Coming up with ideas on what to title your content can be a roadblock when it comes to being consistent with your content. With these simple and quick tips you will no longer have an issue with coming up with ideas! This is a great episode especially if you have a group of volunteers or staff that are helping you write content so you can allow them to batch and get a ton of blogs done all at once.

What you'll learn:

→ importance of creating categories.
→ how to turn one post into multiple! 
→ ways to use your team to generate ideas.

Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:

[2:08] Why content matters. Content helps with your SEO. It helps search engines understand more about your business and that you're still relevant. It also provides resources for your community and positions you as an expert in your arena.
[4:50] Creating categories and using goals to help develop ideas. Think about what's on your calendar for the coming months that might be good to talk about. Think events, fundraising campaigns, awarness months etc. Then come up with core categories that cover your broad goals that you want to regularly generate awareness for.
[7:41] FAQs Ask your team what questions come through regularly. These are great blog posts so they can use them as a resource to share with folks. It's also likely people are searching for them and increase your chances of showing up for those terms. 
[10:26] Turn on blog post into multiple blog posts. Take your topic and break it down. Ask yourself why and how about all the topics that are in that post. You can likely take that single post and turn it into 5-10 different topics for a blog post.

Full Transcript

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] You know, you should be creating content. But tell me if this sounds like you, the hardest part of creating content is coming up with the ideas. What do you talk about? And how do you talk about it. So that's what I want to talk about. In today's episode of the digital marketing therapy podcast, I'm going to share with you some quick and easy ways to come up with the titles in your content so that you can then write them yourself, have them written by someone else, but the titles are kind of sometimes the hardest part to come up with. So we're going to walk through some ways that you can do that so that you can batch your content, have it coming out regularly. And then do all the things that we talk about in a lot of these episodes, have your email marketing setup, have your social media posts all pulled together. So if you're struggling with coming up with content ideas, this is the episode for you. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And I'm your host, and I'm so glad to be here with you for this episode.

Before we get into the goods. This episode is brought to you by our website redesign workbook, you know that content is really important for you to build out your Google ads for people to keep coming back to provide resources. But your website also needs to be in line and ready to convert for your visitors. So if you're thinking about building a new website, or redesigning one, hiring one or doing it yourself, you definitely want to check out the website redesign workbook. So head on over to thefirstclick.net/156. For the show notes from this episode, so you can grab that link, check up that workbook and have a stress free website built because you'll know exactly what you want, how you want it and where you want it. Let's get into the episode.

[INTRO] You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern]  So before we jump into creating content topics, I just wanted to talk briefly about why content matters and why it's something that you want to continue to add to your website. And what do we mean by content blog posts. So content is really just the written words, it's the copy and the information that you put on your website. Now, adding content on a regular basis to your website can really help search engines understand what it is your website is about. It also sends signals that you are up and running that you exist that your current, that you're not shut down for business, that people coming to your site are going to get relevant at noon. And then it's just a great resource for your visitors. So some quick, quick, quick tips for writing blog posts. And I don't want to get too much into it. Because this is really just about creating the content ideas. But you need to understand why you need to create those content ideas before you actually start writing. You can provide resources for the public that you serve, you can highlight board members or sponsors, it's a great tool for the people on your team that are getting phone calls about the same thing over and over again, to send people to the website with relevant information. And it's just a good way for you to be found organically in search. So if somebody's looking for something and you solve their problem, having content on your website that can grab them and pull them in allows them to dive deeper. It's also a great way for you to bring people into the mix without having to ask them for something right away. So you're not having to ask them to make a purchase or sign up for your service. Or donate to your organization, right. They're diving in, they're getting to know you as an expert in the area that you're in, feel comfortable with you like your style, and become that perfect donor for you. Right, it's a step in the process of building those relationships with people.

And quite possibly, especially for nonprofits, the most important thing is having great blog posts or content on your website can really help you maximize the Google Ad grant, which is a $10,000 grant. Free advertising for Google Ad who couldn't use that, right. So that is some of the reasons why having content is great. And what you put out there for content can vary. So for us, it's our podcast, the show notes on our website, that's the content, it might be a YouTube video that you push on also share on your website, it might be a blog post. So all of these things can turn into content that you're putting out on a regular basis. So when it comes to coming up with topics, there's a couple different things I want you to think about and I kind of hinted at some of them already. But first we want to think about what our goals are and what some of our core categories are that we are talking about and who we're talking to.

