You want to share your knowledge and be a regular blogger? You write but run out of inspiration now and then? You want to get some ideas to blog about fast? You want to write about topics that are interesting for readers but don’t know where to start? Check out the following six quick and easy tips to get it done.
1. Use Google Alerts to inform you about latest industry news
With Google Alerts you can easily track news and find interesting new content about topics that inspire you. Don’t create too many alerts; focus on three main search terms. Alerts can be delivered into your mailbox or sent as a feed.
2. Socialmention.com: what is being talked about?
“Social mention” is a real time search platform and mainly used as a social media monitoring tool to know what’s happening in the social sphere. It provides valuable results since it tells you what people are currently talking about. Write about it, tweet it and get traffic.
3. Questions and answers
Talk to your customer service department. Make a list of the ten most asked questions; you can write blog posts answering them. Your posts will surely serve the needs of your readers this way. Covering these questions will also generate new questions from your readers, leading again to new topics and blog posts.
Other Q&A sources can inspire you as well, with platforms such as http://answers.yahoo.com, http://www.answers.com or even LinkedIn.
4. Google Insights for Search
Google Insights for Search is a great resource if you want to know what people are currently searching for in a specific category. It’s another way to take into account what people seek. You can easily filter on type of search, location and period. You get a list of ‘Top Searches’ and – even more useful – a list of ‘Rising Searches’.
Google Trends can tell you more about seasonality of searches. Some topics are more searched at a specific timing of the year.
5. RSS and other bloggers
Use a good RSS reader and import RSS feeds of well-known bloggers. You can easily get inspired with new ideas, or find interesting infographics you can write your own opinion or findings about. Google Reader is a good starting point. You can also connect it to Flipboard on your iPad.
6. Old-fashioned paper and notes
It probably happened before: you had an idea while driving your car, while shopping with your partner, and when you finally had time to sit down and start writing, you have forgotten that brilliant topic. Solution; always have a tiny notebook with you, in your pocket, in your car. Write down your impulsive ideas in just a few words and/or a small drawing. It will become your archive of ideas.
More tips or ideas? Let me know!