If you’ve ever thought about blogging for your business, it’s probably because some part of you knows that SEO is important and somewhere along the way you’ve heard that blogs are one of the best ways to boost your SEO.
But when you sit down to plan out your blog topics, you might realize that some of the topics you want to write about aren’t necessarily SEO driven – meaning they don’t directly connect to a keyword.
When this happens, you might start to panic a little and think that blogging isn’t something that belongs in your marketing strategy after all.
Before we go any further, I want to introduce myself – I’m Natalie of Natty Writes and I’m a blog writer and strategist for creative business owners! It’s my mission to help business owners see that blogging still belongs in their business even in the era of shiny social platforms.
You’re finding me here because Mariah is my go-to girl for all things SEO. As a blog writer and strategist, SEO isn’t something I teach (and yes, I have my reasons for that), but that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe SEO is important. Of COURSE I do!
In fact, I’m a proud member of Mariah’s SEO membership, Search Club, and the membership has truly been the thing that’s gotten me so excited to do deep SEO work for my business beyond just blogging.
What’s so cool is that before joining Search Club, I realized that Mariah and I have a pretty similar stance on SEO when it comes to blogging specifically and that’s exactly what I’m excited to share with you in this blog post.
The scenario that I described above happens wayyy too often and is something I recently had a conversation with someone about on Threads…
The question was this: “a lot of the topics I want to write about (that I know are concerns/ of interest with my particular audience) just don’t have keywords that I can find. I can go way broad and then add qualifiers to the topic, but generally speaking, it’s either way too broad or too specific with zero search. What’s a girl to write about without solid keywords?”
The MOMENT I read this my brain was lighting up with things I wanted to say. I did respond with a short story of how I encourage my clients to approach this, but there’s wayyyy more to this conversation, which brings me here.
So if you’ve ever felt this way, keep reading because you’re about to learn:
- Why a “keywords” first approach to blogging can feel so limiting
- How to create a happy medium between “audience-first” blog topics and searchability
- The three different types of blog content every blog strategy needs
- How to reverse-engineer SEO for blog topics you actually want to write
Let’s get into it!
Why a “Keywords First” Approach to Blogging Can Feel Limiting
It may come as a surprise to you that as a blog writer and strategist, I rarely do keyword research before choosing mine or my clients’ blog topics.
And while I know that might sound odd, especially if a huge goal for blogging is to improve SEO and start ranking higher in search results, the reason for this is because sometimes keywords can start to box you into topics that you think you “have” to write.
What I’m NOT saying here is that keyword research isn’t important. It 100% has its place and I’m going to get to that in a minute. We’re not removing keyword research here at all. Instead, we’re simply changing the order in which we do things.
Here’s why – when you start with a “keywords first” approach to blogging, a few things can start to happen:
➡️ You start choosing topics based on what a tool is telling you instead of what your audience is actually asking for.
While those tools can be incredibly helpful, they don’t always capture the nuance of real, lived experiences or the exact way your audience is thinking about a problem.
➡️ Your content can start to feel a little…generic.
When you’re pulling from the same pool of keywords as everyone else in your industry, it’s easy to end up writing blogs that sound like everythinggg else that already exists instead of something that feels uniquely you.
➡️ You might find yourself forcing connections between a keyword and a topic that doesn’t quite fit.
Instead of your content flowing naturally, it starts to feel like you’re trying to make something work just because the search volume is there.
➡️ It can take some of the fun out of blogging. (I’m soooo not about this!)
When every idea has to “pass” the keyword test before you even let yourself explore it, it can make the entire process feel more restrictive than creative.
How “Audience-First” Blog Topics Fit Into Your Blog Content Strategy
As a business owner, you probably already have a pretty good idea of certain content topics that you KNOW your audience needs.
These typically stem from questions people are asking you, things you know your audience is confused by, common misconceptions in your industry, etc.
This is where I always tell people to START when planning blog content and the reason for that is because you’re likely going to be more excited to write about blog topics that you know your audience truly cares about or are asking for.
For example, let’s say you’re a copywriter and someone DM’ed you asking, “how do I write copy that actually sounds like me and not like everyone else online?” – that right there is a blog post!
