How To Come Up With Blog Post Ideas
It's quite ironic when people usually make blog posts called 'How To Come Up With Blog Post Ideas,' It's usually the first sign they're running out of content to make.
Luckily for me, I'm in a niche about business and entrepreneurship, and blogging is part of the journey.
Before starting my blog, I've owned many other content creation side-hustles.
I had a 'motivational' Instagram account that was not going to go anywhere.
So I decided to change and rebrand the page into a clothing brand page which I was supposed to start.
That ended up not going to plan.
On top of this, I've started a YouTube channel multiple times - a few times for gaming, and most recently for business and entrepreneurship too.
Although I stopped making content on there, this is not something I've completely removed off my radar.
Now that I run a blog, I've told myself as long as I stay consistent at it, there is no chance of failure, right?
What I didn't think about, however, is that blogging is in essence the same as running the Instagram page or the YouTube channel.
The only way to survive is by staying consistent with good content.
Even though it may not look like it from the number of success stories, all these mediums - blogging, Instagram, and YouTube - are highly competitive.
It's safe to say, after over 30 consecutive days of posting, that I may know a thing or two about content ideation.
Although I struggled to consistently make content on the other platforms, I have managed to pick up a few things along the way.
These practices have helped me come up with content ideas in order to push out one article per day since the inception of this blog.
These practices are all summarised in this blog post today.
Here's how you can come up with blog post ideas and never run out of content to write about.
The 'Ideas' notepad
I've previously talked about the impact of writing things down.
Writing things down on a notepad, physical pen and paper, is a great way to get your creative juices flowing.
When I'm stuck or in a rut, I tend to get a piece of paper and pen, and start sketching or writing things down.
It's a great way to clear my head and open up my mind to different possibilities.
When I'm looking for ideas, whether it's a business idea or an idea for an article, I sit down and give myself both time, and space to think.
Find yourself a quiet place where you can be one with your thoughts.
Start writing anything down that comes to your head.
It's not promised that everything on that list will be good, but you'll have a bunch of ideas.
Start to think of what you've previously experienced in your niche.
If you're in the business and entrepreneurship space, you'll want to maybe talk about some businesses you have direct experience with.
If you're writing an article and feel stuck, it's probably because you don't know what you're talking about.
The times that an article flows for me, is when my experience in the field is abundant.
You can even think of topics in your niche that you may be interested in.
As long as your writing is genuine, you should be able to think of a lot of content ideas.
By genuine, I mean writing not to frame yourself as an expert in something you're not, but writing in the shoes of a learner - just like your readers.
Once you come up with a list of content to write about, you should go through the list and cross off the topics you think you would not be able to write a strong article for.
There will be many good ideas, and also many ideas that are not worth pursuing.
From there, you can look at each idea you've kept and think of some other ideas with some sort of affinity to those ideas.
Although you can stop here, you can always rinse and repeat the elimination step, then start thinking of more ideas with close affinity to your existing ideas.
By the end of the exercise, you may have 100s of ideas that will fuel your blog for months to come.
Depending on how often you post, in my case once a day, you should make sure that you have a long enough runway so you never put yourself in tight situations.
Repeat this task regularly when you feel like you need a refresh of content.
Spy on the competition
By far one of the easiest ways to find content ideas is by searching the Google search engines.
Whilst running both my Instagram account and the YouTube channel, I would oftentimes go on larger creator's accounts and see what people like on there.
For example, with my YouTube channel, I would go on channels such as:
As I previously mentioned, some ideas will be a lot better than others.
The easiest way to differentiate the worthwhile topics from the topics people are least interested in, is by checking out what your bigger competitors are doing.
Pick some topics and rewrite them from your own perspective.
You can use a similar approach to the first method, and start to curate a list of topics, which seem like they would be worth talking about.
You can even find good blog topics, through YouTube videos too or small Tweets, for example.
You don't want to copy exactly what other people are writing - be original.
Every person has their own perspective on certain situations, so talk about your perspective.
An audience is built on trust and the relationship between the readers and the creator.
Build up an audience who agree and connect with your viewpoint.
Call to actions
Depending on where you are with your blog, this method may pay off differently.
The call to action method is where you simply, at the start or end of your blog, have a line that asks people to suggest a topic they want you to write about.
It's a great way to get your audience to come up with your content, then you just write it.
Again, this comes down to how engaged your audience is.
If you have an audience of 100s or 1000s of people, you're more likely to find success with this method.
