3 Tips For Blogging In A Boring Industry

I happen to love blogging, and I think blogs are essential if you run a business online, but what do you do if your industry happens to be a borning one?  Do you give up on a having a blog?  I don’t think you should give up, I think you should try harder.  I want to take this opportunity to share some creative blogging techniques, and how to come up with ideas to blog about.  You might just learn something and end up turning yourself into a powerful blogger!

If you find yourself in what you think is a boring industry you need to take a step back and start thinking about your industry as a whole – everything that surrounds it.  What are people talking about inside with your industry?  What kinds of questions are they asking?  What are your personal thoughts about your industry?  You started your business so you must have some passion about it, and that is what you need to make the foundation of your blog.  Blogs need to be personal rather then all straight up professional.  You need to share your personal insights on the topics that are surrounding your industry and make people trust you as a source and want to keep coming back.

Where to find the questions that people are asking?

  1. Yahoo Answers – Let me give a little rant about Yahoo Answers first – I hate the way Yahoo runs this social community or program because they ban good users, and seem to let idiots run wild.  Did you know that you could get your answered chosen as the best answer months after your account has been banned? ok – end rant –  The way Yahoo run this community is good for you to take advantage of, because you can be the one that provides good answers for the questions asked in your industry – just provide them on your blog and not Yahoo’s site!  Let me give you an example of how you could use this to find great content topics for your blog.  Lets say your industry is eye surgery, and IMO that is a pretty boring industry (in regards to finding things to blog about anyway) – Here is what you do, go to Yahoo Answers and search for “eye surgery” and you will get a huge list of questions asked – see picture:
    Yahoo Answers For Research
    Yahoo Answers For Research

    You see from this list of results I highlighted what I feel would be great questions to answer on a blog if you are a professional.  In this “boring” industry I would rather get my information from a professional source, so if you own a lasik surgery center, and have a website – these are some amazing things you can blog about, and you are making it personal by adding your touch and professional opinion to it.  This was the first page of results of almost 9000 and you are only seeing half of the page in this image.  You can imagine how many more amazing questions you will find that you can answer on your own site now.  These are real questions that real people are asking, and would be a great start for a blog.

  2. Google Blog Search – A great place to find what other people in your industry are blogging about.  So if you feel you are in a boring industry then just do a quick search on Google Blog Search and get a whole new list of post ideas.  Now for another boring industry – If you are in the quilting industry you can do a Google Blog Search for “quilting” and get this: (see picture below) over 400k of sites to go through and see what they are blogging about – and learn how you can do it better.  You got an arrow pointing at number of sites, latest blog posts (so you see current stuff) and then just the regular list of blogs that come back.  Google Blog Search is all blogs too, so if you can get some good ideas in a boring industry this way – then I don’t know how else to help ya!
  3. Google Alerts – Set up a Google Alert to let you know (instantly) what people are talking about in your industry, then provide your own insights and share your personal opinions.  Lets go back to the lasik surgery industry.  If you are wanting to get all the latest and greatest ideas getting indexed from Google on the lasik surgery industry all you have to do is create some simple alerts like so:  Google will email them to you, or send them right to a feed.  This is a great way to stay on top of anything in your indsutry, and you will probably get some pretty good blog post ideas out of it as well!

Now that you have all this info:

Hopefully this gives you some better ideas for finding topics to blog about in a boring industry.  I have never been able to not find blogging ideas for people no matter how boring they think their industry is.  What I have outlined above should prove that point.  My main suggestion for getting your blog going with this new found information would be to make sure that you still are doing everything you can to make it personal and connect with your readers.  You need to let them in, and give them reasons to trust your writings – if you can accomplish that, you will be the proud author of a popular blog that people keep coming back to!

One more thing – if you have any other suggestions to add to this list, that would be great if you commented here on this post! I really love hearing from other bloggers, and learning all sorts of techniques. I know that I am not the authority on blogging, but I feel what I have shared above is a great site!

11 thoughts on “3 Tips For Blogging In A Boring Industry

  1. Pingback: Posts about Google as of December 16, 2008 | The Lessnau Lounge

  2. Vinyl Fence says:

    I too started using google alerts from an earlier post you guys did and it has already helped me alot to find new ideas. Ill start using the yahoo answers tip and the google blog search. Hopefully I can find some ideas on writing on the blog for our new online vinyl fence store cause that is definitely a “boring industry.” Thanks Mat

  3. Aluminum Fence Products says:

    I have always used alerts and blog search for all of my websites, but hadn’t thought of using yahoo answers as you described.

    I have found that if you are passionate about your topic, you will occasionally need some assistance finding good subjects to write about, and using yahoo answers to see what people are asking is a great way to do that!

    Thanks,
    Keith
    .-= Aluminum Fence Products´s last blog ..Expert Home Improvement Advice =-.

  4. Temporary Tattoos says:

    I’ve often asked myself this question. How am I supposed to generate blog content when it is so difficult to write about? I like your suggestion of looking at google answers ang google alerts. Thanks for the article.

  5. USA Vinyl Fence says:

    Awesome post- I had never considered using Yahoo answers. Our company has been considering creating YouTube informational videos for a more personal buying experience and this tool will give us more than enough content to do that. Thanks again!

  6. Robert Kits says:

    I love Google’s blog search! This has been really helpful for me to find information similar to what I am posting about. It helps give me ideas and directions to write in. My blog does different product reviews, specifically for home remodels. For example, when I was asked to do a review on vinyl patio cover kits a Google blog search helped me find what others have said about them. So instead of just parroting what has already been said, I was able to give a new perspective on why they were so great.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *