Starting a blog usually mean having something to say. So it is a bit surprising how quickly those blog ideas become hard to find. So here’s a short list of places to find blog post ideas, blog post topics, blog post subjects, or whatever else you might want to call the body of a blog post.
1. Google Trends, Yahoo Buzz, and MSN A-List-what are people searching the Internet for? The idea here is to go and see what the current hot topic is and then whip out a quick post about it. Landing on the Blog section of Google Trends has always gotten me a good bit of quick traffic. Once or twice I have been ahead of the curve and written a post about something that showed up later on Google Trends. Then I was one of the only blogs talking about the topic so I got the Google Trends hits. These are really good for bloggers who like to live in the moment.
2. Helium and Associated Content-these two site are places to sell your writing, but I have not found myself writing for them much. While I like to think of myself as a pretty good writer, I always feel a bit out of my depth competing on these sites. But I have found a few ideas while looking at the article topics they want. If someone is willing to pay $40 dollars for an article, they are likely paying good money for Adsense Ads as well. So whipping up a post on one of these topics should get you some Adsense Clicks, and maybe you could still sell it to Helium or Associated Content later.
3. Preplinks and Danoday.com-collection of news links. I like the Odd News and Entertainment News drop downs myself, but there are plenty of News Sources here to fill just about any need. These are sort of like the wire services of the good old days, where newspaper men in black and white movies stood over a clattering machine with baited breath. There is a bit of overlap on these two sites, but they both have pretty good links. And their free. These are mainly for radio and podcasters, but will work just as well for bloggers. Amazing how much stuff happens everyday, isn’t it?
4. 24-7 Press Release and PR Newswire-these are people who want you to blog about them, well, actually they want you to copy and paste their content into your blog. But copying and pasting is bad blogging for a number of reasons to do with Search Engine Optimization. That and the fact that you blog readers will be reading the same thing in a few dozen other places. If I find a Press Release I like I copy and paste a few bits, but give my own opinion on what the press release is about. If it’s about a new Website, I go to the website and see what I think of it-and then write a blog post about that.
5. Google Suggest-doodle away with a few random letters and see what pops up. There are topics to be found that you would never think up on your own. (I just found a site about The Man in Seat Sixty-One using Google Suggest seat-I never heard of this and it has 32 million results.) Find a topic with the highest results and write a blog post about it. Then when those millions are searching, some of them will be finding your blog.
6. YouTube-just not too much. I have seen some blogs that were once all text and deep thought turn into mini MTVs and America’s Funniest Home Videos rather than keep writing. I like YouTube and some of the stuff is dead funny and great fun to watch. Again, the idea here is to find stuff to blog about, not just plop a video in and call that a blog post. I posted Leave Britney Alone, but also wrote a blog post to go with it. Googlebots like words, so I got a lot of hits while this silly bit of hysteria was making it’s make around the blogshere-more hits than people who just posted the video by itself.
7. Morning Shows-The Today Show, GMA, The Daily Buzz, The Early Show, and CBS Sunday Morning-they all cover the same basic topics and even have the same exact guests from time to time. But there are times when something from one of the Morning Shows takes off and if you write it, you can take off too. The Morning Shows also cover as broad a range of topics as they can, so the odds are good that something might pop that piques your interest and make you want to write a blog post about it.
8. Your Blog Stats-Google Analytics, Shiny Stats, eXTReMe Tracking, and many others. How do people find there way to your blog? Is there one post that always gets hits? Can you write another post on that topic? What’s next on the list? What keywords top your list? Sorting the data in your stats is fun and often baffling-the oddest searches can lead people to your blog, and there are bloggers who make strange search terms a regular part of their blogs. It’s also nice to see where your post ranks when people are searching and there is that feeling of accomplishment that comes from getting the Number 1 spot on a Google Search.
9. Book, Movie, and TV Reviews-I tend to talk about everything I watch or read, but you might want to be a bit more on topic than I am. Whatever your blog is about, the odds are good there’s a couple of books, TV Shows or movies about it. And if there aren’t, there probably will be one soon. So talk about books and movies that relate to your blog topic, or just talk about the latest movie and book that you liked. Or talk about how TV has ruined an entire generation of writers and what is to become of us?
10. Lists-The List Universe and Forbes Lists-Lists are great all around blog topics, they can be any length and cover any topic. You can get lists from respected sources or un-respected sources or you can make up your own lists on the spot. Lists are also good from an SEO stand point as lists are often the kind of blog post that people like to bookmark and refer back to from time to time. The Social Networks are fond of lists as well, especially if they have an odd slant to them.
All bloggers have different ways of finding blog post ideas and these are just the ones that work best for me. Your blog posts may be written a month in advance and you may never have need of blog inspiration, but I need all the help I can get. Just keep looking and you’ll find plenty of blog post ideas. Or at least you’ll have fun looking.
The man in seat 61 is one of my favourites for holiday planning!
throw a camera in your bag and take some pictures…there’s tons of surprising stuff out there…much of it useful for some blogs.
nice work. thanks.