Seven Easy Ideas If You Can’t Think of a Blog Topic
If you’re struggling to find something to write about, these ideas can kick start your content.
We’ve all had it drummed into our brains that if we want to be professional bloggers, we must be consistent. The content must flow.
But what happens when you can’t think of an idea?
Currently, my house is filled with large industrial fans to fix water damage from a burst pipe. I’m not sleeping well. As a result, my brain is swimming in a thick fog.
I turned to my list of easy blog topics so I can still create content.
In fact, this article is a result of one of those ideas. Can you guess which one?
Combine lots of different ideas
Sometimes, ideas just aren’t big enough to build an entire article around.
No problem. Keep a list of these small ideas. Every so often, create an article out of three or more of them.
If you’re lucky, you can find ideas that fit together neatly. If not, find an overarching description that works for all of the ideas. Even a vague description like “Four ideas you’ve never heard of” can work.
In your intro, summarize the overarching description. Then call out the different ideas that you’ll be talking about as part of that.
Set each idea off with its own subheading. Within that section, use the standard intro, exposition, conclusion format for that idea.
Add a conclusion section for the entire piece which summarizes the whole thing.
Boom! You’ve got a blog posting.
Answer questions
One of the easiest ways to come up with an idea for your blog is to have someone else come up with it.
If you have a lot of followers who respond to your writing already, go back and look at some of your answers to them. Maybe some of those can be combined or elaborated on to build an article.
If your blog is on Medium, you can look at all the responses you’ve written. If your blog is on Wordpress, you might be able to view all comments by author. Or you might have to look at comments on each individual post. It depends how your blogging software is set up.
If you don’t have a lot of followers asking questions of you yet, no problem. There’s already a tool for this, called Quora.
Toss in a few keywords, and see what questions people are asking about those keywords. Or skim the trending questions in your topic.
You can also set up an account on Quora, and tell them which categories you are an expert in. They’ll then send questions to you.
The section above, about combining ideas, was actually an answer I wrote to a question on Quora.
Talk about your tools
Have you discovered a new productivity tool or app that makes your life easier? I bet your readers would love to hear about it.
I use this article idea a lot. Usually it’s because I get super excited when I discover a new tool or app, and I can’t wait to share it.
But sometimes, it’s my fallback idea.
One of my most popular articles has been a piece I did about the planner I use. People really got excited about it, and shared the article with lots of other people.
Why did I write that article?
It was late in the day, I needed an article, and the planner was sitting there on my desk. I kept staring at it, wondering what I was going to do so I could check off the box saying that item was complete.
That got me to wondering how other people managed their work flow. And an article was born.
By the way, remember how I asked in the introduction if you could guess which idea I used for this article? It’s this one.
Start a multi-day challenge
Starting a multi-day challenge is an awesome way to create many days of content.
On the first day, you describe the challenge. On subsequent days, you can describe your progress, or give pep talks to help people keep going.
You can run this idea at many different lengths.
Kick off a 3-day weekend challenge on Friday. Run a 7-day or 10-day challenge. Help people form new habits with a 21-day or 30-day challenge.
If you really want to milk the idea for content, have people do a different thing each day.
This is very popular with organizational blogs. Every day they focus on a different area of your house. And of course, that means every day needs content created for that area.
Piggyback off of the news
If there’s something that is making news, apply it to your specific focus area.
One word of warning, though. Be sure to be tasteful, rather than making an obvious attempt to newsjack.
Every time there’s a tragedy, some tone deaf social media person unleashes a firestorm. Angry people call for boycotting the company. And many news cycles are devoted to “what were they thinking?” stories.
Entrepreneur magazine offers this guidance: Use negative news to offer support or information. Never use it to promote sales.
You can use positive or neutral news in any way you like. Just be sure to add value, rather than repeating what’s already been said.
Update an older article or write a follow-up
Have you been writing for a while? Then maybe it’s time to look at some of your older content.
Is a piece you’ve written out of date? Refresh it with the latest information, and republish it.
You can also write a follow-up piece, if the older article is still accurate. Yearly guides of the best and worst on offer over the past year fall into this category. So do preview articles, about the most eagerly anticipated things for the next season.
If you’re a new writer, and don’t have material of your own to refresh, not to worry. You can write follow-up commentary about how you followed someone else’s instructions. Just be sure to link back to their piece and give them credit.
Get help from the experts
There are three types of articles that can be written using expert opinions: compilations, interviews, and book reviews.
In the first type of article, comb through articles written by or about different experts. Tease out the nuggets of inspiration or helpful tips.
Then write an article that compiles all this advice in one place.
The second type of article involves actually interviewing an expert. Create a template of standard questions that you can send to various experts. Lifestyle blogs love getting various celebrities to answer questions about their favorite things.
You can either create an article from the answers you receive, or tell your readers about your plan. Ask for suggestions of questions they’d like to know, or people to interview.
Finally, you can do a book review. Read a book by an expert in your field.
You’re probably already reading in your field, right? After all, you want to stay knowledgeable and relevant.
So use what you’ve learned to write an article. Summarize the key points of the book. Or compare and contrast two different books.
Conclusion
There you have it. If you’re running low on ideas, one of these seven ideas should help you solve your writer’s block.
- Combine lots of different ideas
- Answer questions
- Talk about your tools
- Start a multi-day challenge
- Piggyback off of the news
- Update an older article or write a follow-up
- Get help from the experts
Every writer has their own favorite ways to jump start their writing when they’re out of ideas. You can find plenty of other ideas for writing prompts online. But these seven tried-and-true story starters work for me.
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