10 Ways To Find Inspiration To Develop Content For Your Blog

Written by Jeff Bullas - View Comments
Categories: Blog, Blogging, Content


It is something all bloggers battle with..coming up with topics, ideas and content for your next post. 10 ways to be inspired to write and develop content for your blog

I am certainly not immune from this constant challenge of finding inspiration and it continues to be a never ending battle every day.

I recently was directly tweeted by Aaron Lee a cyberspace buddy whose opinion I value.

He made a very kind compliment about my blog content after I had thanked him for retweeting my latest post and he then proceeded to make the suggestion ‘”How Do You Focus On Creating Blog Content?”

So what do I do to clamber over the writers block so I can have a quiver full of tools to help me write the daily post.

1. Always be alert to conversations and situations with clients, friends and colleagues that you can turn into a post.

An example of this was a conversation with a client where he mentioned that his use of social media such as a blog, Twitter and Facebook had together increased his search engine rankings from page eight to page one. It is important to develop the awareness for finding topics to write about. Another example was a conversation with my young nephew which inspired ‘Choose a Dream For 2010‘

2. Read the Latest News In Your Industry

This is really important as it will provide you with topical ideas that are relevant to your industry and people are interested in reading about. A recent one was “11 iPad Facts and Figures To Make The Amazon Kindle Cringe”

3. Create A Google Alert

If you are struggling for an idea I found that having a ready list of topics in your industry in my email inbox that are constantly updated by Google a great way to become inspired. Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic that can be fed to your inbox either daily or as it happens.

I use phrases such as ‘Social Media Case Study’ or ‘iPhone Apps’. I would recommend that you create a dedicated email account that receives these updates or else your important daily email will be lost in the crowd of inbound alerts.

10 Ways To Find Inspiration For Writing Your Blog Google Alert

4. Subscribe to the Top and Favourite Blogs in your areas of interest

This doesn’t have to be just your industry there are times when I have taken a topic from another niche and put a social media twist to it. I scan and read my Google Reader every day.

5. Create A Poll

I have found that there are questions in your niche that are topical and you can quickly create an introduction and then create the poll using something like the ‘Poll Daddy’ widget. A recent poll I ran was titled ‘Why Do You Blog?‘

6. Take The Results from a Poll and Turn it into a Post.

This will be of interest to readers as a lot of them will have participated and will want see the results summarized and commented on. An example for this suggestion is a follow up to the ‘Why do you Blog Post and was ‘11 Reasons Why People Blog‘.

7. Comments as a Source of Inspiration

I have found that insightful comments by readers on your posts can be a valuable resource for a post. Don’t forget to mention their name and highlight their contribution and link to their blog. Example for this was ‘50 Ways To Optimize Your Blog‘

8. Make another blogger a star on your blog

There are a lot of bloggers in your industry that have great ideas that you can help them spread. An example of this was when I wrote a post after attending an industry forum and was inspired by a  blogger who talked on a topic that I found of interest… a post that illustrates this is   a post titled ‘How To Reduce Business Costs By 90%‘

9. Read Books Offline

Reading is an essential element in finding topics and ideas for blog content. When reading a thought provoking book I often come with ideas for content that swell up from the points that the writer is making. Grab a pen and take some notes and add it to your library of topics either in your draft or your diary.

10. Switch On your Multimedia Mind

As part of your development of becoming fine tuned to coming up with content ideas you need to ask your questions like  ‘Are there text posts I can turn into a two to five minute video blog’  or ”could I turn this post into a powerpoint presentation that I could then post on slideshare and then embed it on my blog. The other benefit for this is that a text blog can be turned into multiple types of media rich content that  are 3 different social media platforms and with optimisation can increase your blogs SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

What are some other ways to come up with topics for your blog and how do ‘You’ become inspired to develop and write posts and content?





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  • http://www.littleboxofideas.com Sneh Roy

    Some extremely valuable handy little tips! Thanks for sharing :)

  • http://www.corbelsoft.com Priya Ramakrishnan

    That came in very useful. It is indeed a challenge coming up with a blog and to be able to keep feeding the blog with relevant material all the time ( should I say, like you Jeff?)

    You do come up with such usable, valuable, blogs all the time and so your pointers can definitely be followed.

