Just a blog: One Very Simple Way to Come Up With More Blog Post Ideas Than You’ll Ever Need

Monday, 28 November 2011

One Very Simple Way to Come Up With More Blog Post Ideas Than You’ll Ever Need - DailyBlogTips

One Very Simple Way to Come Up With More Blog Post Ideas Than You’ll Ever Need

Posted: 27 Nov 2011 07:01 PM PST

Any great piece of content has to begin with a great idea. You can be an amazingly talented writer – but without a strong idea, your post isn't going to resonate with people.

So, where do you get your ideas?

If you're like most bloggers, you probably sit down in front of a new document and stare blankly at the screen, wondering what to write about. If you're lucky, a great idea pops up – but often, you'll end up writing nothing at all, or you'll come up with a topic that doesn't really work.

I strongly recommend setting aside time just to come up with post topics/titles. There are lots of great ways to do this, but here's one of my favorites. It's very simple – but very effective.

Use the "Popular" Posts on a Large Blog

Many big blogs have sidebar listings of their popular posts. (If you're reading this on the DailyBlogTips site, rather than in a feed reader, you'll see the "Popular Articles" list over to the right.)

You can take these headlines and "twist" them to suit your blog.

For instance, the first article on the DBT list is:

28 Ways to Make Money with Your Website

You could turn this headline into:

35 Ways to Save Money on Your Household Bills (personal finance blog, home improvements blog)
17 Ways to Make Money from Your Writing (writing blog, entrepreneurship blog)

You could even move further from the original by choosing a different benefit:

8 Ways to Improve Your Skills through Your Local Library (career blog, personal improvement blog)

Here's another example:

The 7 Characteristics of Good Domains

(This one reminds me of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, another great title.)

You could turn this headline into:

The 7 Characteristics of Great Job Opportunities (career blog, student blog)
The 7 Characteristics of True Friends (personal development blog, women's blog)

Again, you can shift further away from the original:

The 10 Key Habits of Successful Gardeners (gardening blog, hobbies blog)

The great thing about this process of idea-generation is that you can repeat it again and again. You might get multiple ideas from just one headline – but even if you go through all the popular posts on one blog, you can just head on over to another blog and start again.

So – it's your turn! Pick one of the headlines from the "Popular Articles" list in the right sidebar of DailyBlogTips, and come up with something that would work for your own blog. (You might also want to take a look at the article itself to see how it's structured.)

Share what you come up with in the comments below…

Ali Luke is a freelance writer and coach, and the author of the Blogger’s Guides covering freelance blogging, effective writing, and creating ebooks). She writers a weekly column about online content creation for DailyBlogTips.

Original Post: One Very Simple Way to Come Up With More Blog Post Ideas Than You'll Ever Need