8 WAYS TO GENERATE NEW BLOG POST IDEAS
This is a guest post written by Bailey Richert.
It’s happened to all of us. You’ve cleared your schedule, turned off your phone and sat down at your computer ready to focus on writing blog posts…only to be drawing a blank when it comes to new content ideas!
It’s frustrating, to say the least, when you want to deliver amazing articles to your audience but are just a tad hung up with writer’s block.
In this post, I’d like to help you break down those mental barriers by offering 8 unique strategies you can employ when you need to develop new content ideas out of thin air.
1. Outdo Your Competitors’ Content
Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not at all suggesting you should plagiarise someone’s content. What I am saying is that you can look to other successful bloggers’ posts for inspiration. See what topics they’re writing about, and write your own unique content about the same or relevant topics. To help your SEO and establish yourself as the true authority in your niche, make your content better in every way possible by adding more value or new insight. For example, if a peer blogger of yours writes an article about ‘5 ways to do something’, you should write an article citing 10 ways.
2. Browse Facebook groups for potential clients’ questions
If you don’t host a Facebook group of your own, you should definitely join a few to network with your peers and potential clients. (May I suggest the Infopreneur Community?) In these groups, members often post questions to one another about pain points they are experiencing. Instead of just answering in the comment thread, take your answer and expand on it in a post.
Bonus: Follow your clients back on social media as well so you can see what they’re talking about and what needs they want addressed. Twitter is especially useful for this purpose. If you want to keep your clients separate from your main feed, add them to a specific list.
3. Check out my list of 45+ blog post ideas
In this post, I share over 45 generic blog post topic ideas that you can tailor to any niche, like featuring a client success story or addressing a myth or misconception in your industry.
4. Research keywords that are popular in your niche
One of the ways your content will be most successful on the web is if you write topics that people actually wish to learn about. Do some keyword research about topics in your niche, and you might be surprised to find themes you hadn’t before considered. KeywordTool.io is a pretty nifty website for discovering these new search terms.
5. Repurpose your content into blog posts
Did you create a YouTube video, social media post or SlideShare presentation? Take the topics you discuss in those mediums, and transform them into a blog post by either writing the content out in long-form or embedding the media into a post.
6. Check forums like Reddit and Quora
Online forums are communities where millions of people go to ask questions and get them answered. Similar to the Facebook group idea, take your response to someone’s question that you find by searching topics in your niche on the site, and turn it into a blog post. Remember to come back to the original question on the forum and post your reply, citing your blog post!
7. Send your email list a survey
If you want to know what your audience really wants to read, why not go straight to the source? Try an online survey tool like SurveyMoney to create a questionnaire to send to your list to ask them about potential topics they might want to see on your blog. Be sure to include a blank essay question at the end which lets people suggest topics you didn’t specifically think to include in the survey. That’s how you’ll be able to generate the new ideas!
8. Check out what’s trending right now
Trending topics are hot for a reason: people are really into reading and learning about them right now. Where can you find out what’s trending? Check the trending hashtags when you log in to Twitter, or browse Google Trends.
With these 8 strategies, you should be able to create a long list of new blog post ideas in minutes! Be sure to write them all down so you don’t run into a mental roadblock the next time you sit to create new content.
What other tips do you have for coming up with blog post ideas? Let us know in the comments!
Bailey Richert is a business coach who helps individuals launch profitable online enterprises as “infopreneurs”: respected experts in their fields creating value and profit by sharing their passions with others in a manner that supports their ideal lifestyles.
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