Topics to Write About for Your Freelance Writing Job

Finally!

You have a freelance writing job and now it’s go-time. The blog writing client wants you to pitch ideas for their blog.

But, you have no idea what topics to write about for your new client. You don’t even know if you can pull this off. You keep telling yourself you’re not a freelance writer and that no one will hire you.

Topics to Write About for Your Freelance Writing Job

Now, you actually have a freelance writing client and you have to perform.

When I landed my first gig, I had to pitch topics. How do you find relevant topics and what if the client doesn’t like any of them?

In my experience, if they don’t like your pitch, they will pitch you some ideas they had in mind. Currently, most of my clients give me topics to write about, but in the beginning, I did have to pitch and with onboarding new clients I do offer some blog post topics.

Here are 10 places you can use to help you come up with topics to write about.

Topics to Write About

1. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a free search tool to search topics to write about that are popular on social media. If you want your client to be happy with you (and be their go-to writer) one quick way to make sure that happens is to pitch popular topics.

How does this help? Well, if you write a post that gets a lot of social shares and traffic, the client will LOVE you! 🙂

To use BuzzSumo, look at your client’s niche and search that on BuzzSumo. For example, if your client is in the health and fitness niche I can look up:

  • best yoga positions
  • paleo diet
  • best smoothies for weight loss

From the first topic choice, it seems that the most shared post is really niched down (yoga positions for violinists).

This can help you develop some ideas for your client like:

  • Best yoga positions for bloggers
  • Best yoga positions to help with easing pregnancy labor
  • Best yoga positions you can do with your child

BuzzSumo can also search a blog so you can search your client’s blog and see which topics are the most shared.

From there you can create more topics to pitch to your client. For example, my client on Blogging Wizard has these popular posts on social media.

The most shared are about the psychology of social networks. If I wanted to, I could pitch topics in that niche like:

  • Using psychology principals to increase your income on your blog
  • How you can boost your Instagram Followers with these simple psychology tactics
  • Here’s what you need to know about Millennials and buyer psychology

Those pitch ideas were just formed in my head as I was thinking about the principals of psychology. Since psychology is my background, I can pick some ideas that relate to online entrepreneurs.

2. Pinterest

I love Pinterest! It’s a great way to grow your blog and it’s also a place to get some inspiration and find topics to write about for your freelance writing job. Plus there are some great Pinterest groups for freelance writers.

Pinterest is a visual search engine so you can go there and search for any blog topic. For example, if your client’s niche is career and business, you can search for ideas around being more productive at work.

With this topic, Pinterest gives me a lot of infographics. I can look at those infographics and pick a sub-topic to expand for my client.

Maybe social media and distractions are a huge hinder for people at work. You can write a post on apps that stop this distraction, like the Kill News Feed chrome extension for Facebook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-nRo6fI0LA

There are a lot of ideas using Pinterest for your client topics so make sure not to ignore this search engine!

3. Quora

Quora is a question and answer site. People go there to ask a question and others answer. A lot marketers and influencers use Quora to build their credibility, understand their audience, and bring more traffic to their site.

But, as a freelance writer, you can use this site to help you form some topics to write about for your freelance client.

For example, if your client’s product is a tool to help find influencers in your niche, you can look at this topic on Quora and see what questions people have about this subject.

From here you can talk about micro-influencers or maybe do a roundup of tools to find influencers and then mention your client’s product.

4. Google Trends

Google Trends is a free tool to help you find some searchable topics and see its trend over time.

While this might not help you find a topic, once you find a topic for your client, you can search some topics in a post you’ll be writing.

For example, if my client agreed for me to write a post on gut healing foods I can search those foods – like bone broth – on Google Trends and put the popular ones in the beginning of my post.

Or, I can create a whole post on a highly searchable topic.

