Every now and then we all get a little foggy when it come to thinking of relevant and original content for our blogs. It’s easy to get lost in thought. No matter how hard we struggle it seems impossible to come up with something interesting to post about. I have a few tips on the matter and hope they help.
Caution
One note of caution before I begin. Their are two dangers to these methods but they are easy to handle.
1. Surfing other blogs
You can get some great ideas just by visiting other blogs. Personally, I find the easiest way to surf blogs is to subscribe to all of your favorite blog’s feeds. I use Google reader but any will work fine. You can cover a lot of ground and see a lot when using a feed reader.
2. Digg.com
I like to go straight to Digg.com’s front page and see what is going on there. It doesn’t take more than a page or two to get your creative juices flowing.
3. Google Alerts
Setting up Google Alerts for keywords is by far one of my favorite methods of finding topics. Many bloggers use Google Alerts to keep track of what is being written about them or their site. I do too but I also add key words that will let me know every time something interesting is indexed by Gogglebot. For example, for Hot Blog Tips I would add something like “blog tips” “blogging tips” and “blogging news“. Now every time Google finds a page out there related to my interest they politely send me an email alert. You can set the alert up to be sent as-it-happens but I prefer the once a day option to keep the emails down to a minimum. Be careful what you ask for. Anything too generic or common will render and endless supply of alerts.
4. Entrecard
Entrecard is a very popular blogging network that has a unique tool for finding new blogs to visit. It’s the Entrebar. Entrebar is a cool Firefox Toolbar that lets you, with the click of a button, call up an entire string of blogs in separate tabs. You pick the category so you get blogs in the niche you are looking for. The Entrebar was designed to drop your Entrecard on but I use it to find new blogs. I still drop on those but I recommend dropping from your Entrecard inbox first. The inbox contains the entrecards of other people that have dropped on your widget but that’s for another topic.
5. StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is amazing. Get the Firefox StumbleUpon Toolbar and when you need to get the creative side of you going just start hitting the Stumble Button. Be careful, like many of these tips, it can be addicting.
Conclusion
These are just a few methods we can use to generate original blog post and article ideas. I’m sure you can add many more and I hope you will by adding a comment below.
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Hey Brian!! Cool new blog! Hmmm, thought you were slowing down? LOL!
I have spent a whole day searching for new ideas or even just looking for things to read that I have no intention of blogging, I just need a break.
That is why I sat up the Co-Op like I did. I know that way you can pick a topic, see the title, read a mini post so you have an idea if it is what you are looking for…Yes, I did it to make my blog searching easier (I’ll let you guys use it also
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I also like to bookmark different sites so, I have a variety (cause I am trying out a super cool bookmarking tool & need lots of post to mark). I never knew how long it takes to find good post if searching on your own.
I do love your blogs! I know they are great but, sometimes I need to mix it up a bit. Please forgive me for being a 2 timer on blog reading.
Hi Sheryl, thanks for the kind words. I keep trying to reduce me workload yet I might be addicted to starting new projects. We’ll see how this goes. Hopefully I can squeeze a little more time out of the day to work on some posts here. I’ll be adding any posts to the Co-Op. Brad just explained it to me so it sounds like a great idea.
Surfing other blogs works really great to me. Reading comments also helps. I got tons of ideas on comments.
.-= Liane YoungBlogger´s last blog ..Blogging Odds: Seize Success by Conquering Them All Right This Very Moment =-.
I agree Liane, reading the comments is a great way to get our minds going. The comments on active blogs can be even more informative that the actual post.
Hi Brian,
Another way could be to look at some related controversial comments left by your readers on your blog. Although we must have responded these comments then, we could now publish a post on their questions and your thoughts.In fact my next post is just that.
I almost couldn’t recognize this blog as it’s been some time since I last visited. It’s grown much bigger and nicer. You must have done a terrific job to get to where it is today. Congrats.
Peter
Now that’s a great idea Peter. Comments on other blogs can often generate post ideas but I really hadn’t tried re-reading own own blog’s comments.
Reading other peoples blogs can really generate an entirely new way of thinking and give you certain ideas to use on your blog with out paraphrasing every they said.