A Detailed Guide to Find the Best Content Ideas for Coaches
Content has become a major factor for any business when it comes to marketing. Having good quality content is as important for your coaching business as having a website.
But before jumping to why content creation is important, let's first understand what content creation means.
Content creation is the process of identifying and selecting content ideas for your target audience, creating content either written, audio or visual, and making the created content available to your audience in the form of blogs, podcasts, ebooks, videos or other formats.
It not only helps in increasing leads generation but also helps to establish trust for you and your business.
Content creation is important because when you create content:
- You provide educational and useful information to your audience for free
- You attract more people to your website and increase your lead generation
- You retain existing customers by engaging with them with quality and personalized content
How to Find Out Content Ideas for Your Coaching Blog
Without having ideas that are useful and amazing, your content would be dull and irrelevant. Ideating content topics can be difficult.
Here are 5 ways that can help you find out new content ideas:
Understand What Your Audience Wants
Focus on what you readers want. Understand their pain points and think the types of topics that they would be most interested in.
Since, you're very well experienced with the services you provide, start from there.
For example, let's assume you're a career counselor for students about graduate high school or students who have graduated recently.
In this case, you readers would probably want to know which college degrees are in demand right now and which are the best colleges to aim get an admission in.
So, simply pick one subject area, for example, science and start from there.
Ask Your Audience Directly
One of the simplest ways is to directly approach your audience and ask them what they want to learn. You can create surveys and forms, add questions for your readers related to what they want to learn, what are their pain points and why they want to learn.
Some tips to follow while creating surveys and forms:
- Provide multiple-choice questions
- Keep the length of your survey short (SurveyMonkey found the median length of their paid surveys to be just 10 questions.)
- Don't use too much jargon
- Don't add too many open-ended questions as people may not fill them with sincerity
These are some tools you can use to create forms and surveys:
Monitor Competitors' Social Media Sites
Another excellent source to come up with content ideas is to observe what other coaches and their clients are sharing on social media. Follow various coaches and join Facebook groups to understand what's being shared and what kind of content is getting the most engagement from people.
For example, if you notice that a lot of your potential clients are worried about keeping themselves in shape during the holiday season, you can write posts regarding simple home workouts at home to stay in shape during the holidays.
Don't Use Google Only for Search
Google is the most popular search engine in the world and handles millions of searches every hour of every day.
You can use the “People Also Ask” tab, which appears as you type in queries into Google's search engine, to find out the terms and phrases that people are using when they’re looking for coaches or information about coaching.
You can also use tools such as Google Alerts and Google Trends to find out trending topics. These tools provide you daily email alerts regarding trending stories and content based on the keywords you care about. This can help you draw inspiration and insights into what your target audience is searching and reading about.
Last but not the least, you can use one of Google's most amazing tools, Google Keyword Planner, to find out new topic ideas for your content. It can suggest keyword ideas that you won't be able to find anywhere else and is absolutely free. You can check this brilliant article on the Ahrefs blog to learn more about how to use the Google Keyword Planner.
Focus on Hashtags on Twitter and Instagram
Twitter and Instagram are some of the best social media marketing platforms. You can use these channels to find out content ideas.
Search for hashtags relevant to your coaching business and services. Understand the content being posted and the topics that are trending among the people in your industry and your potential clients. This will also help you come up with various new content ideas for your coaching blog.
7 Content Ideas for Your Coaching Blog
Now that you have understood how to come up with content ideas, here are 7 popular content ideas that you can use according to your services and audience:
Client Success Story
Similar to personal stories, client success stories also help gain trust of the audience and build credibility of your business.
When it comes to client success stories, first explain where your clients were before taking your services and what issues they were facing during that time. Once you have given the situation, then describe what you did together in each session and the impact of your services on their lives.
It goes without saying that you should take their permission before publishing such content.
For example, check out this article - "14 people. 338 pounds lost. They transformed their bodies and lives. (And so can you.)" by Precision Nutrition.
Personal Stories
Sharing personal stories are one of the powerful posts you can write as a coach. They can leave a positive mark on the reader about you and your coaching business. They help you to engage with your audience and build a connection with them. People find you relatable and find it easier to trust you.
While sharing a personal story, explain the problem you were facing and how you worked and solved that problem.
You can have many personal stories and people may relate to them easily, but you can't have your every post as a personal story. The reason is that it can make you seem too self
‘How To’ Posts
'How To' posts are one of the most common and easiest posts to write. In these posts, you usually instruct people on how to perform an exercise, a routine or a regimen.
For example, if you're a health coach, you can write posts on:
- "How to lose 5kgs in one month with a nutritious diet?"
- "How to do workouts at home with any equipment?"
For instance, "How to Stay Level During Uncertain Times" by Lindsay Taylor.
Interview Posts
One of the creative ways is to publish interviews with industry experts. You can ask any expert in your field if they would like to do an interview with you. You can either publish the interview as a podcast on your blog or you can post it as a video on your blog and your YouTube channel.
People find it easier to listen or watch content than to read. Thus, these interview posts might benefit you in increasing your audience and generating more traffic to your blog.
List Posts
List Posts are also one of the simplest posts to write. These posts attract people easily and generate traffic for your website. These posts are easy to read for your audience and can go viral very fast.
For example, if you're a nutrition coach, you can write list posts such as:
- "8 Types of Food Ingredients to Avoid in Your Homemade Dishes"
- "5 Fruits and Vegetables you should include in your daily diet"
Check out 12 Ways to Boost Your Seretonin on the blog, Mark's Daily Apple.
Review Posts
Review posts help you build yourself as an expert in your field. Take products you have tried and used yourself and provide an honest review of them on your blog.
Let people know it's features and benefits, what you liked and didn't like, and which type of people should prefer the products.
You can also collaborate with companies where they promote your services for a review of their product.
Research & Factual Posts
People love numbers and statistics. The more factual content you publish, the more people will be attracted towards it.
Facts and numbers that are linked to a source make people trust you more and helps you to build credibility around your services and business.
These posts can generate high traffic for you but you have to give a lot of time to research and verifying that everything you write is correct.
For example, check out this article, "Are All Processed Foods Harmful For Us?" by Dr. Sears Wellness Institute.
Conclusion
Content creation is one of the most important parts of marketing in today's world. Once you understand how to come up with content ideas and start trying and using different formats in different mediums, you'll be able to understand what your audience loves and you'll be able to deliver quality content accordingly.
