Finding Blog Ideas

We have all been there, even Darren agrees in his 31 Days to a Build a Better Blog; that place where you cannot find something to write about. In some way, it is comforting – that we are not alone. The question is what can you do about it. Here are a few things that I think will help:

Listening Posts

One of the fundamental ways to see what people are talking about on certain topics is to setup listening posts. We had a discussion in our 31DBBB project on setting up Alerts. Ways to do that can be to set up keyword watching on words and phrases that are in your niche or area of interest:

• Google Alerts
• AlertRank
• Twitter Search
• UberVU/

Reading Rooms

Subscribing to blogs of interest that are similar to you and actually reading and contributing. Who knows there is an opportunity for collaboration or furthering a discussion on your own blog with your own thoughts on something that you read.

Tutorials/How-tos

Writing these so called Pillar Posts can always be useful. There is always something that you are learning; be sure to document it and “wa-la” there’s a post. It’s cuts two ways though; while it give you something to write about, it can will build reputation and it can break it – so make sure you know what your are talking about.

Experience

Half of the reason you are blogging is to talk about the things that interest you. So when you do them in Real Life then write about them as well. For me it is filming; it has been a while because my world has become smaller with my baby daughter, but soon I will be back on track.

Offline

There are movies to watch, News to see, Books to read, Magazines to peruse and discussion to be had. All real life activities that can take place and initiate an idea to write a blog post.

Be Prepared for the Ideas

Keep a notebook, moleskin, or even a voice recorder on hand to jot down or record ideas as they come. We all know that ideas seem to fade like a dream after waking up; keeping track of them will be invaluable. Perhaps I should do that as well
Another way is to construct quick drafts on your blog that you can flesh out later and publish when complete.

• How do you go about finding ideas?
• Do you use any gadget to help you remember.
• Do you have a routine or schedule to prepare upcoming posts or do you write them on the fly?

[Photo by: Auntie P]