How To Come Up With Original Topics For Your Financial Planning Blog

As a solo advisor, you have to wear many hats. So when you don’t have a home office or marketing department consistently supplying you with new content, it’s easy to let content creation and digital marketing fall to the bottom of the priority list. If your goal is to focus on what you do best, then the more you can outsource or automate, the better. However, if you’re a committed do-it-yourselfer, here’s a five-step process you can follow to come up with new topics for your financial planning blog whenever you need them.

Follow This 5-Step Process To Consistently Generate New Blog Content:

Step #1: Define Your Ideal Client

First, you need to know who your blog is for—in other words, who your ideal client is. For instance, if you want clients with significant net worth, content about how to get out of credit card debt likely won’t attract quality leads.

If you’ve already defined your niche, then you’re ahead of the game. Otherwise, consider the commonalities among your current clients—for example, age range, gender, occupation, etc. If they have similar values or interests, include those, too. The more detail you can include, the better.

Don’t get too hung up here. It’s okay if not all of your clients fit the description of your target audience. However, going through this exercise will not only help you focus your content, it will also help you develop a voice and writing style that resonates with your market.

Step #2: Identify the Theme of Your Blog

Once you have your ideal client in mind, you can start to think about the type of content that would appeal to that person. Having a central theme or niche topic for your blog will showcase your subject matter expertise and may improve your search rankings.

For financial advisors, it’s generally a good idea to focus most of your content on topics related to your financial planning expertise, at least initially. Doing so allows you to position yourself as an authority and increases the likelihood that visitors who find your blog organically are interested in financial advice.

On the other hand, suppose your ideal client loves to golf, so you decide to focus your blog on the world’s best golf courses. You may attract visitors who fit the profile of your ideal client, but their search activity doesn’t necessarily suggest they’re looking for a financial advisor. You can still include content like this to keep your financial planning blog from becoming dull (for you and your readers), just try not to make it the focus.

Step #3: Choose Keywords To Target With Your Content

Identifying keywords is part art, part science. Yes, there are tools you can use to help you choose “the right” keywords. For example, free services like Ubersuggest or Keyword Tool can be helpful for narrowing down the universe of options. However, if you don’t have a lot of time on your hands—and you probably don’t—it’s best not overthink this step.

Your experience as a financial advisor is one of the best resources you have for this exercise. Think about the financial planning topics your ideal client might search for in Google and create a list of related keywords. For instance, if your clients are primarily business owners, “exit planning” might be among the keywords you target in your blog.

There’s no magic number, but identifying five to six keywords to target is a good start. (Remember, a keyword can also be a phrase.)

Step #4: Use Your Keywords to Create a List of Questions

It can be tempting to use your blog as a place to promote your business, team, and achievements. Including firm-specific posts is fine on occasion, especially if a lot of your clients read your blog. Ideally, however, your blog will attract quality leads to your website. Therefore, your content really should focus on topics that interest prospective clients—not current clients.

Think about the questions you consistently get from your clients. If you can’t think of any, pay close attention next time you speak with them. The questions, concerns, and pain points you hear from your clients on a regular basis are likely the same for your target audience.

In addition, you can use free online resources like Answer the Public, Quora, and Amazon to come up with questions. Answer the Public pulls data from Google search activity to generate a list of questions related to your keywords, while Quora is an open question-and-answer platform.

To get ideas from Amazon, read the reviews for personal finance books you might recommend to your clients. Oftentimes, reviewers will highlight the specific problems the book solved for them, giving you a glimpse into the mind of your ideal client. Keep a running list of questions at all times.

Step #5: Create a Content Calendar and Stick to It

With your list of questions, you can now come up with blog topics that address them. Then, decide how often you’re going to update your blog and schedule your blog posts accordingly. If you’re just getting started with content marketing, posting one to two times per month is a realistic and effective pace.

You may find it helpful to create a digital content calendar using a free project management tool like Asana. That way you know what to expect each month and have a system in place to stay on schedule and hold yourself accountable.

Try to plan your topics a quarter at a time so you’re never scrambling for new content. Repeat this five-step process as needed to come up with new topics for your financial planning blog.

Consistency Is Key

Many solo financial advisors find consistency to be their greatest challenge when it comes to content marketing. This is completely understandable, given your countless other responsibilities. That’s why we created AdvisorPath, our subscription content marketing solution. Sign up today and get access to high-quality, done-for-you blog articles, social media posts, and digital newsletter content.