Over the past decade, I’ve written a lot of content—well over 500 blog posts. And while I’m naturally a starry-eyed idealist, even I get jaded sometimes and feel like a word machine: put in the idea, and out pops another article.
All this to say that if your creative juices are depleted, I feel you.
If you’ve run out of website content ideas, come and refill your well with the real-life examples below, which I’ve sourced from my own experience as a marketer, my teammates on the HubSpot Blog Team, and external content marketing experts.
With each idea, I’ll share actionable tips so you can apply it on your own website.
Table of Contents
10
- Use your own problems as inspiration.
- Address a customer pain point that frequently comes up in sales calls.
- Find a trending topic with a timely news peg.
- Dispel myths about your products.
- Experiment with video.
- Repurpose existing content.
- Conduct original research.
- Compare your products against your competitors’.
- Take readers behind the scenes of your business.
- Refresh existing content.
1. Use your own problems as inspiration.
Best for: When you want to personally connect with your customers and add value
Real-life example: How Do You Communicate You Have Capacity Without Sounding Desperate? from Spring Insight Marketing
Spring Insight founder Erika Dickstein is in a position any marketer would envy. “There are a variety of problems in my business,” she tells me over Zoom, “but creating content and getting content ideas has never been one of them.”
As if to drive the point home, behind her is a whiteboard covered in colorful markings from a recent YouTube content brainstorming session.
I came across Erika’s work thanks to the following LinkedIn post she shared, which seemed to resonate with many business owners.
To date, her blog post “How Do You Communicate You Have Capacity Without Sounding Desperate?” remains one of her most popular—and it was written back in 2016.
So how did she create website content that lasts? Well, when she wrote that post, it was originally because she herself had that problem: She was looking for new clients.
However, she also wanted to help other business owners in her position by offering answers to her own question.
“I am a person who likes to help people,” says Dickstein. “So this [blog post] is one that I think is much more along the lines of, ‘I like to help people’ as opposed to ‘this gets me a lot of work.’”
How to make it your own: “Always be listening,” advises Dickstein. The only way she was able to write a blog post that resonated with her audience was that she understood them deeply.
“Always be listening to what are the questions that people are asking you, and don't just be listening, but have a mechanism,” she says.
The mechanism in place at her business is a Slack channel where team members can submit questions from customers or elsewhere.
Through automation, those questions are then added to an Airtable idea hub that Spring Insight can reference later for content generation.
“I promise you when you get honed to listening for that, you are going to hear those questions constantly,” she adds.
For those of us not as gifted at endlessly generating ideas, thankfully, there’s a tool that can help: the Blog Ideas Generator.
I’ve been struggling to come up with blog post ideas for a golf niche site I co-founded. All I had to do was type in “women’s golf apparel,” and the Blog Ideas Generator came up with a list of five ideas along with keywords.
So, as you’re listening to your customers’ questions, try typing any recurring words into the Blog Ideas Generator and see what content ideas spring forth from it.
2. Address a customer pain point that frequently comes up in sales calls.
Best for: Creating content that supports your sales team
Real-life example: 5 Ways HR Can Get CFOs To Advocate For New Leave Software from Tilt
Tilt’s content strategist Gabe Prusak is a prolific writer on his company’s blog. So I was particularly interested in finding out where he gets his website content ideas.
His secret sauce? He and his marketing team listen to recordings of sales calls. “Not all of them, of course, because there's a lot,” Prusak explains, “but we watch them, and we start picking up issues that [customers] seem to be having.”
By doing this, he and his team noticed a recurring theme: Prospects wanted Tilt’s software—but their leadership team didn’t understand the value of it.
From there, Prusak and his team:
- Identified which members in the C-suite would be impacted most positively by their product and brainstormed ways to get them on board.
- Then, they broke it down by timeframe, assigning each quarter of the year to one of the stakeholders they identified. Q1 was dedicated to the CFO, which is when the above blog post came to life.
- Lastly, they set out to create content that would equip their ideal customer with the information they need to get buy-in from decision-makers.
The resulting blog post outlining how HR teams can get buy-in from their CFO now has the highest engagement of any Tilt content this quarter.
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How to make this your own: See if you can get recorded sales calls or interview your reps to uncover recurring themes they’re hearing from prospects.
Then, go one level deeper: “Focus on the problems that [your customers] maybe don‘t realize that they’re having,” Prusak says.
He gives the example of leaves of absence, which Tilt software addresses. Customers may complain about inefficiency in their process, but the real issue is that leaves of absence are inherently unpredictable, and they aren’t equipped to handle that.
“So focus on the actual like problem, like the root of it, because they might think it‘s one thing, but actually, it’s another thing,” he says. “And when you do it well, you‘ll know because the message will just resonate with the audience because it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, they get it.’”
3. Find a trending topic with a timely news peg.
Best for: When you want to position yourself as a thought leader
Real-life example: The Scandinavian secrets to work (and life) satisfaction from Atlassian
When I was a freelance contributor for the Trello blog (now the Atlassian blog), I wrote content that helped teams be more productive at work.
