6 Sources of Free Ideas on What to Write About

We all experience a time where we run out of topics to write about on our blog. Taking a small break might help spark that creativity in your mind, but sometimes a small break just won’t do the job.

I’ve seen all kinds of lists that mention different types of posts you can publish when you’re not really creative (best of the month, top downloads, etc.), but most of the methods I will be listing below are not that widespread (not that I know of), use that fact to your advantage…

1. Skribit
Skribit is a widget you can install on your blog that allows users to submit and vote on topics they’d like to read on your blog. This tool is extremely beneficial since it allows you to provide your readers with exactly what they’re looking for. You can visit the official Skribit website to sign up and see the process of installing the widget in your sidebar.

You’re not limited to using the suggestions given on your blog, but you can also search for other blogs using the Skribit widget and use some of their suggestions. Google the term “Skribit: Social Suggestions” to find blogs using the widget, there are quite a few, so just keep searching till you find a blog in the same niche as yours.

2. Q & A Sessions
A Question & Answer session is a where a blogger gives his readers the chance of asking him questions which he then answers in a follow up post. I’m not talking about holding your own session, but finding other blogs that hold Q & A Sessions and turn some of the questions into a full post. Usually the blogger will limit the length of his answer because of the time he has to answer all the questions, but you can take your time to answer the question in a full-fledged post.

Here is a question taken from a a recent Q & A Session held at TheUniversityKid:

What’s the best way to achieve an online income of $50+ per day without flipping sites?

-Tris

That question could be turned into a post listing all the different ways to make money online, or better yet, a series of in-depth posts.

3. Forums
Webmaster forums like Digital-Point and Webmaster-Talk can be a great place for acquiring some fabulous ideas! You could either browse through certain sections and find any threads asking a question, or you could start a new thread asking members what they would like to read more often. The latter usually generates much better results because people never waste a chance on giving their opinion and feeling helpful.

For example, here is a thread recently started in the link development section over at the Digital-Point forums:

Link Baiting - How do you get people to link to your website one-way?

I’m fairly new to the concept of link baiting and would love to learn about it. Is link baiting only for the popular websites that have a good reputation or is it possible for EVERYONE to use this technique?

That question could be turned into a complete post explaining exactly what link bating is and some of the tactics used to achieve it.

4. Comments
If you ever spent a few minutes reading some of the comments left on blogs, you might be surprised how educational they can be. Not only do they teach you a lot of new things, but sometimes they also contain hidden gems… questions.

Popular bloggers like Darren Rowse from Problogger don’t have time to answer every question they get, that’s where you come into play. First, you use the find tool (Ctrl + F) to search for the question mark character “?”. Next, choose the question that can be turned into an entire post and take note of the commenters website. Third, post the article on your blog then visit the commenters website to find his contact details and send him an Email explaining how you found his question and took the liberty of answering it on your blog. Hopefully you will have earned yourself a new reader and made a new post.

5. Yahoo!
Google isn’t the only search engine out there, another pretty good one is called “Yahoo!”. A great thing Yahoo has on by default is “Search Assist”, basically a search suggestion tool which gives you similar queries to your entered search term. If you have a “make money online” blog and want to post something other than the usual affiliate programs, PPC, and bum marketing posts, Yahoo can be a bit of a help. Search for the term “make money online” then browse through the suggestions presented in the search assist box below the header.

Although these suggestions may be a bit vague, they will help you think of something good and might help you procude that perfect post you’ve always longed for

6. Sitemeter
Sitemeter is a service which provides a tracking service for websites. One of the things I enjoy checking most is the referrals page since seeing where my traffic is coming from can be really interesting. Some websites don’t allow others to view their statistics and clicking on the little sitemeter icon will only take you to the front page (like mine does). Other blogs such as Problogger allow public access to their statistics which means you get to see where their traffic is coming from.

If you head on over to Problogger and click the sitemeter icon located in the footer of the blog, you will be taken to summary page of the statistics. When you check out the referrals page, you will most probably see multiple mentions with the word “Google” in them, click on one of them. The link you click takes to a default Google search page with a term already in the box, use that term to write a post. For example, if the term is “how to write about page”, you could write a unique post with your tips on how to write an about page.

Using those sources of free ideas above, you will find yourself increasing your posting frequency and finding it much easier to blog!

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