews to see what else people would like to know.
• Find ideas inside books on your topic.
• Look at blogs that get a lot of comments. See what topics they would like to know
or like talk or ask about.
• Use AllTop.com: search by industry and look at top blogs there and what kind of
posts theyʼre writing (can even be in a different industry).

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• Use Delicious, Digg and StumbleUpon to find articles or topics that inspire you.
• Do searches on Twitter.
• Convert old articles, white papers, and portions of books into posts.
• Look at competitors or other industry posts – make a better, expanded or slightly
different post.
• Repurpose a blog post into a video or presentation.
• Look at the questions people ask in relevant LinkedIn groups.
• Look at answers sites – like Yahoo Answers or Quora.
• Write an update or part two of a post that was popular.
• Set up Google news alerts for key industry terms.
• Listen to someone give a talk and find inspiration for a post.
• Follow A Twitter Chat – see this article for more information:
http://www.rightmixmarketing.com/right-mix-blog/twitter-chats-what-are-they-and-
how-to-find-them/
• Start with a picture – get inspiration from a picture for a post.
• Start with a favorite quote and describe how that applies to your industry.
• Find an infographic and build a post around that or get inspiration from it.
• Look at other industry blog posts and apply some of the headline ideas to your
industry.
• Subscribe to other blogs via email or RSS and get inspiration from their posts.
• Ask your readers or social media followers.
• Ask in a group, such as a LinkedIn Group.
• Think about what topics are too complex for your customers and consider how to
simplify one of them.
• What do you do every day to solve a problem others might have? Use this as an
idea for a post.
• Take a key step of a process and consider writing a post about that.
_______________________________________________
3) Standing Out With Your Blog
Charles Darwinʼs 12 Rules of Blogging Survival
By Tom Treanor
(Originally published on ProBlogger.net)
Blog readers have a myriad of reading options for almost every topic you can think of. In
fact, within your niche, potential customers may be enjoying blog posts written by your
competitors while they ignore your blog like the plague.
So what do you do about this dire situation? Do you hire ghost writers to create more

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content? Do you promote your content more via social media? Do you get better at SEO
so you can attract more search traffic?
Well. These may work to a degree. You may see some minor bumps with more
Tweeting, Facebooking and catching more long tail keywords in Google. But, itʼs a long
and slow process if youʼre using these brute-force tactics.
There has to be a better way. And there is.
Like Darwinʼs finches, which evolved different beak sizes over the generations to better
suit their differing environmental conditions and to survive, your blog has to become
better suited for your audienceʼs needs over time. You need to develop more “evolved”
blogging strategies that are more effective at differentiating your blog and attracting and
keeping the readers that you target.
You donʼt want your blog to end up on the wrong end of Natural Selection, do you?
Here are 12 ways for your blog to survive and thrive.
1. Be the best teacher in your niche
Explain the things that most people in your niche assume donʼt need to be explained.
Answer all of your potential customersʼ frequently asked questions in writing, with
pictures and (or) in video. Do detailed tutorials on fundamental as well as on in-demand
advanced topics.
Keep the quality high and listen closely to your audience when you pick topics and
develop the content. When competitors start sending customers to your site to
understand a complex topic, then youʼll know youʼve won!
2. Be more personal than the others
Getting personal can lead to a deeper connection with your audience and pay dividends
in terms of allegiance to your blog and brand.
Many business bloggers put up a barrier between their personal lives and what they
share on their blog. Including aspects of your personal life is one way to differentiate
yourself from your “plain vanilla” competitors.
3. Be funnier than the others
People love to laugh. Using humor well is hard, but can separate your blog from the
pack. if you can successfully pull off inoffensive humor (depending on your industry),
youʼll bring a lot of readers back again and again. Youʼll also likely increase the amount

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of social media shares that your blog gets.
4. Say what everyone else thinks
Itʼs uncomfortable to do. Saying what everyone else thinks is really hard. If you can be
the “voice of reason” without upsetting everyone around you, you can gather a tribe of
people who say, “Yes!” to every post.
5. Be the expert on a specific sub-niche
Donʼt focus on widgets: focus only on the custom-designed, high-end widgets from
Alaska.
If you can focus on a specific, but important sub-niche within your industry and become
the authoritative source, you can develop a big advantage against your competitors in
that area. Once successful, you can extend from this beachhead into the broader widget
market.
6. Have a bigger vision
Tie your blog to a bigger goal. What far-reaching vision can you use to inspire people to
join you in your mission? Can you align your company and blog with a bigger movement
that is out there? Can you create your own far-reaching vision that aligns with your
passions as well as with your company goals?
7. Be more extreme than the others
Go much further than the other blogs in terms of topics, challenges, transparency or
risks. It doesnʼt have to be dangerous, just extremely different. Youʼll get noticed.
8. Be more creative than the rest
If everyoneʼs writing articles, why donʼt you mix in video? How about being the first
infographic producer in your industry?
Try new topics, writing styles, media or blog post structures. Think of other ideas that
will provide value while separating your from the rest. Give yourself permission to try
something unique.
9. Cross-pollinate better than the others
Do you only work with other real estate-related blogs or influencers? How about looking
at the lending, architecture, finance and relocation industries?

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Spread your tentacles where your competitors never dreamed of going by guest posting,
blog commenting or connecting with other bloggers in those industries. If the target
audience is the same, you can gain some great benefits from this kind of cross-
pollination.
10. Be the best curator of meaningful content
Find the best information that others have written and posted online—the best articles,
charts, tables, infographics, videos, or pictures. Collect it in a logical, easy-to-use
navigational structure on your blog.
Make sure you link to and give credit to your sources and only summarize (or take small
portions of) the articles you link to. Content curation is a way to share great information
that is already available and to become seen as a key source of great information.
11. Be the news source for your industry
Focus on being the source of timely news and analysis for your industry. To be able to
keep up with the news cycle, this often means a combination of curated content mixed
with some original content or analysis.
Niche or industry news blogs can do very well because they get lots of shares, links,
SEO benefits and subscribers. Just have a plan for getting regular, high-quality updates
onto your site.
12. Work harder than the rest
Sometimes all the right things are in place but you donʼt have the results yet. Working
hard can pay off, but pace yourself and donʼt burn out! Grab more virtual land than the
competitors to create a barrier to entry for “lazier” niche-mates.
Come up with your own unique variation
Just like natureʼs many variations (which we never could have predicted), come up with
your own unique way to differentiate your blog. The blogs that thrive in a given niche will
be the ones who evolve in ways that allow them to meet the needs of their audience
better than the competitorsʼ blogs.
Avoid finding yourself on the wrong side of Natural Selection by using one of the
strategies above, combining a couple or by developing your own differentiated strategy.