    Thanks for sharing.

  • http://jorgensundberg.net Jorgen @ Personal Branding

    Great tips Jeff! One thing I have recently started doing is looking at LinkedIn Questions and answering one really properly => there’s your next post.

  • http://twitter.com/tweakitguy Brent Patroch

    Fantastic blog and thank you for the information, going to spread this around the office are we about to launch our new blog.

  • http://www.digitalmention.com Sarah Kay Hoffman

    I love reading your Blog Postings. I always find something new and interesting. People are always asking me this same question, “What should I write about?” So I made my “51 Things to Blog About” starters-list! http://bit.ly/51ideas

    Thanks for the wonderful insights always, Jeff!

  • http://www.greggmorris.com/curated-stories-june-18-2010 Storytelling Social Media Marketing PR Business & Technology Curated Stories June 18, 2010

    [...] 10 Ways To Find Inspiration To Develop Content For Your Blog Published: June 17, 2010 Source: Jeffbullas's Blog It is something all bloggers battle with..coming up with topics, ideas and content for your next post. I am certainly not immune from this constant challenge of finding inspiration and it continues to be a… [...]

  • http://webmarketersa.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/10-ways-to-find-inspiration-to-develop-content-for-your-blog-via-jeffbullass-blog/ 10 Ways To Find Inspiration To Develop Content For Your Blog (via Jeffbullas’s Blog) « Web.Marketer

    [...] 10 Ways To Find Inspiration To Develop Content For Your Blog (via Jeffbullas’s Blog) Posted on June 19, 2010 by Brian Currin It is something all bloggers battle with..coming up with topics, ideas and content for your next post. I am certainly not immune from this constant challenge of finding inspiration and it continues to be a never ending battle every day. I recently was directly tweeted by Aaron Lee a cyberspace buddy whose opinion I value. He made a very kind compliment about my blog content after I had thanked him for retweeting my latest post and he then proceed … Read More [...]

  • http:/gafs.info uzair

    thanx i like this

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    [...] Creating Unique Content That Doesn’t Suck. Helpful article for blog content development: → 10 Ways To Find Inspiration To Develop Content For Your Blog.4 – Not giving proper credit or high-jacking articlesBeware of content submitted from [...]

  • http://www.toddweisscfa.com ToddWeissCFA

    Thanks for sharing Jeff. I find it’s best to create content for future use, however, you also need to have more current posts. Google alerts can be really helpful in generating new topics to write about.

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  • http://www.theorganicview.com OrganicGuru

    I was glad to read this check list! I am happy to say I am doing all of the above! It is nice to know that the things you do are what others do as well!

  • http://askaaronlee.com Aaron Lee

    Great blog post Jeff,

    Thank you for including that DM of mine in your blog post, will start implementing your methods starting now. Am inspired to get working of them right away.

    As always keep up the great blog post, I am a regular here and I can’t believe I missed this blog post LoL!

    Cheers
    Aaron

  • http://jeffbullas.com/2010/06/27/10-vital-tips-to-keeping-focused-with-social-media-marketing/ 10 Vital Tips To Keeping Focused With Social Media Marketing « Jeffbullas's Blog

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  • http://twitter.com/anamjaramillo/status/17667166645 Ana Maria Jaramillo

    RT @AskAaronLee: 10 Ways To Find Inspiration To Develop Content For Your Blog http://bit.ly/jeffbullas by @jeffbullas

  • http://twitter.com/rickstuddard/status/17667253472 Rick Studdard

    RT @AskAaronLee 10 Ways To Find Inspiration To Develop Content For Your Blog http://bit.ly/jeffbullas by @jeffbullas

  • http://twitter.com/promoteuguru/status/17667332714 Lisa Orrell

    10 great ways to find inspiration for developing your blog content: http://bit.ly/bsAg5O

  • http://twitter.com/touatimed/status/17668554902 TOUATI

    RT @askaaronlee: 10 Ways To Find Inspiration To Develop Content For Your Blog http://bit.ly/jeffbullas by @jeffbullas

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  • http://www.outerregion.ca camille turner

    hi jeff,
    love your blog. i’m a performance artist and i’ve created a blog about my work and the things that inspire me to do this work. your tips are invaluable so thanks for posting them. keep ‘em coming.
    camille

