How to Generate Blog Post Ideas (A Beginner’s Guide)

How to Generate Blog Post Ideas (A Beginner’s Guide)

Are you stuck at writing new blog posts for your company, product or yourself? Are you running out of ideas and not able to hit that ‘share’ button to spread your ideas worldwide? Or are you at a junction where there are just too many ideas to write on?

If so, don’t worry! I have some good news for you. There are solutions to your questions, and by solutions, I mean a set of logical steps you should take to generate new ideas and pick up the best ideas for your blog posts.

We all know how much effort it takes to write a single blog post. For me, it happens in three steps –

  • An idea hits my lazy mind and I get inspired.
  • I read a lot of background material, do my research.
  • I write, empty my brain on the digital screen.

More or less this happens with everyone, I suppose. But there are times when nothing happens. Some refer it as the blogger’s block, some call it lack of inspiration, some call it running out of ideas.

I think that if you are a regular blogger and keep an update of happenings in your field, then you should be able to get enough material to write on.

As Casey Niestat (American Celebrity and Businessman) puts it – “You either act on ideas or set them free. You don’t dwell on them.”

Still not getting what I am saying? Try the following seven simple methods, especially hand-picked for you.

Generate blog post ideas using these methods

#1 Grab the trends

whats-trending

The world never stops for anyone. The easiest way to understand where the world is moving technologically, scientifically, academically, and politically is to make use of trends on marketing and social media. For this, portals of social media giants such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest come handy.

Social media is like a goldmine of fresh, new, trending subjects.

  • Your Company’s Facebook Page is the first place to look for new ideas. You have to find out what people are curious about, what are the topics they are asking questions or which are the hashtags they are trending. Your company page is relatively a closed space, and therefore, the topics you get here are 100% specific and relevant to your reader interest.
  • What does the World Want? This should be your next question. An overview of Google Trends, trending subjects on Facebook and Twitter, or any other popular world business news channel would be enough to provide you ideas for blog posts.

google_alerts_logo

  • What does the World See? Carefully look for trending images on Pinterest and most watched videos on YouTube. People tend to view things which are talked about the most.

If your blog posts reflect the current trends, they are more likely to get read.

#2 Check what others are writing about

Another way to look for new ideas for your blog posts is to read what others, especially your competitors, are writing. Look at competitors as a source of information.

“Competitors understand your business the best. Embrace the competition.” – Dr. Cobanli, Founder of OMC design studios

Well, competitors are one of the information-rich sources of the lot. You should also get out of your limitations and do a thorough research to get new ideas. How? Follows –

  • Read technical publications such as research papers and review articles.
  • If you are not a technical guy but understands the business overall, then read your niche magazines such as B2B magazines or science and technological magazines written in a simplistic manner.
  • Follow world news, especially business news.

world-news

  • Set up your Google Alert for new publications in your niche topics.
  • I strongly recommend attending conferences, meetings, symposia, and seminars, taking notes, meeting and interacting with people, and starting a dialogue to extract new ideas.

“The person who reads too much and uses his brain too little will fall into lazy habits of thinking.” – Prof. Albert Einstein

Although most of the print publications you will read might be more industry-oriented than customer oriented. It is your job to critically examine areas where improvement is needed and converting your understanding into a customer oriented blog post idea. This should not take more than 30 minutes, and if you are through this, there you have it – your new blog post idea.

#3 The whole new world of keyword research

keyword-research

The first two steps work for most of us, but if you are still stuck, then you have to dig deeper for generating a new blog post idea. This is mainly by doing a thorough keyword search and analysis. In a nutshell, keyword research gives you an idea of what people want answers for and what do they read the most.

But why keyword research? Because each keyword tells a story.

There are a plethora of paid as well as free keyword tools available for doing this.

