How Do You Generate Your Blog Post Ideas?

Daniel 19 comments

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Do you find there are days when you take a look at your weekly job list and at the top of the list is ‘Create Blog Post’? I do take the time at least once per week to write a blog post but what do you write about? Do you ever get the BLOCK where you simply spend an hour staring at your own word document waiting for the title or inspiration to pop in your head? Alternatively you may have a subject in mind, so you get right to it writing to find you run out of content at 200 words! Yeah we have all been through it and guess what most guys do when they hit this stumbling point? Give up hit save and just switch off!

What Can We Do to Prevent The Switch Off?

There are a number of things we can do to prevent ourselves from simply hitting the ‘X’ and saying ‘I will do it tomorrow’ Here are a few examples I can think of right now and what I think about when I post:

1. Stop staring and take action! What I mean is reflect back on your week and remember what you have done to help you be creative? Did you create a new product? If so what did you do? How did you do it? What was your inspiration? Take a specific part of your product creation and write about it.

2. Did you read something interesting that you can talk about? You can expand this and create some discussion about it.

3. Did you take part in any activities online which gave you inspiration? Did you read a blog post that you found useful that you can link too and talk about? Maybe add more information about it or say how much you enjoyed it.

4. Were you involved in a product launch or a product promotion? You can discuss and write about your involvement or your marketing techniques which you used to get sales or not. What would you do better, what would you repeat that worked well for you during the launch?

5. Are you part of a coaching course or training boot camp? What did you learn this week? What have you done? What did you achieve? How did you achieve it? Did your business move forward as a result of what you learned or implemented?

6. Did you make a change to your business model? If so what was it how did you do it? Why? Did it work?

All of these options are good tools for creating blog posts. If you base your posts around these things when you have no idea what to write about them you will find the content will flow and flow well.

What Can We Do to Add to Our Content and Improve The Post?

Imagine the scenario – you have written 200 words and ran out of content! Where do you go from here what caused this to happen?

1. Lack of planning in your post can most definitely make this happen. Think about your post initially and decide on flow and how you are going to structure your post, think about how many sub headings you can add and how much more content you can provide on your given subject.

2. Create a mind map to generate ideas to create a better plan of attack to your chosen subject. I find mind maps work well so do spray diagrams and brainstorming. All of these techniques can produce ideas for content for your next post. An easy spray diagram is a good option to consider, simply write your content title in the centre of a sheet of paper and draw words associated with your content and narrow down your ideas gradually to find some good content ideas:

3. Research your current post title and content across the internet. Use Wikipedia, Blogs, eBooks, Old posts from other marketers. Do not directly copy ideas by copy and pasting, remember this is your content and you do have to put your own spin on your post. However your journey is a learning curve so research and reading are great ways to learn. By reading other Blogs, eBooks and reports you are learning all of the time. By writing about your experiences you learn even more because you are explaining to others how to achieve something. Try implementing what you have learned to create a better post with evidence.

Be Proactive in Your Approach to Your Forthcoming Blog Post

We all know in our heads we have to create a blog post at some point during our working day or week whatever your posting frequency. So to combat this we can take a proactive approach to your post by simply making a note of what would make a good post.

Good posting ideas can come to you at any point, so be ready to make a note. Now I’m not saying carry a notepad and pen around with you at all times, or etch your ideas on a wall with a stone or sharp object! We don’t live in the dark ages any more, simply making a mental note or send yourself an email or message, use your smart phone, iPad, laptop, PDA anything will do. My personal favourite which I have mentioned before is my iPhone Notepad app. I simply make a note of my idea when I’m on the move as mental notes don’t stick with me I need to get things down and come back to them later. Whichever way you choose to make a note it will improve your content ideas greatly, this way all your best ideas will be safely kept and not forgotten.

Which ever way you create your blog posts and generate ideas don’t give up hit save and just switch off! Try some of the tips I use to create posts and add more content by research. I plan to extend my posts by another 500 words at least in the future to provide a little more value.

How do you generate your ideas? Let me know!