  • http://twitter.com/beth_warren/status/18066255830 Beth Warren

    RT @jeffbullas: 10 Ways To Find Inspiration To Develop Content For Your Blog http://bit.ly/9kwJTa

  • http://twitter.com/swatibhattacha/status/18426533279 Swati Bhattacharya

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  • http://www.3daysinlondon.info Cindy

    Hi Jeff,
    enjoyed reading this article. Fortunately for me, although I blog almost daily, I never run out of things to write about….I blog on London. I could live to 310 and still find something new to write about :) However I did find the google alert idea great which will give me current affairs as well as history to write about, and will implement that asap. I liked what Sarah had to say on her list of 51 and will keep that handy.
    Have a great day.
    btw the retweet button is working a treat and gives me a guideline to which posts are more popular than others.
    Regards
    Cindy
    @notjustagranny and @3days_in_london

  • http://www.webayunate.com.ar German

    Jeff:

    Great Post! Very useful information, sometimes it´s really hard to find a topic to write about. I usually do many of the things that you suggest in this article, I think that one of the most important tips is to be aware of conversations and situations, they act as a trigger for new ideas. I´m going to test the Google Alerts, seems very useful.

    Regards, German Prieto.

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  • http://1affiliatemarketingreview.net/blog/ Shlomo Enden

    Hi Jeff! I’m so sorry i didn’t find your blog untill now.
    Before writing a post to my blog, i used to spend hours searching ideas
    of what to write. Now i set up the google alerts and i just got a couple ideas
    of what to write.
    Thanks.

  • http://www.tinapruitt.com Tina

    Very good stuff! Came across you via Twitter. Thanks for sharing…

    In-Joy,
    Tina

  • http://www.smcubedconsulting.com Lauren MacEwen

    Great post! I actually just posted one on the same topic the other day, but mine was a 5 list, lol. Since I have more writing to do I need some more inspiration!

    http://www.smcubedconsulting.com/2010/10/5-sources-of-inspiration-for-blogs/

  • Merci

    informative and inspiring, thanks jeff!:)

  • http://fredzimny.wordpress.com/2010/12/26/jeff-bullas-5-ways-to-integrate-social-media-into-your-companys-dna/ Jeff Bullas’ 5-ways-to-integrate-social-media-into-your-companys-dna « Fredzimny's CCCCC's
  • http://twitter.com/gibgoff Gibson Goff

    And you never know when that next idea might appear, so I carry a small, leather journal in my back pocket. I’ve found more than once that no matter how exhilarating the idea is when first conceived, if I don’t write it down I’ve probably forgotten it.

    Great post, Jeff.

  • http://www.2ndhalflounge.com Doug

    Thanks Jeff … good stuff.

  • http://twitter.com/awoodhouseuk Andrew Woodhouse

    Thanks Jeff, some great advice in here. 

  • http://www.contentequalsmoney.com Emma Richardson

    One strategy I find really helpful is just to free write. Pull out a piece of paper – yes, paper. Computer documents can intimidate the creativity reflex – and write whatever it is you’re thinking about. You’d be surprised how frequently this leads to incredible blog entries. It helps keep your scribe skills limber, too. As with anything, writing is a craft and you have to exercise it, or it gets flabby and listless.

  • Malhar Barai

    I do like the idea of vlog and intend to do it sometime. But till that time, am content using text and slides. As for ideas, I do keep a paper handy & pen down as soon as I come across anything interesting during conversations or while reading a book.

    Cheers
    Malhar (@malharbarai)

  • Malhar Barai

    I do like the idea of vlog and intend to do it sometime. But till that time, am content using text and slides. As for ideas, I do keep a paper handy & pen down as soon as I come across anything interesting during conversations or while reading a book.

    Cheers
    Malhar (@malharbarai)

  • http://twitter.com/dtfpress Deborah TaylorFrench

    Loved #10 Switch On your Multimedia Mind. I just found a Youtube video on a Aussie dog rescue. I added it to a feature called Mutt Monday: The Zen of Australian Shepherds. So far I receive over 100 hits on this post. Google loves video, especially if you write 500 words plus about it.

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