Well, you did it! You put in your hours and now you have a blog started. You have chosen from dozens of domain names, tracked down reliable hosting, wrote a post or two, and now you are clueless as to what to do. How do you get ideas for blogging?How do you get ideas for blogging? Every blogger must have asked this question at one point or another. If you choose a niche you are passionate about, you are bound to have a lot of ideas in mind. Off the top of your head, you can probably write down 50 or 100 ideas for blogging. However, what after that? Blogs are wonderful in the sense of providing an evergreen supply of ideas. People visit your blog hoping to get something new, something you have never said before. Every blogger needs fresh ideas for blogging from sources other than what he can directly come up with.
Here are some sources for blogging ideas that should help jog your grey cells. By following some or all of them, you should have a supply of never-ending ideas for blogging on your niche. If you ever get into a dry spell, these will certainly help you get out.
Blogging Idea-1. Read, Read, Read
Reading is an important part any authority blog. It is through general reading that you get several ideas for blogging and you know what you can write about. You don’t write what you read – just by knowing about the topic at hand, you can get a lot of ideas.
Here, I am not talking just about reading other blogs, but reading in general. Do you blog about dogs? How about reading an encyclopedia article on dogs and their types? You can get an infinite supply of articles from there and then you can branch out – pick a topic which seems interesting and then do further research. You can read whitepapers or even published journal and conference papers for the ultimate authority in which you write. You can read biographies or stories of successful people in your niche. All these will give you good ideas to get started.
Blogging Idea-2: Know What Other Bloggers are Saying
It really helps to know what others bloggers are talking about. No, I don’t mean copy their ideas or “rewrite” their content – it is actually the worst thing that you can do. However, by reading other blogs in your niche, you will get very good ideas and an overall sense of things, especially if you look at highly successful bloggers.
In the niche of internet marketing/blogging/making money online, there are some really amazing blogs, like ProBlogger. By reading some of the posts in this blog, you can get some good ideas.
Blogging Idea-3: Find out What People Want Through Forums
Forums are an excellent platform to really know what people want and what they are looking for. If they are having some trouble and you are able to answer it, your blog is going to be the authority source in that niche. Unfortunately, however well versed you may personally be, people will never know it or visit your blog unless you put it out there. For this, forums are a great starting place.
Forums allow you to follow a discussion and see what people think, what their needs are and what they might want in the future. Being ahead in your niche is one of the best tools to build authority – if you can stay ahead of the crowd, you are a sure winner.
Of late, places like Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers can also provide some good ideas about what to write about.
Blogging Idea-4: Browsing Through Article Directories
Browsing through article directories can give you some very good information about what you want to write. In addition, it is a treasure-trove of potential ideas. However, don’t follow the format of an article directory for a blog – articles in these directories are just a marketing ploy to have people visit their websites, so it is more of an advertising material than providing valuable information. In your blog, you can take the same idea and explore it in-depth, far more than what others do. Of course you can always visit the contributor’s website to know more about the topic, if you feel the need to. However, even just browsing through all the topics present in a niche in an article directory should get some creative juices flowing.
Blogging Idea-5: Take Help from Google Adwords Tool
Google Adwords keyword tool is a powerful tool that lets you search for ideas if you type in any word or phrase. The Adwords tool is designed for advertisers to know what people are searching for and bid accordingly on PPC advertisements. However, you can use it to get some blogging ideas, all the while knowing how many people have actually searched for this phrase. It is a very powerful SEO tool so you can try to incorporate the keyword in your post.
Blogging Idea-6: Look for the Latest News
The news is a great source for new and fresh blog ideas and blog content. You can also come across as an authority in the niche. An additional advantage is that if you cover the news well, you can get a good spike in traffic while people are searching for what is hot. These will be targeted people and you can convert them into permanent readers.
You can create alerts using Google News in your niche. Almost every niche will have something in the news which is interesting to talk about. If you are blogging about something that changes rapidly, like politics or technology, this should be your main goldmine for ideas to blog about.
Blogging Idea-7: Just Ask!
This method works very well for blogs that are active and have some active commentators. You will need some authority and traffic before you can pull this off, but it is a great way to know what you should blog about. Just ask your readers and take their suggestions. You will know what people want and what your readers are looking to read on your blog. All this for free!
Today, you can use social media like Facebook or Twitter to accomplish the same and people are more likely to give out suggestions through Facebook than through comments. You can always just use them together.
Blogging Idea-8: Look Through Your Analytics
You will be surprised how many ways people using search engines can find your blog! If you have decent traffic, a thorough analysis of your analytics, more specifically the keywords used in search engines to find your blog, can prove an invaluable resource. By targeting these keywords more directly, you might rank even higher and thus get loads of higher traffic.