This is because your audience is warmer to you, and they are more likely to actively engage, comment and share your stuff.
A great example would be Paul Graham.
His blog has racked up a massive number of followers who are actively engaged and eager to read his next post.
In his bio section, it says that his blog gets over 25 million visitors per year.
This is where a simple call to action such as 'what would you like to read about next?' will pay off massively.
If you're not at a large enough following yet, do not worry.
There are workarounds, but in the meantime, you should also work on growing that engaged following.
Not long ago, after around 15 blog posts, I got my first message on Instagram from someone who resonated with my articles.
That feeling that you're having a small, yet positive impact is unmatched.
To start growing this sort of following, you can easily have call-to-actions at the end that ask your audience to do something.
This can be, again, asking people to suggest some topics for your next articles, comment below, ask them how they're going to implement what you're writing about and so on.
On top of this, you will want to go on forums such as Reddit or Quora groups, even Facebook groups, and ask people what topics they love reading about.
You can even mention your blog and tell them that you'd write a blog post for them if they give you some ideas.
This subtle interaction can be the start of a highly active and engaged following.
Expand on niche topics
This may be the easiest way to cover a lot of content and also generate many blog ideas.
Let's say you're writing about dropshipping.
I've previously made a post about dropshipping and called it 'The Secrets Behind Dropshipping Success In 2021.'
It became another one of my most-read articles.
This post talked in length about the dropshipping process through a birdseye view.
Meaning, I talked about how to start and build up an e-commerce drop-shipping store, the mistakes I made and the best practices I'd go back and implement if I start another one.
However, It would be in both my reader's and I's interest, if I go back and break up that article into different parts.
This is because they would get a deeper understanding of the whole process, and you will get more article ideas to talk about.
These parts could be:
- Finding a product
- Talking to suppliers
- Building the store
- Building the audience
- Finding the right delivery partner
- Launching
- Marketing
- Scaling
Google Trends
Google Trends is a great friend of mine.
I've been using Google Trends to identify trending topics for both my YouTube channel and my businesses too.
You're able to easily identify which topics are going up in viewership and search, which topics are going down, and where in the world these statistics are happening.
You're able to take up to 5 different keywords or phrases and match them against each other to find the best-performing topics.
When I wanted to start an e-commerce store (after my first attempt), I tried to figure out what was the biggest market.
So I started by searching for things such as gaming, fitness, jewelry, etc.
After finding the most trending niche, you scale it down and get more niche.
Since fitness is the more popular topic, we'll now search for things such as weight loss, weight gain, supplements, and so on.
From here, you can go into forums and see what people are talking about the most in regards to those specific trending topics.
To take it a step further, Google Ads can provide more in-depth analytics on exactly what people search for, the cost per click (the higher, the more competitive), the search volume, and much more.
Keto, although boomed not long ago, is still a massive trend in the fitness space.
You can identify topics that are trending in the keto space, if that's your niche, and talk about them.
Tell your own story
The reason I started my blog was so that I can share my story.
I wanted to show others, who may be in a similar situation to me, exactly what I've done, the ups, downs, and lessons I've learnt.
Today, there are many sources of information.
10s or even 100s of millions of different information is shared on the internet every day.
I found it challenging to navigate through this noise and find people I can truly trust on the internet.
That is why I started the blog - to share the reality behind an entrepreneur's journey.
I started by talking about my story.
My first ever blog article, 'The Start Of A Life-Long Journey,' talks about how I first got into business, and the sort of mindset I had, coming into it.
After this, I told my story chronologically, from my first business - the e-commerce dropshipping store - then all the other events that followed like learning forex, then going on to work a 9-5 job(s), starting the marketing agency etc.
The easiest way to come up with ideas is to talk about your own life.
This content will be both unique and abundant, especially if you've done a lot throughout your life.
You just talk about your experiences, and the lessons you've learnt from them.
You'll be surprised by the audience you can build by doing this simple exercise.
You can openly relate to your audience because a lot of them will be going through similar things.
Once you feel like you depleted your story, you can then branch out into topics similar to what you've experienced.
Till now (after almost 40 posts), I feel like I'm still talking about my story and the lessons I've learnt personally.
Most blogs out there, big ones especially, are written by writers hired to write topics on things they may know nothing about.
When you write about something you've 'been in bed' with, you're able to talk from a wildly different viewpoint - one completely different to what you normally find on the internet.
What have you learnt from this article?
Do you do anything to generate ideas which were not discussed in this article?
Let me know below.
Till next time,
Mohamad
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