So we want to think about are we in a fundraising mode? Are we in? Maybe you do support for women who are battling breast cancer. So October, you might be highlighting all of your amazing people that you serve women that have worked with you, and men. So it just really depends, like, where are we at in our cycle? So let's look at quarter ahead and say, Okay, if we're going to be publishing a blog post a week for the next quarter, what are the big things that are going to be coming up that we're going to want to address writing these down will automatically give you content ideas. So that's the first thing we want to do from a timeliness standpoint, right. The second thing is, like I mentioned, what are some of the other cat core categories that we know we want to talk about on a regular basis. So it might be that we want to talk about, we want to feature a student in our program every month and talk about their story. And you know, the growth and the progression that they've had, we want to do an after school, we love to do after school resources and activities we love to do. And these are broad categories.

So these aren't going to be specific topics, right? These are just going to be writing things down. Because what we're doing is we're coming up with this list to make it super easy for you to say, Okay, I need for the next quarter, I need three topics that are going to be after school activities. So then when you sit down to write out your lists, you're like, Okay, three afterschool activities, okay, I can do an outdoor activity, because now it's summer. And so I'm going to do a backyard activity, I can do whatever, you can just pull three, and it's way easier than being like, each week. Okay, what am I going to do, you've got them all done. Um, so that's kind of the way that categories can really help you. So then your categories, in line with your goals for the quarter are really going to start to shape the content that you're creating during this period. Now, if you are running ads, you also want to pay attention to the timeliness, I'm not a Google Ads expert, but you'll want to talk with your Google Ads manager about timelines, and when you might want to promote and push out this stuff. So it's not necessarily right on time, but maybe a few weeks earlier, so that you can start running ads to that content. So people are seeing it, it's getting a little bit more sophisticated, but definitely a conversation to have with your ads manager as you're starting to talk about the timeliness and the topics.

And now, the third thing that I like to have people think about are, what are the most commonly asked questions that I get in my office in my admin office, from my donors from potential registrants, from potential participants in our program from volunteers from our board members, right? Keep track of all of those questions, because those are incredible blog posts. Now, yes, you can do an FAQ page and put all that information there, categorize it by those core topics. But you can also take some of those that are really commonly asked and put them into longer blog posts. Now, the reason why this is great is number one, it helps your admin team to be able to quickly and effectively or volunteers be able to push people in the right direction for the answers or grab that information themselves if they don't know it all. But it also means that people are probably searching for that online if they're calling and asking you. So you're automatically creating content that you know, people are looking for. The other great thing about some of these commonly asked question posts is that there's a great opportunity to link them all together. So somebody calls in and asks, What afterschool activities do you do with the kiddos in the program. So you might have a general blog post that talks about your after school rhythm, and you know, they do arts and crafts, and they have snack time, and they have this map together. And snack time might link to another blog post that has that talks about healthy afternoon, snacks. Or it also might link to a page that talks that is interviewing your new head of nutrition or whatever that's talking about different nutritional needs for kids at different ages. So now you have an opportunity to really allow people to dive deeper, you're deepening that experience for them, you as the expert you who knows the most about this topic. So building that trust factor so that people can engage and continue on with you. So really, what we want to think about when we create our content is how are we creating this holistic picture, and you will not run out of things to talk about and I'm going to show you how next. So just to recap, we really want to think about the core categories that our company needs to talk About so that we can just make that list, we need to think about what we have coming up on the horizon so that we can make sure we're featuring some of the things that are going to continue to push people that are on our website to take action. And we want to make sure we're paying attention to when we're publishing this content so that it fits in with promotion schedules, ad schedules, etc.

So the next thing that I hear from folks is, well, I did that I did what you said, I wrote out my stuff, and I only have like 10 ideas. So what we tend to do is think really high level and big picture. We know all of the things that go into it, right? So if I'm interviewing the head of nutrition at my after my school program, and I might know a lot of these facts already, or they might know all these facts already. So maybe the topic you wrote down is how I snacks are what we feed our kids in the after school program. So then what I want you to do is take that and say, Okay, well, why? Why do we feed them? This? What's the nutritional value of that? Why do we choose to source from this place? Why do we feed the four to six year olds something different than the 12 to 13 year olds? How are we taking into consideration, allergies and food sensitivities? How do we get the kids involved in playing with the food? So you see all of those different things are different blog posts, right? Where do we source the food from? What is what is the behind the scenes look in the kitchen? How do we include the kids in clean up? So we're teaching good habits, right? So now you can still interview your head of nutrition for all of those topics. But you're gonna then turn that into 10 or 15 different blog posts that can go out throughout the entire year, right, you can have a whole series once a month, from your nutrition person. And that just took me two seconds. So the easiest way to go about this is to ask yourself, why. So maybe one of your commonly asked questions is what should I expect to pay?