You already know the context behind the question, you likely have a perspective on it, and you can expand on your answer in a way that actually helps more than just that one person.
It’s kind of like when Mariah sent this email – it literally stemmed from a question that someone sent her. And it was probably really exciting for her to write that content because she KNEW it was answering a question that people in her audience were actually wondering.
Your blogs are no different! The majority of your topics should be stemming from things that you know your ACTUAL audience needs or wants.
That’s why in my signature 4-step blog planning process, you won’t find any talk of keyword research. Instead, I encourage people to brain dump blog topics that they know their audience would benefit from.
And if you really don’t know what those topics would be, you can do a few things:
- Reflect on questions people have asked you recently – whether it’s been in person, in your comment section, DM’s, email replies, etc.
- Audit your social media content – what posts have gotten people interested and engaged?
- Scroll Threads and pay attention to what kinds of conversations you’re seeing – is there anything related to your industry that can spark a blog topic? (That’s literally how this post came to be!)
- Think about your offers – what problems do they solve? Each problem can likely turn into multiple blog topics.
- Look at past client work or experiences – what patterns, challenges, or “aha” moments come up again and again?
- Ask your audience directly – polls, question boxes, or simple “what are you struggling with right now?” prompts can go a long way
The 3 Different Types of Blogs Every Blog Content Strategy Needs
By now, I know what you might be thinking… “But Natty, if my blog topics don’t have a correlating keyword, how will I see any SEO results??”
Fair question! If you’re putting in the work to blog for your business, I totally understand that you want to see the ultimate benefits from that effort – which often includes better search rankings.
But to that I say: not every single blog post’s goal is discovery.
Meaning, not every single blog post HAS to be SEO-driven.
As a blog writer and strategist for business owners, I believe that every blog strategy needs 3 different types of content:
1. Discovery Content (aka SEO-driven content)
Since this is what a lot of people are concerned about, we’ll start here!
Yes, discovery content belongs in your blog strategy, which is where very strategic SEO keyword research comes into play.
For a blog post that has a goal of helping you get found in search results, you’ll want to lead with keywords!
This is where you’re intentionally targeting search terms your audience is already looking for so your content has a clear path to being discovered.
Instead of guessing what people might be interested in, you’re using data to guide your topic selection and ensure that there’s already existing demand for what you’re about to create.
2. Nurture Content (aka educational, trust building, content)
Next, let’s dig into nurture style blog content. This is probably the type of blog content that you’re most familiar with – it’s your typical blog posts that offer education, information, facts, value, etc.
But this is where I see people often go wrong!
They start to think: “okay, I’m going to write a blog for my business, it needs to be valuable and offer tangible takeaways, but it also needs to have a strategic keyword. I really want to talk about XYZ, but the keyword doesn’t match, so I guess I’ll just write about ____.”
And that my friend is where blogging is going to start feeling more like a chore and something you have to do instead of something that’s fun and exciting for you to do!
Here’s the fix:
Instead of forcing every single blog topic to match a keyword, allow yourself to write nurture content that is fully driven by your audience’s needs first.
This is where you get to go deeper on specific questions, share your perspective, and create content that actually sounds like you (not a watered-down version of what already exists).
You’re not worried about search volume here – you’re focused on making your content as helpful, clear, and aligned as possible.
Because remember: this type of content isn’t necessarily meant to bring someone in for the first time… it’s meant to build trust with the people who already know you!
When this type of blog content is paired with discovery content, that’s where the magic happens.
Your SEO-driven blogs help NEW people find you and your nurture content gives them a reason to stay, explore, and actually trust you.
3. Conversion Content (aka offer-aligned, sales content)
Lastly, you should have blog posts that have one major goal in mind: sell your stuff!!!
This is another misconception that people have about blogs – they often think that blogs only = nurture and education.
But the truth is that blogs are a sales tool!
Meaning, they can indeed help sell your offers.
Just like a social media post is created or a newsletter is written to drive sales to a specific offer, your blog posts can do the same.
Here’s how you go about it:
Start by thinking about the specific offers in your business and the problems they solve. From there, create blog content that directly speaks to those problems and walks your reader through them in a deeper, more intentional way.
