Online Marketing Today

If you’re like most writers (and bloggers are ultimately just that, writers) – then you’re inevitability going to suffer from “bloggers block” at some point. Here are some ideas to get the creative juices flowing so you’re never short on topics to write about.

BUT… before that… I should mention that I’m not a fan of blogging just for the sake of it.

It’s funny when you follow one blogger who starts to impress – they provide excellent information for a while and then one day you start getting posts about what they had for dinner, what their new car looks like, and so on. Some people might like this, and it’s ok to inject some personality into a blog .

However if I’m subscribed to a blog about “training dogs” then I want to know about training dogs. I don’t really care about your whiz bang new iPhone or your cherry red new convertible (good for you). I want to know how to get my god damn dog to sit and stay, and not eat the pizza left on the table the moment I turn my back or leave the room.

If the blog post you’re thinking about making is not going to add value to your visitor’s experience, nor provide them with information on the topic they look to you to serve them with, then take a break.

You don’t want to start adding sub-par content just because you feel like “you have to blog”.

Ok… so here are some techniques you can use to generate relevant, useful blog content ideas (they are in no particular order however the first is what I consider the most important)…

Ask Your Visitors What They Want To Know About

Really, this is just common sense stuff.

You should always aim to give your audience the information they desire.

The easiest way to do this (instead of using a crystal ball) is to ask them. If you have a mailing list, ask your readers for questions to their most pressing problems. If you want to focus on a specific topic for a while, ask for questions related to that specific topic only.

I do this quite regularly. The last time I did this I received no less than 300 questions related to the topic and around 25% where ultimately asking them same thing – there’s no better research than this, for blog posts, for product creation ideas, and so on.

When you do this you’ll find that a lot of your visitors will present the same questions – those are the questions you want to focus on answering and turning into a blog post as a priority. Sure you might feel like you’re only helping one person when writing, but as long as you’re detailed you’ll be helping a lot of other people who are in the same boat.

Interestingly when you answer one question, it tends to generate more related questions, which you can then go on to use as future blog posts as well. Keep your eye on the comments people are posting for further ideas.

If you don’t have a mailing list, you can simply post a poll to your blog.

The only trouble with this is that you’re assuming your audience is only interested in a set group of possible topics – the ones you include as options in your poll – so it’s really only useful to get a general overview of what you should be focusing on, rather than helping to generate very specific blog post topics. Still, it’s better than nothing.

Use Yahoo Answers as a Research Tool

If you don’t want to ask your own visitors directly, or you have but are not getting the response you wanted, then you can always use Q&A sites for research. Simply search on Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers for keyword terms related to your niche.

Look for common questions – the questions that crop up frequently will be the ones that most people will be interested in for obvious reasons. Look for recent questions on topical items that might be interesting to blog about. Look for unusual questions that might create more interest.

The other nice thing about using Q&A sites as research tools, is that if the questions also have answers, it can help to formulate your own blog post – incorporating the core ideas of the existing answers with your own experience, knowledge and spin.

Create a Google News Alert for Industry Terms

This is a fantastic way to find timely blog topics to write about.

Simply setup a Google News Alert for keyword terms related to your niche market. When those alerts arrive in your inbox check them out and see if there’s anything you want to add you input to and turn into useful blog content.

It will help to provide fresh, on topic, and news worthy blog content ideas.

If the topic is something that’s hot in the news, and a lot of people are searching on it right now, it also has the added advantage of tapping into peaks of potential search engine traffic, helping to expand your audience.

Google Keyword Suggestion Tool

This is the search engine optimization fanatic coming out here. But, if you’re going to create a blog post, it might as well be focused on keyword terms that people are searching on, and optimized around a keyword phrase that you want to get a decent search engine ranking for.

Use the Google Keyword Suggestion tool.

Plug in some keyword terms and then look at the “longer tailed” keyword terms that are related to those. Is there anything there that could be turned into a useful blog post?

If you start from the bottom up – the keyword phrases that are more specific and have FEWER search counts each month – then you’ll be able to snatch better search engine rankings more easily. If you work in this fashion it will start to have a snowball effect and your visitor count will improve overtime as you add more content.

