Coming up with fresh content for a blog can be one of the hardest tasks. Sure, coding sucks (especially when you break your blog and spend 2 hours chatting with support to bring it back like I did this past weekend) and design can be tough, but luckily – these things aren’t daily issues. New blog posts though? I can count on that needing to be done all the time.
I’ve gone through my share of writer’s block. Staring at the screen, wishing words would just tumble from my fingertips, only to walk away and chalk it up to an off day. However, I’ve found myself in that unfortunate situation less and less lately. I’ve got the ideas and I’ve got the words. (Now if someone could help me with my time management and ability to work more than a day, or even minutes ahead, I’d be all set. But that’s a whole other story.)
Since I know how frustrating it can be to sit there and just want the words to come out of your head, I figured I’d share some of my tried and true methods on how to come up with regular blog post ideas.
read everything you can
Read magazines, books, blog posts, news, newspapers, or even social media – doesn’t matter, just read. Reading is a great way to jumpstart your creative juices so you can come up with regular blog post ideas. Write a response to an article you read, swap out a word in a newspaper or magazine headline for a post you could write, share how a blog post or a book changed you, talk about how your opinion differs from something you read – the list is endless.
share what you know (or even what you don’t know)
This is probably my favorite method as it’s SO simple that I usually overthink it. This post is a prime example of sharing what I know. I know how to come up with regular blog post ideas so I’m compiling it into a post. It pretty much wrote itself before I even sat down to work on it because I’ve already been doing the work. I just needed to put it into words, create a nice image and post it. You may argue that you don’t know how to do much and while I doubt that’s true, you can share the flip-side of it as well. Think “how not to do something” or even create a post asking your audience how to do something.
use your own content
Have you had a post that hit it big? Maybe you received hundreds of comments, or maybe it was shared thousands of times – doesn’t matter. Obviously it worked and it’s in your best interest to make it work again. Find a way to capitalize on it’s success. Can you write an update to it? Maybe a prequel or sequel type post? Can you expand on the subject even further? If you can add to the conversation, then do it! Not only that, but think about similar topics. Maybe you wrote about how to start a journal so you could do similar posts like how to art journal, how to index your journals, how to use your journal for inspiration, etc. (Bonus tip: Be sure to interlink this content to up your page views!)
talk about current trends
This won’t generate longterm ideas unless something is trending for awhile, but if you’re looking for fresh new content on a regular basis, trends are a great place to start. Check out what’s trending on the news, on Twitter, on Facebook, or even on Google. If you look at Google, you’ll see that the Martini was the most searched cocktail in January and The Bachelor was the most searched TV show AND reality show. So maybe you can share a martini recipe, a round-up of martini recipes, why you love/hate martinis or food to pair with a martini. And for The Bachelor, you could easily talk about why you love/hate the show, why you would/wouldn’t be a good contestant, or just thoughts on people in the show. You can find trends for just about any topic and they change frequently so you’ll have tons of opportunities to come up with regular ideas for blog posts.
share your story
You’ve probably done some awesome and amazing things in your life, right? So share your experiences! You are the only one that has lived your story so you are the only one that can share it. It doesn’t matter if it’s small and mundane or big and extraordinary – it’s your story and it deserves to be shared. And if you think it’s boring, share anyway. Put a twist on it and make it funny, ridiculous or even heartwarming. Find a way to share your life and you’ll never run out of ideas.
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compile information
Link posts and round-up posts are great ways to share someone else’s content. It’s also one of my favorite ways to gain some extra inspiration since I share things I love to read. This is also a great way to share information on something you can’t do or don’t know how to do, but someone else does. For example: maybe you wish you knew how to work on a car, but you don’t even know how to change your tire. Share link or round-up post with links to posts on how to change your tire, how to change the oil, etc. Make it a go-to guide for whatever you’re sharing and people looking for similar information will definitely benefit from it, too.
skip the words
If the words aren’t there, let the photos do the talking. You can share your photos from Instagram, pictures from your latest trip, photos of a day in your life, photos of your favorite people, photos of your home, old photos from when you were younger – the list goes on and on. Along with this, photographs are a great way to come up with regular blog post ideas. Browse some of your favorites and see if an idea comes to you from them. Maybe it’s on the subject of the photograph, where you were when you took it, who you were with, or even why you were there.
keep your ideas together
I keep an idea journal, but it doesn’t matter what you do or how you do it – you just need to keep your ideas written down. It’s all too easy to forget about your epiphany if it’s not written or typed. Plus, once you have a decent sized list of ideas – it can be a great springboard for new ideas. For example, I have a homemade ketchup post planned in the upcoming weeks. What else could I do with that? Homemade mustard, homemade fries that the ketchup can be used on, how to plan a backyard bbq party where the ketchup and mustard are used, etc. It’s also a great way to see if a series might be doable based on the ideas you’ve written down.
While this list is pretty extensive, I know it’s not all-inclusive and I would LOVE to hear how you come up with regular blog post ideas. I’m all for stretching my creative muscles. And if you’re looking for even more blog inspiration, check out Five Easy Ways to Write Better Blog Posts or my other blog-related posts.
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