When I first started blogging back in 2008 I was worried that I’d run out of ideas to blog about. Over 700 posts later I have more ideas now than I did back then and I’m no longer worried about that ever happening! Blogging has made my brain more creative. I’ve built new neural pathways that enhance my creativity and that mean I’m constantly coming up with new ideas. Not only do I have new ideas for my blog, I also have lots of new ideas for other products and services I can develop to help you and all my other fantastic clients and clients to come. Blogging has really enhanced my life in so many ways, from making new friends and connections all over the world, meeting new clients, speaking in different countries about blogging along with my better functioning brain! How cool is that?
Today I thought I’d share with you some the my shortcuts and tips that I’ve learned over the past 3 years of blogging. One of the most important factors that influence whether a blog will become popular is regular content. No content, no blog. A blog is a monster that needs to be frequenltly fed, so how do you come up with a constant stream of ideas?
Blog Posts Topics from Headlines
1. Grab a magazine, look at the cover – what blog posts could you write based on any of the headlines on it? Let’s use this cover as an example and see how easy it is to reinterpret the headlines into articles suitable for my blog:
1. Spring Clean Your Makeup Bag
2. What Makes a Fashion Icon
3. Best Jackets of the Season
4. What’s Your Unique Style
5. Favourite New Style Books/Blogs/Websites
6. From Runway to Reality – How to Interpret the New Season Trends into Your Wardrobe
2. Open the Magazine, read the articles, use the headlines of the articles as a topic for your blog post. You can also read newspapers on and offline, not only the articles but also the advertising – those headlines were created to grab attention and sell – how can you tweak them to create great content for your blog?
3. Use comments as topics for new blog posts – whether they’re comments on your posts or other people’s blogs.
4. Answer reader questions
5. Ask your Facebook friends/fans what they’d like you to blog about
keywords for content
6. Use your web statistics program to find out what people are searching on to find you and then use that for topic inspiration -for example from the above picture I could easily write posts on:
- How to layer tops
- How to look chic and elegant
- How to tie a pashmina scarf
- Which dresses suit your body shape
- How to create wardrobe capsules
and the list goes on!
7. Create a weekly topic schedule – so Monday is Makeup, Tuesday is Tops, Wednesday is Work Wear, Thursday is …. this gives you a structure to work around and a starting point to focus your attention and get ideas.
8. Read other people’s blogs and books and then put your own spin on an idea or topic.
9. Create a regular guest post and have someone else do the writing!
Remember, you may not always be in front of your computer when a great blog topic or post idea strikes you, so write it down then! I use the notes function on my iphone and then I know I’ve got it captured and can transfer it to my WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin so next time I come to write a blog post I’m never sitting there looking at a completely blank screen, I’ve already got a headline, topic idea or question to answer.
What tips can you share that help you create content for your blog? I’d love to know the methods you use.
