3 Ways To Get Ideas For Writing To Your Blog
Even though I’m a natural idea generator I find myself getting stuck all too often when it comes to writing to my blog. If you have a blog, especially if you want to someday make money from it, it’s essential that you write frequently and consistently. But what do you do when you sit down at your keyboard and realize you have no idea what to write about?
I know there are exercises you can do to break through writer’s block. I’ve tried them in the past, but most just don’t work for me. They seem too contrived, it feels like a chore. I want to just sit down and let the words flow – sometimes it works like that. But I’ve had to find workarounds for the times when writer’s block takes hold.
Here are my top 3 tips for generating writing ideas:
Be prepared when ideas do come
Ideas often come when you’re not trying to generate them, it’s just the way our brains work. Do you get your best ideas when you’re in the shower? Or driving? Maybe, like me, you work things out in your dreams and then wake up with a great idea… which dissolves into the ether as soon as my dogs pounce on me.
The trick is to capture these ideas, so you’ll have them when you need them. When you run dry, you can look back through your captured ideas and use one of them, or maybe just reading through them will kickstart you into generating more ideas.
To capture ideas in the moment, be sure to have a pen/pencil and notebook with you or near you at all times to jot down ideas as you get them. Don’t censor anything. Even if you realize later an idea wasn’t so great, it may end up triggering more ideas that are brilliant.
If you are working on a computer with Internet access (maybe at your day job) and don’t want to stop to grab your notebook, you can use a web-based service like Evernote to capture your ideas, then sync them down to your home computer later on. Evernote is web-based, with handy clipping applications for your browser, and desktop software for both Macs and PCs.
If you’re driving and can’t stop to take notes, Evernote is also available for iPhone and iPod Touch, so you can record a note to yourself. Otherwise you can use digital recorders or an mp3 player which records.
Write about what people are searching for
Everyone who comes to your blog through search engines is… well, searching for something. But just because they found your blog doesn’t mean they necessarily found what they were looking for. And if they didn’t – well, there’s a topic for an article you could write. Hittail is a free web service that tracks visitors coming to your site through search engines and analyzes the keywords they used to give you suggestions of topics you can write about. I’ve found the algorithms they use to analyze keywords and come up with suggestions give quite decent results.
Using HitTail on your Wordpress blog is easy. First, sign up for a free account at HitTail. Add your blog URL, and copy the code that you’ll need to add to your site. Now go get the free TailHitter plugin, upload it to your wp-content/plugins folder. Login to your Wordpress admin area and activate the TailHitter plugin. Then go to ‘Settings’, click on the ‘TailHitter’ link and paste the HitTail code into the text box and click the ‘Update’ button. That’s it!
HitTail Suggestions
It may take a few days before HitTail has any suggestions for you, depending on how much search traffic you get. But as soon as it gets some data to work with, HitTail will give you suggestions, based on the search queries of people coming to your site. You can click on the suggested keywords to move them into your ‘To Do’ list.
HitTail To Do List
When you need ideas for articles, just go to your To Do list. Now that you know what people in your niche are looking for you can write articles based around these topics in order to capture and retain a share of the search engine traffic. Once you’ve completed an article based on Hittail’s suggestion, keep track of what you’ve done by ticking the box next to the keywords in the To Do list.
Ask your readers
Find out what your readers want to know, write articles that answer their questions. There are many ways you can open this dialog with your readers. But one of the quickest and easiest methods is to use Skribit. Sign up for Skribit (it’s free) and copy the code they give you. Paste the code into a text widget, and add the widget to your sidebar. Now you’ll have a widget sitting in your sidebar that asks, “What should I write about?”. Your readers can, in 100 characters or less submit their question or suggestion.
Have a look in my sidebar and you’ll see Skribit in action. Give it a try, let me know what you would like me to write about. Readers can vote on suggestions that have already been submitted by someone else.
When you do write about something from your Skribit suggestions you can let people know you wrote about their topic. This not only helps you break through your writers block, but your readers get answers to their questions, and because you can notify them that you’ve blogged on their question you have a way of drawing people back to your site.
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Comments
@Bill Canaday: Hi Bill. I’m glad you found these tips useful. You might also be interested in Blog Profits Blueprint if you haven’t read it already. It’s a free, really excellent report that shows you how to make money from your blog by focusing on the content. How to write great articles, how to get ideas for articles. I have read it and it’s made a tremendous difference to me. I was so impressed I signed up for the coaching program as well and it’s well worth it.
Very cool. I like the Skribit idea, have you had much luck from it?
Pauls last blog post..Another new addition: Similar Posts
@Paul: I’ve only just installed it a couple days ago. So far no one has used it, but it will be interesting to see how well it works – I think it’s a great idea.
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My blog basically sucks frozen buttermilk, so thanks for the tips.