Even the most prolific and inspired bloggers have moments when they run out of ideas. Writer’s block comes to everybody but getting out of it doesn’t need to be difficult. The internet has a wealth of resources for inspiration and ideas and one unlikely source you may not have tried is Amazon. Amazon can help you tap into the areas your reader and the reader, in general, is interested in and allows you to ensure your blog is in line with the latest trends in your area, keeping your readers satisfied and coming back for more. Here I’m going to look at both why Amazon is so valuable as an inspiration and prompting tool and how exactly you can use it for your next blog post.
Why use Amazon anyway?
If you’re buying books or other products, why would you use Amazon for your blog? The simple fact is Amazon is the leading online tool for product searches, which means its ranking and bestsellers are a genuine representation of what people are buying.
The latest State of Amazon Study by BloomReach found that 55% of consumers’ online searches begin on Amazon, considerably more than on Google. It also found that 90% of consumers also check Amazon if a product has been found elsewhere. How is this relevant for your blog? Well, if people are searching for and buying specific books, eBooks and resources in your niche then they will appear in the bestsellers listing and here you can see exactly what’s hot and on trend with your target audience, and offer similar content.
Amazon has approximately 3.4 million books housed on its virtual shelves at any single moment. A new book hits the cyber shelves at the online retailer every five minutes and Kindle Digital Publishing has allowed the range of literature available to expand too. Some people even use Amazon to distribute their blog.
Its real value for your blog is inspiration and guidance. As you find relevant and interesting resources, you can begin to combine this with your own knowledge and experience to create engaging and clickable blog posts.
How to use Amazon for your Blog Posts
Using Amazon for blog post inspiration and ideas is very straightforward. Please note, for English blog post, I usually search on Amazon.com as there are many more publications and reviews per item so I can estimate better popularity of the book.Begin by choosing the “Books” category and entering your industry niche into the Amazon search bar.This will ensure you are looking for relevant information for your audience. Let’s say I want to write next blog posts about “time management”, it would look something like this:
Begin by choosing the “Books” category and entering your industry niche into the Amazon search bar.This will ensure you are looking for relevant information for your audience. Let’s say I want to write next blog posts about “time management”, it would look something like this:
Then I filter those searches by narrowing the book categories even further (usually picking the most popular sub-category) and choosing just books with review scores above 4 stars.
Next, you will have to play a little bit with results. I usually sort them by “relevance” and also by “most reviews” to see what titles are coming to ensure that you will get only the most popular and bestselling titles at the top of your search. This means you are looking at the book titles which are most relevant and important to your target audience. From here you can look more closely at the books themselves.
In many cases Amazon allows you to use the “Look Inside” function for their books. This means you can view the first few pages of some of the titles and from here, you can locate the contents page. This page is where all the good stuff is and chapter titles and heading may be exactly what you need for your next blog post:
As these are the most popular books being sold in your niche then the topics they cover are the topics your audience wants to hear about. You’re ready to get started using both the titles or headings which best suit your website and your own experience.
Inspire not Imitate
It is important to note that copying and duplicating other’s work is not an acceptable practice and will not go down well with your audience. It is fine to be inspired by a book or chapter title but you need to use the ideas learned as inspiration, not as the bulk of your own content. If you look inside several similar books and maybe even mention them in your blog post, you are both sharing your own knowledge and valuable resources to your audience.
You may usually only use Amazon when you need to buy something but it is also a great research and planning tool. As long as you remember to be inspired and not simply copy others work, Amazon should be a great addition to your research toolkit.
