Sometimes the hardest part of writing a blog is coming up with the idea.
Often when you know what you want to write then the words just flow out onto the page.
But, when you don’t know what you want to write, you can waste hours coming up with an idea.
The secret is to have ideas out the wazoo, then you will never be stuck scrambling while the blank cursor blinks away on the screen.
Luckily, I have plenty of ideas! Never run out of blog ideas again with these brainstorming tips…
Your Blog Ideas Forever More
Jot It Down
Do you find yourself coming up with your best content as you are driving, in the shower, or at 3am? You know you will forget it by the next time you sit down in front of your keyboard, so make a point of writing it down. Keep an ideas notebook, or a file on your phone that you can jot your ideas down as they come to you. Then you will have a catalogue available when it comes time to write.
Answer Questions
Is there a question that your clients ask all the time? Clearly it is something that they want to know more about, so write a blog on it. You could even make an FAQ series where you expand on all the things that your clients need to know. They get their questions answered, and you get to prove you are an expert in your field. Win, win!
Tell Your Story
People love to know the story behind the business. So tell them your story, What is your why, what is your purpose, what lights a fire within you and what goes on behind the scenes. You don’t have to give away your secret formulas, but an insight to the face behind your brand will show your personality and why they should love your business even more.
Check Out The Competition
Look at what your competitors are writing about. Don’t plagiarise their content, but if several of them are writing on the same topic, then it is obviously a popular one. So you can write your take on the topic, giving your opinion, dispensing your knowledge, or showing how your brand approaches it differently.
Pin-speration
Pinterest is a fantastic idea file. Type an industry relevant term into the search bar and trawl through the results. There will be so many things that will spark ideas for you to write on. You can also see trends and popular topics. Don’t think that you shouldn’t write on a topic because everyone else is doing it. That is even more reason to do it because it is obviously popular and will increase your chance of people wanting to read it.
Ask Your Audience
Survey your readers and ask them what they want to read about. The great thing about this tactic is that you will get lots of relevant ideas to write about, and you have a captive audience just waiting to see the blog go live!
Take Advantage Of The Seasons and Holidays
There is heaps of topical content that you can produce based on Christmas, Easter, the start of Spring, National Holidays and even obscure holidays like International Chocolate Day. There will be an interesting way that you can work these seasonal occasions into your content plan.
Headline Generators
There are actually online tools that spit out blog topic ideas for free. You simply enter a keyword phrase, or a subject into the search bar and they will generate blog ideas that you can use to write on. Because they are generated by the equivalent of a robot, not all of the suggestions will make sense. You might need to tweak the results to be a compelling title. But at least the ideas are there as a starting point.
My favourite generator tools are Answer The Public and Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator
A Problem You Recently Solved
All of your current and potential clients will have a problem they need to solve. So tell them about the recent ones that you have solved. It might just show them why they should work with your business and why you are so good at what you do.
Resources Or Tools You Find Useful
Are there resources, apps, products, e-books or podcasts that you find really useful? Share that knowledge with your readers as chances are, they will find them useful too.
The Post It Brainstorm
If you long for a reason to use pretty stationery then you will love this final blog idea brainstorming tip. Grab a stack of post it notes and a pen, and find yourself a quiet spot where you won’t get interrupted. Set yourself a timer for 5 minutes and in that time, write as many words or phrases that you can think of. Make sure that they are related to your business in some way. The time pressure should help you get in the zone. If you write each idea on a separate post it then after your 5 minutes is up, you can organise them into groups, categories and themes. If you feel like you have more in you, set the timer for another 5 mins and brainstorm to your heart’s content!
Once you have all the blog ideas, it is time to get them written! However, you are busy. You don’t have time to waste days perfecting a blog post.
Luckily, you don’t have to. Simply enter your details below and gain access to my ‘Write A Blog In An Hour’ freebie resource.
Or if that all sounds a bit hard and you would rather just have an expert write the content for your, then check out my blog writing services here.