We all get it. When we think we have covered everything that we planned to include in our blog, and there’s just nothing more to write about. How do we generate blog post topics?
1. Read other people’s blogs that are related to yours
There’s no rule that says your article should be 100% original and unique. Only professional writers backed with formal training produces such writing. And even with their experience, they still surf the internet or find other ways to inspire them to write about something. It’s not easy to start a topic out of nothing. All of us, even artists and writers need inspiration to come up with their piece.
Read other people’s blog just for the sake of inspiration and not to copy the whole thing or part of it. You can write something about it, or write something similar to it but it should reflect your own opinion or style. It may have been said already. But what makes it unique is the way you bring the topic out to your readers.
2. Set up news alert
I use Google alert to send me email updates about the latest news and web contents that are relevant to my blog topic. It doesn’t just give me fresh new topics to write about, but it also keeps my blog current when it comes to the latest trend on a particular industry.
3. Forums
It is not difficult to see what people are talking about. You can search on Google about your blog topic + forum and sneak around. You will get more blog topics than you can imagine. You can even join a discussion group and ask what’s bothering them, what issues have they been encountering in relation to your niche, and what they want to learn more.
4. Social Media
Aside from forums, Twitter and Facebook are also your great tools to observe what people are saying about your blog topic. Perhaps, you can address some of their complaints or problems.
5. Keyword Research
When you use Google Keyword tool, it will bring up hundreds of related keywords to your topic. Let me show you an example about photography. When I plug ‘photography’ into the tool, it came up with the following related keywords:
- courses in photography
- photography composition
- night photography tips
- photography lighting tips
- glamour photography tips
- types of photography
Those are some good topics to write about, right? Google’s tool doesn’t just generate more blog topics, but it also gives you an idea what people are searching on the Internet that are related to your niche.
6. Books
You can go to Amazon books or Google books to search for books that are related to your topic. Some of the books offer preview. Read some of them just to get ideas, but never copy. The Table of Contents alone can give you more topics that you may have not written about. Explore every book that you may find and make a list. That should keep you busy for the following weeks.
Writing for the world to read requires courage. Sometimes, the lack of it is the only reason why you can’t keep on producing new articles. At times, we all feel inadequate, thinking that we have nothing new to share.
But we do have feelings, imagination, creativity and opinions. Use them to write. Just dump all your opinions on your first draft. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, and organization. Your first draft doesn’t have to be perfect (that’s obviously why it’s called first draft). And when you have finally exhausted your thoughts about your topic, rewrite. That’s when you polish it and let others read what you had to say.
Sometimes, it’s the most imperfect article that does get noticed, especially those that was written out of the heart.
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