6 Ways To Get New Content Ideas
One day or other, almost every blogger have nothing to write on a particular topic on that day. What if you face this when you must write something? If you are a freelance writer, you have to keep up the deadlines and what if you don’t know anything to write? Here are 6 places where you can look for content ideas both for your blog and even for the blog where you freelance:
1. Forums
Forums are the best place where you can find many topics to write on. In my opinion, forums can give you new content ideas for at least 2 posts a week. When I started as freelance writer, I had to write many posts that I hunted in forums for content ideas. There are forums for almost every niche. Go to Google and search for “(your niche) forums”. If you blog about internet marketing then do a search for “internet marketing forums”. Join many forums and look out for content ideas.
2. Comments
If you have your own blog and get many comments, one or two of them will turn out to be a question. Note down these questions and blog about it when you are not getting any content idea on a specific day. Darren used to have posts called Reader Questions a couple of months back. So I learned the idea of generating content by reading the comments from Darren. Answering the readers’ questions with a link back to their blog will increase your popularity amongst your blog readers leading to increase in subscriber count.
3. Email And IM
In my previous post I said “Chat with a blogging friend in IM and you will get content ideas”. I have indeed got many content ideas after having a chat in IM or by exchanging mails with my friends. I have also seen bloggers stating in their post that what they have written is inspired from the IM chat they had with their friend.
4. Social Websites
Social websites give a kick start to writing a blog post sometimes. I browse through StumbleUpon everyday for at least half hour. I read 25+ articles everyday and few of them turn to be an inspiration for me to write a post. I prefer StumbleUpon because the quality of articles being promoted by users. If you are a Digg fan, then browse Digg everyday and find content ideas.
5. Archives
Again, if you have a blog, then take a look back at your archives. Read the posts which you wrote a couple of months ago and recycle it. You might have written an excellent article and it would have gone unnoticed by readers. These posts needs some kind of appreciation. So modify the posts and write them. Surely your blog’s new subscribers wouldn’t have read that post.
6. Technorati Tags
If you go to Technorati and look at their popular tags, you find many keywords. Try to write articles related to that tag. If the single word is not helping you in any way, then use a keyword tool and enter the tag. You will get many modified versions of the keywords which might be of help to you.
How do you find content ideas for your blog when you have nothing to write? Do you search at forums? Which is the single best way that has worked for you?
Written by Ramkarthik from Blogging TunePosted on November 3rd, 2007 and filed under Blogging
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15 Responses to “6 Ways To Get New Content Ideas”
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I agree, forums are usually a good way to find new things to write about. I also like the Technorati idea.
Generally, almost all my new blog posts come from my own problems or things I notice as I browse the Internet. I get emails or I surf a site and I’ll see a problem, and then bang! There goes another idea.
It’s hard to describe. Ideas just come to me out of nowhere. I must be doing something, because I only manage to get these ideas if I’m motivated. When I go through a slow period where I don’t feel like doing anything, those ideas stop, so I must actually be doing something (without realising it) when I do come up with the ideas.
Yeah, a great overall tip would just be to browse website (blogs, forums, etc.) within your niche. That will certainly give you some new content ideas.
For me its just thoughts I have during the day, or conversations that I have with someone. Although forums are another great tool for idea generation.
I find that RSS sites like popurls.com can be great for scanning what’s hot right now across the blogging community.
Funnily enough, when i was blogging, i used to search “inspiration” into google, spend about 10 minutes there and i’d have a new post idea on hands just from jumping through random websites.
If something popped out that i liked, i thought about what i liked about it, then wrote up on it.
I have an idea for a new blog! I’ll do one about my cat!
Jamie, Agree with you that if one is not motivated, then the ideas will stop coming.
Zac, Good point. Thanks for adding the 7th way to the list.
Thomas, Good to see that your conversations are always helpful to you.
Mike, Good idea. That adds up to 8th way tip to the list.
Chris, I have never tried that but it seems to be a good idea. Will try it when I don’t have any content to write. And your tip makes the list to 9 ideas.
At the risk of sounding old school, I like books, magazines, and newspapers. The Wall Street Journal, in particular, gives me a lot of ideas and I’m not even in a business field.
Getting ideas or stories from offline press can be a great way to be the first to blog about something instead of just another blogger covering what 50 blogs already covered.
I read other blogs for getting some ideas on what to write. I also have a widget “What Others Say” in the sidebar of my blog, which displays a list of recent posts from well known blogs (including BloggingTips.com). I take a look at this widget twice a day and visit those posts that have an attractive title. That’s sufficient for me to get my thought-horse running for the day.