Struggling to Come Up with Ideas for Content Creation? Here’s How to Make It Easy

Let’s be honest — coming up with ideas for content creation is one of the most important parts of your marketing strategy… and also one of the most difficult.

The good news? You don’t have to sit there staring at a blank screen. There are strategies (and some clever tools) to help you spark ideas, build a plan, and stay consistent — even if content isn’t your full-time job.

Start With Your Ideal Client

Knowing your Ideal Client is key. After all, you need to know who you’re talking to before you start talking don’t you? This is why I say it in almost *every* marketing blog I write. Knowing and understanding your ideal client is the first step to creating content that works. Here are some of the questions you need to ask about your ideal client:

• What do they like?
• Where do they shop?
• What problems are they trying to solve?
• What solutions do I offer that make their life easier?

The answers to these questions are the foundation of your content strategy. At the end of the day, good content doesn’t start with what you want to say — it starts with the problem they need solved.

Turn Their Problems Into Keywords

Now that you’ve got a list of their pain points and your solutions, it’s time to do some keyword research. Plug these ideas into an SEO tool like:

• Rank Math
• Ubersuggest
• Answer the Public

These tools will find similar questions and key phrases your audience is already searching for. Now, take that list and identify the key phrase you want to use to create your first piece of content.

I’m going to use the key phrase I’m working on for this blog as an example so you can understand how to implement this process step-by-step for your keywords. 

Key phrase: Ideas for Content Creation

Let’s turn that phrase into a batch of content ideas.

One Keyword, Seven Content Ideas

You don’t need a million ideas — you just need one good key phrase and a smart repurposing plan to start.

Here’s what I did with “Ideas for Content Creation”:

• Blog Post: Content Creations: A Step-by-Step Guide to Coming Up With Ideas (← Look familiar?)
• Social Carousel Post: 5 Ideas for Content Creation
• Client Email: Get This Guide With 5 Ideas to Jumpstart Your Content Creation
• Case Study: How One Client Mapped Out a Month of Content in a Day
• Social Post: Download This Step-by-Step Content Creation Guide
• Video: How I Come Up With Content Ideas (Even When I’m Tired)
• Podcast: My Go-To Strategy for Content Brainstorms That Work

From just one key phrase, I created a mini-campaign. That’s 7 pieces of content, all working together. Once they’re created, I’ll load them into MeetEdgar and let the platform do its thing. Scheduled. Automated. Done.

Then, move on to the next key phrase.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to create ALL these pieces at once. I don’t usually. I put together all the ideas, but I started with the blog. Then, I move on to the next keyword and write that blog, simply because it works for my schedule to do 1 full day of writing for the month. So, I select 4-5 keywords and write all the blogs for that month.

Then, another day I go back and write all the social posts for that blog and load them into MeetEdgar. Then I write the email and load that into Fluent to send out.

Find the routine that works for you for content creation, refine it, and stick with it. It’s the only way you’ll be able to successfully create and publish content consistently. And, we all know, consistency is key!

No SEO Tool? No Problem.

Maybe you don’t have the budget for an SEO tool right now. That’s okay. Here are some other things you can try:

1. Watch your competitors.

What are they posting? Do you have a different take or perspective you can provide? How can you use the same subject in a different way that speaks directly to your ideal client?

2. Follow brands your ideal client loves.

What are they talking about? Can you put your spin on it? Can you relate it to what you do?

3. Pay attention to trends and headlines.

If something’s in the news, can you relate it back to what you do? Chances are it’s getting searches, and is relevant to your ideal client.

4. Listen to your ideal client.

What do your leads ask you again and again? What are the “Wait, I didn’t know that!” moments in your conversations? Create content that speaks to that.

Think of Content Like a Course

I tend to think of ideas for content creation like writing a syllabus for a course. What do you want to teach your audience about? What makes you an expert in that area? What are all the pieces that go under that overarching main topic?

Note: You don’t need a real course to use this trick.

Bonus: But, it can be an outline for a real course you can create at a later time.

Here’s an example of my “course” outline:

Title: Making It Easy for Small Business Owners to Have a Great Website

Now, here are the different content areas the course is going to focus on

1. Website Platforms

• Selecting the right platform for your business
• What you need to know about coding, usability & mobile responsiveness

2. Website Design

• How design helps your ideal client get what they need
• Design Trends, what to look for, implement, and stay away from
• Visual interest, graphics vs. photography, what works?

3. Website Content

• How to identify your ideal client, their problem, and provide the solution. 
• How to optimize your content to get found on the search engines
• Identifying imagery that speaks to your ideal client and how to procure it

4. Website Marketing

• Making a Content Plan
• Identifying what platforms you need to be on (based on where your ideal clients are)
• Creating a Schedule and sticking to it
• Ways to identify content so you never run out of things to say
• Making sure you show up on Google & AI searches

5. Analytics

• Looking at the numbers and finding the story they tell
• Adjusting your plan to ensure you’re reaching your ideal clients
• Expanding your plan as it works and you get more comfortable

Have you noticed that almost every blog post I write fits into one of these categories? Every piece of content serves a purpose. And once you’ve built your own version of this framework? You’ll never run out of ideas again.

Keep in mind that how I approach each of these topics may be different. Sometimes I may provide tips on how to do something, sometimes I may provide observations with a goal of getting you to think about something. But, in general, the topics are here and I can go back to them again and again, diving into a different approach, a new way of looking at the same topic, or providing updated content based on what I’ve learned. 

Now it’s Your Turn! Build Your Content Framework

Head on over to Google Docs (or grab a pen & paper) and get started! Here are some questions to get you thinking:

• What topic can you teach a course about?
• What problems do you solve?
• What topics are you passionate about?
• What do people need to know before they hire you or buy from you?
• How can you build trust?

Now, if you have an SEO tool, head on over to expand upon those topics based on popular search results. Now you should easily have a year’s worth of topics you can create content for.

Need help turning those ideas into content that gets you found?

That’s where we come in. Let’s chat about how we can help you turn your content creation ideas into content that speaks to your ideal client.

Frequently Asked Questions