  • Start with manually creating a keyword list for your older posts or business. Try enriching this list by thinking in which combination these keywords may appear on the web.
  • If you are out of ideas for long tail keywords, simply use any of these keyword research tools – KeywordXP PRO, Longtail Pro, Market Samurai, Keyword Tool Pro, HitTail, WordStream, and Google Keyword Planner.
  • Google Autocomplete Keyword Tool is one of the simplest but best tools for long tail keyword analysis. You simply put a keyword or a keyphrase in Google search, and the tool suggests possible long term keywords based on data on the frequency of people searching for it. Google Correlate is another interesting tool that may help in finding topics in your broader niche.
  • Blog title generator is yet another way of utilizing your knowledge of keyword in a creative manner. Check out 0, and Portent for generating blog post titles and search for relevant posts.

Also read: How to get more sales with buyer keywords

#4 Find what others are missing

missing-piece

Finding a content gap is like finding a treasure trove of new blog post ideas. People tend to read articles which answer their queries. If you are writing on a popular topic on which several articles already exist, you will need to focus on that missing link which others may have ignored. Again, how to find the gap? Here’s how –

  • Follow your niche topics and find the top questions in your niche in Quora and Yahoo Answers. Find out which questions people are repeatedly asking and which of them remain unanswered.
  • Follow other bloggers and carefully examine their blog comments to extract ideas for new blog posts.
  • If your company manages a database of Frequently Asked Questions, find out questions that have been asked more than a triplicate. These questions are of general importance and could make baseline material for new blog posts.
  • Amazon Book Review has also been discussed to be a nice place to look for gaps in content. This is relatively easy. All you have to do is search books of your interest and read two to four-star rating comments of readers. These reviews often mention precisely what the book lacks.

#5 Ask readers what they want

Till now we were talking about indirect measures of what the readers want to read. Why not ask them directly? Makes sense, isn’t it?

what-are-you-looking-for

Many bloggers do it routinely, and there is nothing wrong in it. If you are planning for a blog post of general interest and if you have a big fan following, it is straight forward. Just create a poll on your page and as per the response, decide on what to write. There is more to it –

  • Ask your audience what they would like to read. Use Facebook and Twitter for this. Circulating a short video on YouTube will be a great move.
  • If you have a number of ideas with you and want to find out what could turn into a popular one, take an online questionnaire survey using Google Surveys or SurveyFunnel.
  • Send a short email to your followers asking specific topics on which they would like to read your posts.

#6 Look back – Rise again; In short, upcycle

If you are still stuck with a blogger’s block, then think of your past glorious work. Think if your past writings are still relevant and if you could upcycle it.

Must Read: How to repurpose your content to boost traffic

What is upcycle? It simply means recycling into new materials of higher quality and greater use. Upcycle does not mean self-plagiarism!

repurposing-content

You just have to recycle the idea, modify and enrich with a fresh content and your new blog post is ready. You can upcycle even your competitors’ blog posts, your favorite posts, or posts which you have bookmarked. But when you upcycle the posts you will need to necessarily upcycle information, title, visuals, links and collaborations.

#7 Get inspired – Think out of the box

If you think, the above six steps do not work for you; then there is only one solution left. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and think out of the box. Think about anything that comes to your mind as soon as you close your eyes. It could be personal or professional. It could be a figment of your imagination or a real life experience.

think-out-of-the-box

Think how you would spin a story around this thing. Think if your professional life can be explained starting with a spontaneous thing that comes to your mind as you close your eyes.

Also, Think how you would convert technical stuff into simpler but a creatively written article. If you could do it, you potentially attract a bigger set of readers which may lead to an increase in interactions and feedback.

Ignite your creativity, and a handful of new blog post ideas will be a stone’s throw away!

Summarizing

Generating new blog post ideas and successfully fighting a blogger’s block is not impossible. There are multiple ways to generate new blog post ideas. The fundamental idea is to look for gaps in information and popular trends. If you manage your resources and strategically plan your writing assignments, you can easily get hold of enough material for a year-long blogging project. This article is a beginner’s guide to generate blog post ideas.

I hope you find this article helpful. Let me know which steps worked for you and how.

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