Blog Post Ideas – How To Generate 100s Of Ideas In A Few Minutes (+ 5 Free Tools)

by Mark Whitman

Generating blog post ideas doesn't need to be difficult.

In fact, it can be easy.

In this article I'll show you how I generate 100s of blog post ideas in just a few minutes.

It works for every single niche - travel, fashion, lifestyle - you name it.

And you don't need any technical skills. Beginners are welcome!

Let's jump in.

Generating Blog Post Ideas

It's one thing to brainstorm blog post ideas for your website.

But what you really want to do is generate an entire blog content strategy (all the blog ideas for your niche).

blog post ideas meme

The method I'm going to show you does just that.

It relies on something called topical authority.

To become a topical authority you need to cover as many blog post topics in a niche.

The theory is the deeper and broader you cover a niche, the more of a topic authority you'll become, and the better your site will perform from an SEO perspective.

But how do you do this?

The good news is it's relatively easy and quick.

The bad news is it relies on a few paid tools.

Don't panic!

If you're not ready to invest just scroll down to the section: blog post ideas for beginners where I share a few free tools that do something similar.

I still recommend you read this section though as it'll blow your mind.

100s of Blog Post Ideas

To follow this method you're going to need two tools: 

First, open up Ahrefs and navigate to the keyword explorer.

Type in a broad seed keyword for your niche.

For example, I've typed in "remote work".

ahrefs keyword insight

Click Matching Terms on the lefthand navigation.

This will provide all keywords that have your seed keyword in them. As you can see for "remote work" there are over 61,000 keyword.

That's a lot of blog post ideas.

ahrefs matching terms

The trouble is that not every keyword is relevant or deserving of its own article.

For now the data is somewhat useless.

Next we want to remove non-relevant keywords.

Looking at the list, I can see many keywords relate to a remote control not working (i.e. amazon fire stick remote not working, tv remote not working etc).

As we want to generate blog ideas relating to working remotely (not remote controls), we can use the Exclude filter to remove these non-relevant keywords.

You can also remove keywords with very little search volume (i.e. less than 50 searches a month).

After applying these filters we're left with just over 1000 keywords.

A much more sensible number.

matching terms filtered

However, 1000 keywords doesn't mean 1000 article ideas, as one article can rank for many keywords. 

To figure out which keywords only require one article we need to use a keyword grouping software.

I love KeyClusters as it's super affordable when compared to other keyword grouping tools, and it uses a robust clustering logic.

Specifically, it uses real-time SERP results to see which keywords share similar ranking pages. If a keyword shares 3 or more raking pages it gets grouped together.

In other words, if three or more pages can rank for a set of keywords, you can be pretty confident you just need one article to rank for the same set of keywords.

The tool also helps you avoid keyword cannibalization (i.e. writing multiple articles that compete for the same keywords).

Inserting the 1000+ keywords related to "remote work" from Ahrefs into KeyClusters, we get the following output.

cluster for advanced content gap analysis

Every line here is a blog post idea. 

Each line consists of the primary keyword, the aggregated volume of the primary and keyword variations, the keyword difficulty and all the variations that we can target with this one blog post idea.

The screenshot above only shows the first 30 ideas, but the full output consisted of over 400 blog post ideas.

Not all would be relevant, but as you can see, we've now generated 100s of unique blog post ideas related to the niche: remote work.

And it only took me a few minutes.

If you're serious about ranking in your niche, then this is the methodology I recommend for generating blog post ideas.

Blog Post Ideas for Beginners

If you're not quite ready to invest in paid blogging tools, then here are 5 ways to generate loads of great blog post ideas.

TL;DR: Watch this short video where I explain how to use each tool.

1. Answer The Public

Answer The Public is a great tool to generate blog ideas based on what people are asking on the web.

answer the public

It's super easy to use.

Enter a seed keyword. I entered "Kilimanjaro".

People Also Ask will then generate keywords related to this term and segment them into three categories: Questions, Prepositions and Comparisons. 

Each category is displayed as a mind map with loads of great blog post ideas.

Here's the output of questions related to Kilimanjaro.

answer the public questions

2. AlsoAsked

AlsoAsked uses the same methodology as People Also Ask.

also asked

After entering a seed keyword, you'll be presented with a tree diagram showing the main questions people ask related to your seed keyword.

As you can see below, the tool generated many great blog post ideas related to Kilimanjaro.  

alsoasked-kilimanjaro

3. Quora/Reddit

Quora and Reddit are often over-looked by bloggers. This is a shame as they are a treasure trove for blog post ideas.

quora and reddit for keyword questions

Simply enter a seed keyword and look at the common questions people are asking. 

What I really love about both Quora and Reddit is that they don't only help with generating blog ideas, but you can also use the answers as source material for an article (just don't plagiarise!) 

4. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a SEO and keyword research tool that allows one to do a few free searches before upgrading.

I think the tool is great for beginners as it's very intuitive and "free" if you only need to do a few searches. 

Enter a seed keyword and head over to keyword ideas in the lefthand navigation.

Here you'll be presented with lots of keywords to stimulate ideas for your next blog post.

ubersuggest question keywords

5. Google SERP and Trends

Google also provides loads of insight in their SERP.

Just enter a seed keyword and have a look at the People also ask section.

people also ask

Also check out the Related searches section.

related queries

Finally, head over to Google trends and enter your topic here too. Check out the related topics and queries.

google trends

Blog Content Ideas FAQ

How do bloggers get content ideas?

Most bloggers generate content ideas by doing SEO keyword research to see what their audience is searching for. Some bloggers also use insight from sites like Quora and, Reddit, or from relevant social media groups and industry forums to generate blog ideas.

What are some popular blog topics?

Popular blog topics vary by niche, but in general, the most popular blog topics are those with high search volume or high commercial intent. You can work out search volume by using a keyword research tool. Commercial intent can be gleamed by analysing the search intent of a topic and establishing whether the user is looking to make a monetary transaction.

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Mark Whitman

Mark founded Contentellect with a single aim - to help online business owners and entrepreneurs scale their content and generate better financial returns. Mark has built a number of 6 and 7-figure online businesses, and credits his online success to quality content and powerful links. In addition to running Contentellect, Mark is also the Founder and CEO of the adventure travel company, Mountain IQ. He holds a Masters degree from Cambridge University.


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