 

5. Use Competitor’s Sites

A quick way to find some good topics to write about for your client is to look at other competitor sites’ blogs and see what they are talking about. You can also look at similar sites too. For example, if you have a social marketing content client, you can look at:

  • Buffer’s blog
  • Social Media Today
  • HubSpot
  • Contently’s blog

For example, Buffer has a huge guide on Facebook groups. You can pitch to your client some sub-topics about Facebook groups like:

  • How to build engagement with your new Facebook group
  • The perfect daily threads to increase your engagement in your Facebook group
  • Simple ways to market your Facebook group

6. Personal Experience

One of the best ways to find topics is from personal experience. It can come from life experience, your job, watching the news, reading books, listening to the radio and talking with your friends.

For me, I now have experience in digital marketing and can use that knowledge to create posts around my niche topic (digital marketing).

Via my writer website:

7. Blog Posts in Other Niches

To find topics to write about for your clients in this way, you need to be reading a lot of other blogs or know other bloggers in different niches.

For me, I created a new blog, Twins Mommy, which opened the doors to the mom blogger niche. I like to read other mom blogs and make money blogs to get ideas for my Twins Mommy blog and for my clients.

For example, some bloggers write a lot about social media scheduling tools (even I did!). I can use that knowledge of those tools to create posts for my clients.

8. LinkedIn

If you have a lot of followers you can look at your home feed and see different topics that might help you get some ideas for pitching to your freelance writing client.

LinkedIn also has groups and you can look in those groups and see more blog post ideas. For some reason, I belong to a Travel Blogger Network LI group. Scrolling through the feed I noticed this infographic:

If you are in the travel and marketing niche, this is a great post idea. How can travel agencies minimize abandoned carts when people book their travels?

Look in LI groups to get some inspiration for your client’s posts.

9. Other Freelance Writers (In the Same Niche)

I love looking at other freelance writers’ sites. I like to see their copy, blog, and portfolio. If I’m in a pinch, I can look at other freelance writer’s in the same niche as me and see what types of posts they are writing.

For example, Pam Neely has a running log of recent posts she’s written for clients:

I can look at her list and see if some of these topics to write about are something I can get some inspiration and some ideas.

10. Facebook Groups

I’m all over Facebook and Facebook groups. Since I work from home and don’t really go out too much, I like the networking and support aspect I get with Facebook groups.

Since my niche is digital marketing, the two Facebook groups I like are:

Both of these groups have promo days to share your latest blog post or lead magnet. I can look at the blog posts and get some ideas for my clients.

Want More Topics to Write About?

Make sure to check out my other post, 37 Blog Post Ideas for Freelance Writers.

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Hi I'm Elna and I'm a freelance writer and mom blogger. I help people just like you become a profitable freelance writer. Within 6 months of starting my freelance writing business from scratch I was able to earn a full-time living as a part-time freelance writer while taking care of my twin toddlers. Check out my free email course Get Paid to Write Online and learn the steps you need to take to be a freelance writer.