You’re still providing value and education here, but you’re also helping them understand why they might need support beyond the blog post – this is where you connect the dots to your offers.
Instead of just teaching something in isolation, you’re showing your reader: “here’s what’s going on, here’s why it matters, and here’s how I can help you with it.”
When done well, this doesn’t feel pushy or salesy at all. Instead, it feels helpful and aligned because by the time someone gets to your offer, they’re not confused about whether or not it’s for them… they already understand the value. And that’s the goal!
How to Reverse-Engineer SEO for Blog Topics You Actually Want to Write
So, if you’re tired of basing all of your blog topics around keywords only and want to bring more of this “audience-first” approach to your blog strategy, here’s how to go about it:
Start with a blog topic brain dump
This might sound basic and simple, but it really is the starting point.
When planning your blog topics for the quarter (and yes, I encourage quarterly blog planning), the first thing to do is to sit down with a blank sheet of paper – or let’s be real, a blank Google Doc or Notes page – and simply start writing down any possible topic that comes to mind.
It doesn’t even have to make the most sense right now. You don’t have to have all of your thoughts in order. And it doesn’t have to be perfectly titled.
This is simply a list of blog IDEAS. They can be messy – you’ll polish them up later.
And again, if you’re seriously struggling with potential topic ideas, refer to the list I provided above to help you get started.
Consider upcoming events, holidays, promotions, etc.
This is my FAVORITE thing to teach people to do when planning their blog content because this is where things can start to feel really fun – and when blogging feels fun, you’re more likely to actually do it consistently! 🥳
The reason this step matters so much is because as a business owner, you want to be relevant and create content that shows people that you care about what’s going on around them and typically there’s always a way that your specific business and the value that you bring to the table can tie in.
The topics you listed in step 1 are likely evergreen topics, meaning they aren’t date specific and no matter when someone reads the post it would still be relevant for them.
A lot of times when you hear people talk about blogs, you hear this evergreen conversation come up. People tend to stress the fact that since blogs have a longggg shelf life (which is one of the greatest benefits of them), they must be as evergreen as possible.
And while I do agree with that to an extent, I’m more in the camp of taking an evergreen topic and making it just a litttleeee bit more time sensitive or seasonally relevant by strategically using major holidays, seasons, national days, or internal business events or promotions.
When you do this, an evergreen blog topic is suddenly a little more interesting, attention getting, and sometimes even a little more urgent to read than just a general topic that you could publish at any time.
To achieve this, take a look ahead at the next 3 months and list any holidays, national days, events or promotions that you have coming up that you think you’ll want to capitalize on in your blog content.
For example:
- a boutique owner could capitalize on Christmas with gift guides on their blog featuring products in their store
- a business coach could use New Year’s as a way to provide guidance on yearly planning and then promote their yearly planning workshop
- an AirBnb owner could get creative on “National Take a Hike Day” in November to create a blog post about the best hikes in their area (which would still be considered evergreen!)
Overall, this is where your creativity really comes to life and you can think about how to put a twist on the content you want to share and make it relevant to the time period at hand!
And maybe the best part about doing this on your blog is that year after year, you can come back in, edit the post to be relevant for that year, and update it.
No need to create a new blog post every year around the same holiday or national day – you simply build off of what you’ve already done and update the publish date so that Google sees it as “fresh content.”
Just remember to never put a year/date in your blog post URL so that the updating is super easy!
(This is all a part of my Anti-Boring Blog Framework and if you’re interested in going deeper into this, I spill it all in this workshop.)
NOTE: Not every single blog post has to be tied to a holiday or something external. Sometimes it won’t happen and you don’t want to force it! But when you can use this strategy to your advantage, it’s definitely the move.
Assign an “intent” to each blog topic idea
Once you have a pretty solid blog topic brain dump and you’ve strategically aligned some of those ideas with a relevant holiday, season, or business event, it’s time to consider the “intent” of each of your blog topics.
Because remember – some blog topics have the primary goal of discoverability. But others are more about nurturing, educating, selling, or simply connecting with your audience.