Use Google’s Blog Search Feature

Finding out what other bloggers are writing about can be a good “ideas sink” for your own content. The best way to do this is to use the blog search feature on Google search. Simply search for keywords related to your niche to see what others are currently blogging about.

It’s best if you set the blog search parameters (located down the top left hand side) to “Last 12 Hours”, the “Last Day”, or the “Past Week” to get the freshest results for regular new ideas.

You can also use these results to help formulate a response to an existing and informative blog post made by someone with a related blog, and if they have track backs enabled, ping them when you make your post to grab some exposure to their audience (it will link their blog post back to yours allowing you to tap into a new traffic source).

Signup to a Pay Per Post Blogging Service

If you’re going to make a blog post, why not get paid for doing so?

There are many different pay per post blogging services out there where companies will pay you a set amount of money to make a post about their product, service, or about a general topic and then simply link back to their website.

I’m not a huge fan of these, and more often than not the “opportunities” aren’t closely related to your blog or niche – but if you’re not signed up to receive the potential offers, then you’re never going to know about them. And you don’t have to blog about every opportunity that comes your way – in fact you shouldn’t – but if it’s something your audience is going to be interested in then why not.

Review A Product Or Service

Again, why not get paid for creating blog content?

Simply find a related product or service (that preferably has an affiliate program attached to it whereby you can earn a commission for each referred sale) and knock up an honest review.

Of course, unless your blog is a “product review blog” I wouldn’t get too carried away with this one. First and foremost your blog should be aimed at educating and entertaining the reader and building that valuable relationship. If you review every product under the sun then your audience might start thinking you’re just in it for the money.

Still, once a month, or once every few weeks (depending on how often you blog overall) is only going to add value to your blog and give you more topics to blog about. You might even want to signup to a service like ReviewMe.com and offer paid reviews to your own blog visitors should they wish to tap into your audience.

“The Buzz” In Topic Specific Forums

I’ve never been a big fan of discussion forums – especially those about “online marketing”.

Generally you’ll end up wasting time as a participant, receiving advice from people who might not be qualified to give that advice – or who are more likely rehashing complete BS based on hearsay, or what they’ve read in a book, and not based on personal experience.

Having said that, they can be a good way to find out what your niche audience is generally “discussing” at the moment. It can generate a decent amount of blog topic ideas if you keep your finger on the pulse. I just wouldn’t loose focus and get lost in round about discussions – remember what you’re there for.

Invite a Guest Blogger Along

Nothing will get an audience going like the feeling that they’re being treated to an “exclusive” piece of advice from an expert on a specific topic. If you know experts in your niche industry (or even if you don’t), contact them and ask if they would like to provide a guest post.

It will not only benefit your audience but also you in having the content provided, and the guest blogger in terms of the exposure. This can be a simple article, an interview; you might even do a podcast or create a video. If the guest wishes to plug a product or service then work out a joint venture arrangement with them and do some revenue sharing at the same time.

If you can get in touch with the right people and enough of them, you might even be able to make this a regular feature.

Google Trends

Another useful tool to keep your eye on is the Google Trends tool. This shows the latest daily trends in search terms being conducted on Google. More often than not the “hot trends” are quite broad topics – but you never know what you might spot there.

If you can find something related and write a keyword rich, useful blog post, then it’s possible you’ll grab some of that latest “trend traffic” when the blog post becomes listed in the search engines.

Combine this with a small “blog commenting” campaign on the same keyword terms (on blogs that you find already ranking for those terms on Google blog search), and then linking back to your own post within those comments, and you’ll start to see some magic happening there.

Keep a Note Book

Finally, keep a note book exclusively for ideas of future blog posts. You never know when you might have a sudden brain surge when surfing around online… “Hey that would be a good thing to write about”… only to go on and forget it.

Writing these things down and expanding that note book will ensure you’ve always got a ready supply of topics to write about so you won’t find yourself sitting there staring at your blog thinking “what am I going to write about today?”

There are probably a lot more techniques out there to help generate blog content ideas, so if you have any additional ideas that I’ve missed please feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

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