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26 Comments

This is awesome, Elna! Thank you so much for putting this list together. It’s a great feeling to move from “how am I going to figure this out?” to “Ahhh… Elna has a post about this.” 🙂 Helpful content, as always!Reply to Amy
Hey Amy! Thanks so much! I’m so happy this post resonated with you. Finding blog topics for your freelance client can be a challenge for sure! Glad this helped!Reply to Elna
Great ideas, Elna! Writer’s block and coming up with new blog post ideas can really be a pain sometimes. Another great option is Feedly. It’s a great site/app to get inspiration, I use it all the time. Thanks for sharing your tips!Reply to Allison
Thanks for the suggestion! And yes, coming up with ideas can be difficult if all you write about is one main topic!!Reply to Elna
I am using Quora for long time. It is a great site since they have lot of people who answer the questions of the others. Always can find an answer for my questions. Anyway thanks for pointing out such informative facts.Reply to christina
Hi Elna, Thanks for the information. I came across your site about a year ago and have found the advice you give immensely helpful! Brilliant breakdowns and simple solutions. Great stuff!Reply to H
<3 Thanks Abigail for being such a loyal follower!Reply to Elna
Nice one Elna… There’s one aspect I use which is not quite popular with many bloggers. And that’s interview. I have been using it to grow my new insurance blog. What I often do is to tell my friends to ask me questions they would like to search for on Google about the insurance industry. With what they ask me and the information I gather in Quora, I craft my new blog post. So far, it has been helpful in growing my insurance blog.Reply to Emmanuel
Thanks so much for this blog post topic…i found it educative and informative.Reply to Giotechub
You’re welcome! Glad you found some ways to find some blog topics for your clients.Reply to Elna
Great Tips! Such a great information. I agree with you that ”The blog writing client wants us to pitch ideas for their blog..” I have always been facing problems with Blog Post Topic and was trying to hire someone to help me. I will tweet your post. Thanks a lot for sharing. Thanks a lot! StefanReply to Stefan
Hi Stefan, Glad you found some tips to help you with this challenge!!Reply to Elna
As a new freelance writer, I couldn’t help but LOVE this post! Your blog is amazing, Elna. It has been truly helping me a lot now that I have finally decided to try this freelancing ‘thing’. Finding new ideas to pitch was one of my current struggles. Now I know what to do. Thanks!Reply to Andressa
Hi Andressa! <3 Thank you so much. So happy to know that you found this post super helpful. I know for many of us, coming up with topics can be a challenge for sure!Reply to Elna
If you’re a general knowledge geek, then chances are you’ve heard of Quora. Quora is a platform where you can ask a question and people will answer to the best of their abilities. But if it’s a Q and A platform, how do you find topics to write on? There’s actually an easy 5 step process for finding blog topics on Quora; Step 1: Make a list of terms\keywords associated with your niche Step 2: Enter each of those keywords in the Quora search box Step 3: Go through the conversation and discussions that pop up Step 4: Highlight parts of the discussion which you feel you could write about Step 5: Write an awesome blog post on the content you highlighted, and bask in your readers appreciationReply to Lisa
Hi Elna, You did a great work here. Quora, Yahoo Answer, comments on my blog and those of my colleagues, Facebook groups and opinions of my students are few of the places where most of my blog ideas are generated from. Sometimes I might just be glancing through my old posts and a new blog post ideas will be impressed on my mind. That’s how it has been working for me. However, my weakest point has already Pinterest. I hope to master it someday. Thank you so much for sharing. EmenikeReply to Emenike
Hi Emenike, Those are great ways to find blog post topics! Pinterest isn’t for everyone so don’t feel like you have to master that.Reply to Elna
Hey, Elna! Great information as always. I just started a blog and coming up with a good topic is often the hardest part. Thanks for the tips!Reply to Noor
You’re welcome! Glad this post helped you!Reply to Elna
Really excellent advice for any freelance writer! Great post Elna, and thanks for mentioning our Facebook group!Reply to Mary
Hey Mary! Love your FB group and your blog. Cath’s post on Pinterest was amazing! She’s a student of mine and I love her to death!Reply to Elna
So informative, as usual! I really find that coming up with ideas is the hardest part of writing for me. The research and writing comes easily. I sometimes can spend a couple of days coming up with that perfect topic. As for social media, this is a great way to come up with topic ideas, as long as you can avoid getting sucked into it. When I need to write an in-depth post, sometimes I search the best selling books on Amazon, just to see what people want to read about. Thanks again for sharing this with us!Reply to Alma
Hey Alma, Glad this post can help you with finding some blog post ideas! Good luck!Reply to Elna
Thank you for the ideas for where to go for topic ideas, Elna! I needed the information since I’m starting to get clients interested in my services. I’m obviously scared that I’m going to screw it up for myself (my agoraphobia in action) but I’m taking it in stride. Now all I have to do is make sure I have plenty of topic ideas for when clients ask me for them. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?Reply to Lizzie
Hey Lizzie! Yes, not too hard 🙂 Pretty soon the clients will give you topics. It happened to me and now it’s a cinch! Good luck!Reply to Elna
The good news is, I just got a client who is giving me topic ideas. He had an entire list of them, including topic ideas for the regional area that he’s in. I’m glad it takes some of the pressure off of me in the end since I would’ve had no idea what to write about for him. I’ve got a lot to choose from and some liberty with what I choose. Based on what I’ve been given, it should be easier to come up with topics for others as well without copying his ideas. Thank you for the well-wishes!Reply to Lizzie