It’s important that you know your blog posts’ intent BEFORE you ever start writing it or else the content could come across all wrong.
For example, if your topic is “why your content isn’t converting,” and you have the goal of selling your course that helps with this, the intent behind that post is conversion-focused.
So instead of writing it as a general educational piece, you’d want to guide your reader toward a very specific solution.
So for this step, review your list and ask yourself:
- What is the main purpose of this blog post?
- What do I want my audience to take away from this?
- What is the action I want people to take after reading this blog post?
Your answers to those questions can help you clearly decide the “goal” of your blog post!
Conduct keyword research
Now comes the keyword research! I told you we weren’t ditching it completely. We simply aren’t starting there.
Before I go further, please let me reiterate: heavy keyword research has its time and place! I believe in the power of SEO or else I wouldn’t even be here in Mariah’s world writing this for you.
For the purpose of this blog post though, I want to help you see how it’s not the ONLY way to generate blog topic ideas.
Once you have your topic idea, the angle you want to lead with (like seasonal relevancy), and your blog post intent, you can conduct keyword research easier.
For effective keyword research, you’ll need to use a good tool – Mariah put me on to Semrush and I haven’t looked back. Yes, it’s on the pricier side, but what’s a girl to do when it’s the only SEO tool that makes sense for your brain?!
It does have a free version though and there are PLENTY of other great keyword research tools out there – I’ll point you to Mariah’s blog post about SEO keyword tool recommendations!
Here’s how to do this:
Let’s say your original blog topic idea is: “how to stay consistent with your content.”
Instead of scrapping that idea because you don’t immediately know the keyword, you’d take that topic and plug variations of it into your keyword tool.
You might find keywords like:
- “how to stay consistent with content creation”
- “content consistency tips”
- “how to be consistent on social media”
From there, you can choose the keyword that feels the most aligned with your original idea and build your blog around it, instead of forcing yourself into a completely different topic.
This is what I mean by reverse-engineering SEO!
Adjust your blog title accordingly
Finally, this is where we tie it alllll together.
✔️ You have a topic that your audience can truly benefit from
✔️ You might have a seasonally relevant angle for it (but remember – it’s okay if you don’t have this for every blog post you write)
✔️ You have a clear intent for your blog post
✔️ You have a strategic keyword for the topic
Now it’s time to simply adjust your blog title accordingly so that you can do both: write a strategic blog post that your audience is truly interested in AND ensure that your content is searchable.
This is the step that ensures your content gets seen without sacrificing what you actually wanted to say!
*cue Hannah Montana* because it’s the besttttt of both worlds! 🌎
Additional Blog Writing Tips and Resources for Business Owners
And there ya have it! My hope after reading this is that you understand that blogging doesn’t have to be an either/or situation where you’re choosing between writing for SEO or writing for your audience.
When you understand how to blend the two intentionally, you’re able to create a blog strategy that actually supports your business through discovery, trust-building, and conversions all at the same time.
A huge thanks to Mariah for having me as a guest on her blog and for creating such an incredible space to learn and deepen my own understanding of SEO.
If you’re not already in her world, I highly recommend checking out her SEO membership, Search Club – it’s been such a valuable resource for me personally when it comes to making SEO feel way more approachable and actually fun to implement!
And if you enjoyed this post and want to continue learning from me, here’s how you can stay connected:
- Binge the Natty Writes Blog – this is where my best blogging tips and resources go FIRST!
- Subscribe to Notes From Natty – if you want *almost* weekly blogging insights straight to your inbox, this is the place to be
- Follow along on Instagram – this is where I share more BTS content and show up for funsies
And as a parting gift, here’s my free Beginner’s Guide to Blogging For Your Business that serves as a resource for almost everything you need to know about blogging in your business AND doubles as a workbook to help you put everything you learn into real action!
Overall, your blog should feel like an extension of your brand – not something you’re forcing to “fit” into SEO rules, but something that genuinely supports the way you want to show up in your business.
Here’s to creating blogs that do BOTH! 👏🏼
Connect with Natty:
Check out Natalie’s Website: Natty Writes
Instagram: @natty.writes