So when I saw that many Nordic countries were in the news lately for their happiness and excellent work-life balance, I knew I had a timely story idea on hand that added value to our readers’ lives.
I pitched a blog post to the Trello editorial team on seven ways Scandinavian countries cultivate life and work satisfaction.
How to make it your own: Stay up to date on the topics your target audience cares about. Consider the following:
- Bookmark websites your target audience reads.
- Set up Google alerts around specific keywords that your target audience cares about.
- Subscribe to email newsletters in your niche.
Whenever a news alert comes up, find ways to connect it to a piece of content that your audience would enjoy and learn from. Including content about a trending topic in your niche is a great way to build credibility (a crucial aspect of website design!).
4. Dispel myths about your products.
Best for: When you have products that naturally create a lot of buzz
Real-life example: Top 4 Myths About ProDot Shutter Button Upgrade, BUSTED from Custom SLR
Getting negative feedback about your products might make you want to hide.
Here’s why you shouldn’t: The old adage of “all press is good press” rings true here because now that people are talking about your products, you hold the power to shape the narrative through your website content.
For example, one of my former freelance clients, the photography gear brand Custom SLR, had a product that was both popular and controversial: the ProDot shutter button upgrade.
When we were coming up with ideas for blog content, we decided to tackle the online comments purporting that the ProDot was a “gimmick.”
Instead of shying away from the naysaying, we leaned into it by writing a lighthearted, humorous post that shuts down the myths. That way, anytime someone Googled a keyword related to one of those misconceptions, our blog post would be the one to show up.
Then, we promoted the piece in an email newsletter that generated a lot of sales. Win-win.
How to make this your own: You probably already have your finger on the pulse of your products, but be sure to scour online reviews, forums, and customer support tickets for negative feedback on them.
Address these criticisms directly in your website content.
5. Experiment with video.
Best for: Marketers looking to boost their personal brand and/or increase the time readers spend on a page
Real-life example: I Tried 5 AI Logo Generators. Here's My Favorite from HubSpot
Marketers are always trying to find ways to get and keep visitors’ attention.
Video can help you with both. Wistia analyzed its 100 highest-trafficked pages and found that visitors spent 1.4x more time on its pages with video than those without video.
At HubSpot, we’re experimenting with embedding short-form videos into blog posts.
“People love videos, especially quick-hit videos, and it keeps people on the page a bit longer and gives them a new way to digest the information,” says Erica Santiago, the HubSpot writer leading this experiment.
How to make this your own: Ditch the idea that you need to upgrade your equipment or skill level—your smartphone and a willingness to learn are all you need!
“You have to start somewhere,” says Santiago. “Don‘t be afraid to be imperfect, especially on the first try. And don’t feel like you need to invest in just wildly expensive equipment. Your phone is just fine. Trust me. I did videos for YouTube for years, and I thought about getting a regular camera, but my phone was getting me through just fine.”
Start with an existing blog post and think of ways it can be enhanced with a short video. As you grow more confident, incorporate video into more blog posts you publish.
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6. Repurpose existing content.
Best for: Creating new website content when you’re pressed for time
Real-life example: 17 Famous Foods in Peru You MUST Try from The Wherever Writer
When I owned The Wherever Writer, a travel site I founded, I initially launched a Peru travel guide to diversify the business’s income streams.
What I found, however, was that the few book sales I made monthly on Amazon paled in comparison to the revenue generated from display ads and affiliate marketing when people visited my website.
So, I took down the book from Amazon and repurposed each chapter into a blog post instead. Those posts ranked extremely well in Google, boosting my traffic and revenue.
How to make this your own: Identify any existing content that you have that can be repurposed. This could be a podcast, video, or ebook that you turn into text for a blog post.
Additionally, even if you have a lead magnet like an ebook that’s doing well at capturing email addresses, you can still take some content from that ebook and publish it on your blog to draw additional organic search traffic.
7. Conduct original research.
Best for: When you want to focus on lead generation, backlinks, and positioning your brand as an authority on a specific topic
Real-life example: 2024 B2B SaaS SEO Performance Report from Stratabeat
Earlier this year, marketing agency Stratabeat knew it wanted to generate leads and help its clients, so it used the website content idea of original research to do just that.
Relying on an in-house team, Stratabeat analyzed 300 B2B SaaS websites and over 15,000 data points to publish a report identifying what's effective in B2B SaaS SEO today.
“The benefits of doing this type of original research are not limited to posting on your own website,” Stratabeat CEO Tom Shapiro tells HubSpot. “It‘s much deeper than that. It’s really connecting with your audience wherever they are, whether they‘re at an industry conference, whether they’re checking out a webinar, whether they are checking out your blog.”
Since releasing the report, Shapiro has been booked for speaking gigs, webinars, and podcast interviews to discuss the findings, highlighting how powerful original research can be in building brand awareness.
How to make this your own: “Understand your goals first,” Shapiro says. “You have to know what you‘re ultimately trying to do with the research. We have had companies ask us and inquire about original research without knowing what they wanted to get out of it.
And that’s a potential for wasting a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of resources and not seeing the business value.”
