Many bloggers stick with a single method of coming up with blog post ideas – simply writing about whatever is on their mind that day. Although some bloggers may find it easy to come up with an endless stream of interesting, relevant topics this way, almost every bloggers has faced the experience of sitting down at their keyboard and simply drawing a blank.
Rather than simply sitting at your computer trying to conjure up new blog post ideas, an easy way to find relevant topics in your niche is to actively seek out questions, issues, and news that are already being discussed. By finding topics that are already in the discourse, you can not only identify new blog post ideas, but you’ll identify blog post ideas that are relevant and interesting to your readers.
There are many ways you can go about actively seeking blog post ideas, but here are some simple ideas to get you started:
RSS Subscriptions To Authority Blogs
Perhaps the most straightforward way to generate new blog post ideas is to keep tabs on the high authority bloggers in your niche or industry. If you’re not already doing so, you should be using an RSS reader like Google Reader to keep tabs on the major blogs in your industry. Doing so will not only allow you to keep tabs on the latest news and opinions in your niche, but it also gives you opportunities to generate interesting blog post ideas. Here are two ways you can use these authority blogs to come up with ideas to write about:
Find Interesting Discussions In The Comments
On popular blogs you’ll often find a plethora of discussion in the blog post comments. While discussions on the internet have a tendency to devolve into pointless bickering, on moderated high-authority blogs you’ll often find interesting, high level discussion amongst the noise. As someone who blogs in the same industry, you’ll undoubtedly identify topics from these discussions where you have something passionate to contribute.
Rather than simply posting a response in the comments, you can use these discussions to fuel your next blog post. If your post is interesting, relevant, and makes some good points, you can make a short comment and link to your post on the subject.
Provide Commentary On Controversial Posts
Another great way to get a blog post topic is to write a blog post in response to the blogger’s post. However, for this method to work successfully however, it’s important that you have something valuable to say on the matter. While expressing your opinion in the comment of a blog post is one thing, it’s another thing entirely to write a counter-point piece expressing another viewpoint, deconstructing an original post, and backing up your viewpoint with sources.
Simply weighing in with your own 2 cents on a bland issue or agreeing with the blog post doesn’t generate interesting content. This strategy works best for topics that are controversial and where you have a strong opinion.
Quora
Quora is similar to Yahoo answers in that it’s a question and answer site, but it’s different in the sense that there are many more experts responding to questions, rather than just laypeople. By simply searching for questions in our niche, we can come up with topics and issues that we could write a blog post around. Explore different phrases and keywords in your niche to find new topic ideas.
LinkedIn is another great platform for generating blog post ideas – especially if you’re blogging as a professional or as a business owner. As the world’s largest business social networking platform, LinkedIn gives you access to discourse in your industry from which you can draw inspiration. Simply go to the search bar in the top right hand corner, click on the tab and select ‘Answers’.
Once you’re here, you can type in a keyword relevant to your industry and hit search. This will bring up a list of questions/answers related to your keyword that are being actively discussed by people in your industry.
Ask For Reader Questions
Perhaps the easiest way to seek out relevant blog post ideas is to simply ask your existing readers for questions. Simply put out a blog post asking your readers to send you any questions that are on their mind, whether it’s by email, comments, or social media. Even if you only have a handful of readers, this is a great way to create content that’s directly relevant and useful to your readers. Furthermore, by actually taking the time to answer a reader’s question and build a blog post around it, you’ll generate tremendous loyalty in your existing readers.
Hopefully you have some ideas now for how you can go out and actively find great blog post ideas. Blogging is about more than simply sitting at your keyboard and writing whatever comes to mind. Not only is this a great way to run into writer’s block, but it’s important to remember that blogging is about engaging with a larger community and with your readers . By writing blog posts drawn from exploring this larger community, you ensure that you’re creating blog posts that are relevant and useful to your readers.
