As a blog writer, the fear of running out of ideas was something I had, once I started. Before this blog, I used to own 3 more. None of them exists anymore because I ran out of ideas. I wrote the first few articles and then had nothing to write about once I sat down to do so. I ended up stared at the white page of WordPress and wondered what to write about for hours. Not anymore! I’ve finally figured out how to never run out of ideas and the process is surprisingly simple. Let’s have a look.
Articles in this series so far:
1. The Introduction
2. How to create your first blog
3. How to write your first post
4. How to design your blog
Other Blogging Tips:
1. Tying your domain name to your Bluehost hosting
2. How to never run out of blogging ideas
3. WordPress plugins for every blogger
4. How to make money blogging
5. The best and cheapest hosting for bloggers
Your fuel called passion
First of all, you need a blog niche you are passionate about. If you are passionate about any subject, I highly recommend you, no, I demand that you always have something to write your ideas down into.
Have a phone? Get an app like Google Keep that you can open anywhere and on anything. If you’d rather have this stuff in physical form, get a notepad. Now, every time you think of something that could be a good idea for a post, write it down. It doesn’t matter if you know about the topic, you will most probably research it anyway. Then as you write your article, you’ll find out you mentioned other things that need posts of their own, so you write them down for later.
Branch out
No matter what niche your blog is about, there’s thousands upon thousands of things you can write about. Just write one article and see what things you’ve mentioned. Chances are, a lot of these things could be made into articles of their own. For example, while writing this article, I was actually writing an article about how to create your first post on WordPress. Then I realized that just getting an idea for it is a completely different topic in it of itself. Now I mentioned several ways to make money, like using a hobby like sewing and realized that these will need articles of their own.
Remember, branching out is always a good idea, because you can link your previous posts to the new ones and vice-versa and thus give your readers more to consume on your page.
Look for inspiration
Oftentimes, I find inspiration for new blog ideas from forums like Reddit or sites like Quora, where people ask questions that I know an answer to. Social media is another great way to get inspiration from. To create ideas, you have to consume content. Or rather, not just consume, but also research it. I highly recommend using Pinterest and Quora especially as I found out those two to be the best idea generators out there. They are both really good at offering you the content you need for inspiration. If possible, make a new account and put in the “interests” or “boards” only things around your blog’s niche. Don’t click anything else while on these accounts and every time you will visit these sites, you’ll be offered a plethora of ideas.
Brainstorming
Another very effective technique is to just write a word that is your niche on a board and then write words or phrases around it that represent it. Then you go through each word or phrase you wrote and do the same with it. This is an incredibly quick way to come up with ideas as you find out, each word or phrase could be an article of its own. What else, you can do this with several people at once, each person adding ideas of their own.
Examples of idea gathering
How I do it
Me, as a side-hustling and finance blogger, I gather information about different side hustles and things around them. Every time I hear of something that makes money, I put it down in my google keep notes. Here its how it looks:
You can make your notes as short or complicated as you want. I like to keep things simple. Like sparks that eventually start a fire. Then, when I’m about to write, I look at stuff and see what I feel like writing about. One thing is for sure, I never struggle with ideas, because I don’t have to come up with them when I sit down to write. They are already prepared.
Artists
Is your blog about art like painting, photography or sewing? Teach people how to do things. Show them the basics up to the level you are at. Review stuff. Compare things. Describe your struggles in the life of an artist and how to overcome them. Give tips on how to make things easier. Share what you have learned.
Craftsmen
Do you create things? Make step-by-step tutorials on how you’ve made them. Talk about the techniques and tools that were required to reach the final result and why you recommend them. I linked one of my old articles as an example. Your site can be full of those.
Others
Basically as long as its anything that had to be learned in any way, you can write about it, so do so!
Doubts
This is a big thing I want to address. One thing that stops people from gathering and sharing ideas are doubts. People doubt that they are not the ones people would ever go to for knowledge. That they don’t matter since there is a lot of stuff on this topic already. Let’s tackle these ideas one by one.
I am not a professional
To teach people you don’t need to be a professional in the topic. It helps, yes, but you yourself need to know at least 10% more than the person you teach. Imagine you are a fan of a hobby and you want to get your friend into it. Would you show them how to do basics and share your knowledge or would you answer their every question with “ask a professional, I just like this thing.” You already have some knowledge about the thing and you are there to share it. That’s what blogging is!
I have nothing to offer
You have your own experience with the subject and your personal voice. These two things can be highly valuable. People like to read about other people’s experiences and find out if they were similar as theirs. If you see a story of someone who had similar experiences to yours, your immediately become more interested. You’ll start to think, we went through the same thing, maybe I could do this as well!
There are already thousands of these tutorials on the internet
Yes, this might be true, but when people like a person, they will value their opinion more. Your personal voice matters. Reading / watching a tutorial from someone you respect or like makes it easier for you to digest the information they put out because you understand how they communicate.
Why is every photography blog or youtube channel have a video about photography basics and how to operate your camera? Because people don’t want to go to some stranger once they’ve got familiar and cosy in the place they are already at and visit regularly.
I am not a good writer
Writing is a skill to be learned like any other. Also, this isn’t your school paper. When you write a blog, imagine you are talking to a friend about something. If you are really not sure about things like grammar or how to divide text, you can get certain plugins to help you with this. Quick examples would be Grammarly web browser extension or YoastSEO plugin for WordPress. Grammarly checks your writing and grammar, while YoastSEO gives you a handy readability score and tips on how to make your article better.
And more
In short, no matter what doubts you have, they do not matter. If you feel like sharing things with the world, do it. The world won’t stop you. The only person that can stop you, is yourself. Your blog is your own thing and it will work and look the exact way you want it to. No idea is too good or bad to be shared. They are just ideas.
Summary
If you’ve got this far, you beautiful person, then I hope you enjoyed the article and hopefully got some understanding on how to create ideas for your posts. If you’ve enjoyed this article, consider joining my mailing list below, sharing it or check out the rest of them in my series. And, if you have anything you’d like to say, let me know below. I’ll see you there.