Original research is great for many reasons:
- It’s uniquely yours.
- It generates leads.
- It builds backlinks.
- It helps you conduct market research.
- It creates value for your audience.
Find what matters most to you, and tailor your research around that.
8. Compare your products against your competitors’.
Best for: When you want more signups and conversions
Real-life example: In-depth: PostHog vs Mixpanel from PostHog
Both PostHog and Mixpanel offer product analytics. So why on earth would PostHog write about a competitor?
The beauty of comparison posts is that they have a high potential for conversions because they attract visitors who are in the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey.
These visitors are narrowing down their potential solutions, and you get to make that final nudge toward getting them to buy your product. Comparison posts include keywords like “alternatives” and “versus.”
How to make it your own:
An easy place to begin with comparison posts:
1. Type your business name into Google search.
2. Add “vs” and see what Google suggests. This points to popular search terms your prospects are already typing in.
3. Write down all of the suggested keywords.
4. From there, write a detailed comparison of your product and your competitor’s product. Note that this is not a take-down piece on your competitor.
5. Rather, it’s an honest take on what your product’s strengths are and who your ideal customer is. Be honest. Don’t try to make it sound like your product does everything better. Your readers will appreciate your honesty.
9. Take readers behind the scenes of your business.
Best for: Building trust with your audience
Real-life example: Meet the Core Basics Studio from Encircled
Encircled is an ethical clothing company based in Toronto. It supports its brand values with behind-the-scenes content that shows the local manufacturers Encircled partners with.
When I was looking at purchasing from Encircled, seeing content like this on its website helped me put a face to the brand and made me feel more comfortable supporting a company that cared so much about the environment and the people it worked with.
In fact, I ended up buying several pieces from Encircled over the years.
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How to make this your own: Think of ways to showcase your brand values, help your customers understand your product better, or humanize your staff. Some ideas:
- A tour of your office
- An introduction to your employees
- How your products are made
- How your team operates
10. Refresh existing content.
Best for: When your existing website content isn’t performing as well as it used to
Real-life example: 14 Best AI Video Generators to Use in 2024 from HubSpot
Who says website content ideas all have to revolve around creating content from scratch? Since the SERPs are notoriously volatile, your content’s search rankings will fluctuate, too.
If your blog posts are starting to drop in rankings, updating them can work wonders.
Refreshing existing content is so important that we have an entire team dedicated to it here at HubSpot: the Historical Optimization team.
I spoke with one of its members, Ivelisse Rodriguez, about a recent successful content refresh of an existing HubSpot blog post about AI video generators.
“Never, ever, ever, ignore your existing content,” urges Rodriguez. “In fact, your existing content is even more important than any new content that you can create. So I highly recommend when you‘re thinking about your content strategy or when you’re thinking about how to go about creating website content, absolutely think about your product, your readership, your target audience. And once that content is created, it's really, really important to go back and refresh that content.”
How to make this your own: Using Google Analytics or your favorite keyword research tool, look at your top-performing posts in terms of traffic over the past few months. Identify any content pieces that have started falling in search rankings.
From there, identify new keywords to target, and weave those new keywords into your existing blog post by infusing it with fresh content.
If you want to start with low-hanging fruit: Find your blog posts that are marked by a year (e.g., “Top 10 Design Apps of 2022” and update the title and list for the current year.
I guarantee some of the things you’ve linked to in the old list are no longer relevant, have increased in price, or have some new feature that your readers will want to know about.
Website Content Ideas: A Recap
From my interviews with the experts and from reflecting on my own experience as a content marketer, three major themes stood out regarding website content ideas:
1. It’s all about understanding your audience first. Every single one of the successful website content ideas shared in this article began with the creator’s deep understanding of their audience and their audience’s problem.
2. Keyword research is crucial—but it isn’t the only thing to consider. For content marketers, it often feels like it’s all about the keywords, but don’t let SEO alone drive your website content.
I loved what Gabe Prusak from Tilt had to say about this: “We‘re not anti-analytics. All of our creative briefs that we do for every campaign include keywords—it’s just not the driver.
We kind of work backwards and say, ‘Here are the themes that are important to our customers. How do the keywords maybe fit in?’”
3. Your website content can go way beyond the website. Tom Shapiro’s B2B SaaS report started as a downloadable PDF on his site, but it became the topic of podcasts and webinars too.
HubSpot’s video pilot captures eyeballs on our blog posts but also on TikTok and YouTube.
Don’t pigeonhole yourself into thinking your website content can only live on your blog. It can and should go way beyond!
Now, go out there and conquer your website content, my word machines! Just kidding.
But really, if you do want to leverage machine (learning), check out this Blog Ideas Generator. You quite literally pop in a word, and out pops a list of website content ideas.
The AI-generated list is a great jumping-off point for brainstorming more ideas, which I hope this human-written article will be for you, too.
Free Website Design Inspiration Guide
77 Brilliant Examples of Homepages, Blogs & Landing Pages to Inspire You
- Agency Pages
- Ecommerce Pages
- Tech Company Pages
- And More!
Download Free
All fields are required.
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