Content Creator Basics: Writing for Difficult Verticals

As WritersDomain writers, you’ve probably seen your fair share of difficult verticals. We have a lot of clients with relatively unfamiliar lines of work — but these clients still need effective SEO campaigns, which includes regular blog posts. 

If you run out of topic ideas for the more specialized clients or can’t think of any in the first place, how do you write for a client in a niche industry or with a lot of prior blogs on almost the same topics? This blog will discuss how to find new ideas for difficult verticals and how to effectively turn that idea into a full blog post.

Check Your Limitations

Before you come up with a topic, check out the client so you can make sure you’re going to write something that actually relates to what they do. For custom articles, you can use the keyword, whereas for onsite blogs, you can check the services listed on the website and draw conclusions from those. 

If you notice a particularly unique or specialized service or product that the client offers and that hasn’t already been written about, you may find your topic right there, but if that’s not the case, you’ll need to dive deeper.

Pay attention to the special considerations or blog restrictions. Take note of what topics they do and don’t allow, such as DIY topics or lists of interesting facts — later on, those restrictions may help you know what techniques to avoid as you come up with a topic.

Look for Hot Topics

After you have an idea of what the client does or the services they provide, google the service and see if something sparks your interest. If you have any specific questions about a service the client offers, you could quickly explore those too. If any of your questions can’t be answered with a quick search, they could be good topics to dive into. Write the post you wish you would have seen. 

If this quick research doesn’t give you a good topic (or if it’s already been written about for the client), you could look for current hot topics in the industry. You might find these in research studies, papers, or even press releases, which could have more specific information about advances in the industry.

Interviews and press releases typically use less jargon than a research paper, so those could be a good starting point to give you an idea for a topic. They might also be more interesting than a research paper since the target audience is more likely to be laypeople.

When writing onsite blogs, the HVAC vertical can be particularly difficult to write for because a lot of the same information gets repeated across the web and more technical topics are difficult for non-industry people to dissect. Additionally, blog topics can’t be repeated for the same client within a year, so any basic topic ideas have likely already been used.

However, if you search “HVAC press conference” in Google and click on the first few links, you might find a couple of interesting headlines that you could use to choose a blog topic, such as “Air Pros USA Expands Operations In Texas To Address The Growing Demand For Indoor Air Quality, Opens New Office In Plano.” Based on this, a blog could be written about the growing demand for indoor air quality and how HVAC systems can help homeowners improve air quality.

Add a Twist

Even after you have reviewed the client information and done some googling, you might have trouble finding a great topic. The next step is to choose an ordinary topic but to add a twist to give it a fresh angle — just make sure the final blog topic is still relevant to what the client does. Here are some examples of adding a twist to the difficult verticals that we have at WD and an explanation of what sparked the idea.

Industrial & Manufacturing 

In the movie Avengers, Iron Man does some underwater welding using his suit. Although real-life underwater welding is a very different process than shown in the movie, it is real — and it can be a great blog topic idea. A scene like this could inspire several topic ideas, including:

• • Instructions for underwater welding
  • Benefits of underwater welding
  • History of underwater welding
  • Effects of water on welding

Garbage Removal

Interesting facts are a great way to get topic ideas. You might look up “interesting facts about [your topic]” and then run with your favorite. For example, in the 1900s, the US used piggeries to help get rid of garbage. These piggeries were farms where the pigs would eat raw garbage, but they were discontinued when the pigs died from food-borne illnesses.

You might not be able to write an entire blog about a single fact, but you could try to incorporate the fact into your blog or base the entire blog around it. For this garbage example, you could talk about why sanitation services, such as garbage pickups, are so important. You can include information on: 

• • What diseases garbage can cause
  • What animals might be found in the trash
  • How much trash a single person generates per year
  • What would happen to society if we didn’t have a system to take care of waste

Recycling

Sometimes, the interesting facts you find may seem to reflect poorly on a client. However, you can add a twist to the topic to bring the client back into a good light. For example, in some cities, recycling ends up in a landfill instead of a recycling plant. This may seem to some like a good reason to stop recycling, but in reality, people may simply need a push to get back on board with recycling.

To make this topic work for a recycling client, you could focus on:

• • Why recycling is important
  • Why the recyclable waste isn’t being recycled
  • How a reader could help their city dispose of their recycling more responsibly
  • What recycling companies are doing to prevent this use of landfills 

A single fact or idea can lead to a varied list of blog topic ideas. If you don’t use all your ideas in one blog, you can save them to use for another blog later. 

Research Your Topic Effectively

Sometimes you have a great topic picked out, but the research to actually write it proves difficult. You might not be able to find the right information or enough information on a topic you chose, but you don’t want to simply abandon the topic (especially since it can be difficult to come up with another).

To research a topic more effectively, you can use a number of different tactics.

Use Specific Search Terms

Sometimes, for these niche industries, if you just google the service or the keyword, all you’ll find is the websites of other companies that offer similar services. While these might contain good information, you might not be able to find what you need to write a unique, original post. 

To avoid this, you can search for the service with some other, more specific search terms. For example, for an oil recycling company in the recycling vertical, you may want to search “oil recycling benefits” or “oil recycling pros and cons.” If you’re writing about a more broad topic, such as aggregate concrete in the Construction and Contractors vertical, you might search for “aggregate concrete tips.” These extra search terms will help Google know that you’re not looking for a service provider; you just want information.

Use Other Resources

Niche industries often have lots of jargon, which can be a barrier to understanding. If a quick Google search doesn’t turn up the definition, the websites of companies in the industry could be useful. While client sites and competitor sites can’t be used as sources for your task, they can help you gain an initial understanding of the industry and its services. 

To increase your understanding, you could even do an image search of the word instead. Although you might not find a written explanation of a word or service, a picture can help you understand equipment types or processes. 

Unfamiliar verticals can be daunting, but with the right approach and resources, you can write a great blog post. What are your techniques for writing about something new?