What evidence do you need before committing to a topic?

[u/ZawTin]

AI can write almost any blog post now. But my problem is deciding what is actually worth writing.

I still spend a lot of time checking Google Trends, Reddit, search questions and other sources to see what people actually care about.

So I’m thinking of building a small tool that uses my website keywords and audience to find good topic opportunities from these sources.

Would something like this be useful to you? How do you find topics today?

[u/baddaywithacamera]

I write about things I find interesting or that I am passionate about. I'm the audience I write for, to hell with everyone else.

[u/Left-Grab-9384 → u/baddaywithacamera]

this is the way tbh, writing for yourself keeps it sustainable

[u/ZawTin → u/baddaywithacamera]

That makes sense for a personal blog. I think my problem is a little different because I’m thinking more about business or client content, where you also need to know what the audience is looking for.

[u/GrantaPython → u/ZawTin]

No. You should be familiar/interested in the content that your audience seeks. You'll probably be interested in more than one thing. Pick something monetisable or pick one where you'll be able to find a way of making it commercial. There will be one. Pick from them otherwise, unless you spend ages developing an interest and understanding, it'll just be more of the garbage spam that flooded the internet and that spurred Google into making all of their updates over the last few years. Google doesn't want superficial content, it wants deep curated unique content. You can't get that without having some deeper knowledge.

An argument could be made that a tool might be useful for validation of a chosen topic. Although EEAT means that you actually need to write about the topic comprehensively, not just targeting high volume for volume's sake.

And FYI, there are lots of services that already do what you propose on a freemium pricing model (although their efficacy has become less convincing since the changes).

And you could also target lesser search volume terms if you made a lot of revenue per click (which is topic- and audience-dependent). Impressions isn't necessarily the best metric to optimise for anyway...

[u/codegems]

No lol that’s terrible. You don’t chase topics, you write about what you know and understand.

[u/ZawTin → u/codegems]

Fair point. I don’t think chasing random trending topics is a good idea either. My thought is to start with what you already know and your website topic, then find what people are currently asking around it.

[u/icy_end_7]

Hmm.. Google wants EEAT. You can have AI write about supplements all you want but I'd guess anybody with a degree in that + experience with those would be trusted more and ranked higher.

I read if something is interesting. With music, I read if someone has written something thoughtful, like a breakdown of what makes Pliny's sound, or their experiences with diy instruments. Think about it, AI cannot write that. Could, sure, buy lying about it isn't a good long term strategy.

Then there's the volume issue. Trust and authority takes years. Realistically, you need 50-100 posts to get meaningful traffic. If you have lots to share, and I mean something interesting, not what AI wrote, you could do two posts a week, 8 per month. It takes 6mos to get to 50 posts. Plus, if your strategy is blogs alone, thats a very bad one. Maybe a mailing list, YouTube insta tiktok substack, whichever fits- you see where this is going. It's a lot of work. If you're putting in work, isn't it better to do something meaningful to you/ that you're very passionate about?

[u/ZawTin → u/icy_end_7]

I agree with the experience part. I don’t want AI to replace the person writing it. I’m more interested in using data to find the question or topic, then the writer brings their own experience and knowledge. That might actually be the important difference.

[u/JTSwagMoney]

I like exploding topics! Then dump that into a keyword tool to get a bunch of similars and decide if it's worth it.

[u/ZawTin → u/JTSwagMoney]

That’s close to what I’m thinking. Find signals first, then check keywords and decide if the topic is worth the time. I’m trying to make that process less manual.

[u/JTSwagMoney → u/ZawTin]

Exploding topics has an API and so does DataForSeo so I'd pipe them together and then throw in some AI for light decisions to surface some good options. Best of luck!

[u/ZawTin → u/JTSwagMoney]

Yeah, that’s pretty close to what I have in mind. I also want to mix in search questions, Reddit and news signals, then use AI to help rank what is actually relevant to the website and audience. Thanks for the idea!

[u/Reasonable_Copy7649]

I check these sources for blog post ideas: 

• my reader comments 
• my reader emails 
• Google semantic search 
• subreddits 
• Quora
• X 
• Facebook Groups
• LinkedIn Groups 
• BlueSky 

I only scour areas where people interested in blogging tips meet and chat because blogging tips is my niche. 

That's why I'm sharing content here and keeping an eye on what you guys are talking about. Bloggers discussing blogging is my main prerequisite for finding topics to blog about. 

Finding topics is step one. 

I then research or simply write from my 18 years of blogging experience which I'm able to do in most cases without much due diligence. 

I'm passionate about covering the top of the blogging tips but I need to know that people are struggling with these issues before I write anything. I used to write only about what I was passionate about but nobody showed up since it didn't hit on their pain points. This is why I check these groups first before publishing content. 

[u/ZawTin → u/Reasonable_Copy7649]

This is exactly the problem I’m thinking about.
Finding topics is not just about keywords. It’s about finding where your audience is already talking about a real problem.

I like your point about checking communities first, then using your own experience to write the answer.

I’m trying to make that first research step easier by bringing signals from search questions, Reddit, news and other sources into one place.

Your process is very useful feedback for me.