If you’re new to blogging, or you have a bad case of “bloggers block” and need some ideas to prime the pump, you could go to your favorite search engine and search for “how to get ideas for a blog”.

A better approach would be to use that search engine to find actual ideas.

With a few clicks, you’ll have a list of blog post ideas that are relevant and optimized because they are based on actual searches.

Type in a general idea, your practice area, your niche, or other keywords related to what you do. You might want to log out first, or use a private search, so your past search history doesn’t influence your results.

Then, look at the “drop-down” list of searches related to those keywords. You’ll see what people are searching for and that might be all you need to find your next blog post topic.

On Google, you can also look at the “People also ask” and “Related to” sections for more ideas.

If you’re still scratching your head, click to execute an actual search and look at the search results page. Look at the top 3 to 5 organic results (not paid). These will give you a good indication of what people are looking for, at least today, and you can use those results to write a post on one of those subjects.

Done and dusted.

You can take it a step further by clicking through to the actual posts or articles, to see how those topics were handled by other lawyers or bloggers, and get more insights into what to include or how you might slant your post.

By the way, you don’t have to limit your search to law-related keywords. You can search for anything you think might interest your readers and prospective clients.

If you represent landlords, for example, you might search for subjects related to buying, renting, and managing rental property.

You can even write something about one of your outside interests or hobbies.

Let’s say you love muscle cars but never thought to write anything about that on your legal blog. It has nothing to do with what you do professionally, so why do it?

Because there are a lot of people who share your interest and some of them might need your legal services, or know someone who does.

Write a post about the latest trends or about your favorite cars from the ’70’s and post it.

It’s your blog. You can do what you want.

Your regular readers may not be interested, but they might appreciate that you’re not always a boring attorney but actually have a life outside the office.

And you’ll get search traffic from other muscle car lovers, some of whom might like the ‘Cuda you wrote about and decide they want to talk to you about your services.

You’ll also have fun writing about something you love and maybe meet some kindred spirits.

More ways to get ideas for your blog