When I once I adopt a pet? From you like what you know, I want to know, and I want to make sure that I have the budget in place for to take care of this animal. So maybe that's the question that's coming in, you can absolutely do a blog post on hey, here are the standard expenses when adopting a dog. But why why are they adopting a dog? Why do they care about the motivation? Like what's the motivation behind the money? What you know, so it could be that you do a blog post that. And that expenses that people tend to not think about how to financially plan for adopting a pet, how to financially plan for adopting a small dog, a medium sized dog, a large dog, a cat, a rabbit, right? So you can break all of those posts down into completely separate blog posts. And the key to this is making sure that you can you share that information back and forth. So in your blog posts, you might say something like, if you're interested in a medium sized dog, check out this post, right, so people can go back and forth, but they're getting the information that they need specific to what they want, which is also a better user experience, right? Because I'm not getting all the extra fluff. I'm just getting the information that I need, based off what I'm searching for and what I want to know, then it could be instead of how much does it cost to have a dog, it could be, maybe you do a blog post seasonally that's like our favorite summer dog toys for any budget. And then you have you know, your bargain dog toys, your medium priced ones and your bougie, dog toys, whatever, right? Our favorite water toys for your water dog, our favorite. Our favorite places to take your park or take your dog outdoors, like the mall or the park or whatever. I mean, like there's so many different things that you can kind of break it down into.

So take that topic, ask yourself why and how.  And then really just create all of those little mini topics. So then you'll find that you'll be able to create series of information. So people say, Well, I can't blog. I can't put content out every week. Right? Um, I really encourage you to at least start doing it once a month, have longer pieces of content, if that's the case, so that you could still use it for your email and social media throughout the month. I'd really love to see you doing it weekly. And you can do something like 450 or 700 words. I love at least 700 words. It doesn't take you that long and here's the beauty of it. If you say to a volunteer or who overriding your content or helping you with it. I want four blog posts on the expenses of owning a dog. And here's the four titles that you have, right when I go out and research how much it costs to take care of a full pound dog or less 2012 25 pound dog 50, whatever, right? I'm doing that research, if those are the four blog posts, and they're all similar, and I'm going to put that out as a series, they're getting all that research all at the same time. So writing those posts is going to be so much faster, because they're doing it all at the same time. And they're doing it on a similar topic, right? So it makes your staff time so much more effective and efficient. Maybe you have somebody else that does, like the for sponsor write ups, right. So they might be calling and interviewing for different sponsors, and talking about why they're engaged with your organization, why they love it, yada, yada, yada. Maybe you have somebody else that writes, For topics on like pet features. So you're talking about, and maybe you don't do it by the animals that are in your care, but maybe by most common breeds. So you could tell the story of how some of these breeds get to you and why they're, you know who they're meant for. Right? That's a great resource to have in your library. Pit bulls are great for these kinds of families, they typically do better with kids, no kids, they typically do better with backyards, whatever it might be, right. I'm not a dog expert. But what does that look like? So when I come to your website, I have that resource. Okay, so just with those three things, we've highlighted a sponsor, we've highlighted, like the breeds, or what people would want to know, we've highlighted cost, you now would have, if you did four of those, you'd have 12, blog posts, right? Four times three. Right? Well, blog posts. So that would get you through three months, three months, and you're done. Just like that. Then if you just get them all written, you're planning this a quarter ahead of time, they have a month or two to get them written, pop them up, have your whole marketing campaign ready to go. And because you paid attention to the things that you have going on, you know, your pop, your blog posts are going to be timely and your marketing has just become so much easier. Okay, so I hope this has inspired you to really think differently about how you create your content, how you generate your topic ideas. And, and inspired you to do them more often, they can really make a big difference. Now, it is a long game strategy, right?

We're not here to say that because you start posting a blog once a week, all of a sudden your traffic is going to explode. But it will make an impact and how you continue to use it with deeper strategies, which we'll talk about more on this podcast will help make an impact in how that content is received and how it helps generate revenue for your website. So I want you to start trying it and let me know how it goes. Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen to so you don't miss an episode. These episodes are available wherever you stream, your podcasts. And if you felt like this one was helpful and actionable. Please make sure you share it with a friend. I'd love to spread the love and help all nonprofits get more revenue and more traffic to their websites. Thanks for listening and I'll see in the next one.