Have you ever found yourself staring at that blank screen and wondering why it is so hard to write another blog post? I mean, you are an expert in your topic, so you know what you are talking about. So, what is the real problem here?
Usually, all you need is just a little inspiration to start with. It is much easier when you already have something, to begin with, and not just a blank page that looks like it just makes fun of your lack of creativity. I get it, I had too many of these moments and it was not funny at all.
So what should you do?
The first thing to do, when you have one of those moments, is to reframe it a little bit. Instead of asking yourself “What should I write about today?” you will ask this “How can I help my readers today?”. This simple trick will make it much less overwhelming, and I bet that only from this small change a few blog posts ideas will already come to your mind right away. Don’t you believe me? Just try it.
Now, you will go through this list of different blog post categories, and you will choose one, based on your desired objective (provide value, provoke emotion, engage, promote etc).
Provide Value
– The Listicle:
This is a list of things/steps to take/tools that your audience needs to have. People are lazy (myself included!), so list articles are always very well received (and they are very easy to consume, so people can get immediate value out of it).
– The Tutorial / How to post:
I am sure that you have many things you can teach your audience, so choose one and write a step by step tutorial. You can use screenshots or video to make it clear. This will help you a lot with growing your expert status fast.
– The Case study post:
People love a good story, so make sure you talk about a specific person (this could be one of your existing clients, or people you helped out for free, or even yourself). Talk about a specific strategy and include real numbers. For example, instead of telling them how your client doubled their productivity (what does this mean exactly?), tell them how your client achieved the same results working 2 hours less.
– The Well researched post:
Research will always make your content more credible in the eyes of your readers. Choose the topics you are interested in and set up a Google email alert: this will deliver daily to your inbox the latest articles on your topic. Then you can save them in a special folder and whenever you want to write a research blog post you go there and sum it up. Make sure you write this article from your own angle, take all the research, use it, and come up with your ideas and conclusions. Reference back to the research articles to back it up.
– The checklist:
Everybody loves a good checklist. It is very easy to consume and easier to implement. Write it as a blog post and don’t forget to also include it as a content upgrade (you can easily make it pretty by using something like Canva or Word/PowerPoint/Excel).
– The ultimate guide:
This works particularly well in list building, as it gets a lot of shares. Not a lot of people invest the time to write an ultimate guide, so you will stand out if you do it. You can also offer the pdf version as a content upgrade.
– The FAQ post:
If you are already established in your business and have launched a few products, I am sure you already have a good list of questions your audience asked about your topic or about your products. So you can write a post and address these questions.
– The infographic post:
If you want to mix the content format a little bit, you can take one of your popular articles and turn it into an infographic. In this way, you will address various learning styles.
Talk about someone else
– Profile post:
Write an article about an influencer in your field. It doesn’t have to be the biggest star, he/she should be someone who is more established than you are and who has had nice business results. After you publish your post, share it with that person (by email or over social media). Influencers are also people, like you and me, and people love it when somebody puts them into a positive light, so they will most probably share your blog post with their audience. This means more eyeballs on your work.
– Interview post:
Keep a list of people who you admire, who you like, who took actions and achieved things, who have a story that resonated with you. Then reach out to them and ask for an interview. It doesn’t have to be something fancy: you can send them your questions via email and receive their answers, or you can do a video interview – it is up to you). You can even have a monthly interview series.
– The “best from the web” post:
If you feel particularly lazy or just have a bad day and can’t focus on writing something original, just quickly research some useful articles/videos on your topic and include those links in one “content curation” type of posts. As long as the content is super useful for your audience, they won’t mind it is not yours. In fact, there are bloggers out there who have this as their business model, and they are quite successful. Content is king, and great content is… well… THE KING! 🙂
– People/Blogs/Companies to follow post:
As someone who loves to stay updated with everything related to your field, you must know people who are worth following or clogs that are worth reading. So why not use this information to write a blog post?
– Expert round up post:
Brainstorm specific topic that falls under your niche. Then research and make a list of people who are experts on those topics. Reach out to them and ask them one particular question that you know is a popular one among your audience. Feature their answers into a blog post.
Get emotional
– Motivational / Inspirational post:
Self-motivation is hard to maintain so, from time to time, what everybody needs is a good inspirational story. Find one, whether is your own or someone else’s and write a post about it. You can also include related quote cards, to enhance your message and impact.
– A special time of the year post:
Whether it is Christmas time, the first day of spring or the back-to-school season or just the Oscar days, you can always find different special events to write about. Of course, you will find a way of incorporating these events into your topic. For example, you can write about how the back to school season gets you into the launching mood again.
– Share a personal story:
you can write about an important life lesson, your big dreams, your goals for this year, your big “why”, a time when you were a mess and how you managed to get out of it, a time you were the happiest. Personal stories will make you a human, a relatable person, so your readers will feel like they know you and like you more. And that is key to any brand building strategy.
– Share a success/failure:
this is also a personal story, but it is one strictly related to you building your business. Every entrepreneur has failures and successes along the way so why not share those? You will educate your readers, and you will also take advantage of the “like and trust” factor that will come with this type of article.
– Behind the scenes:
this is quite popular. You can share how a typical day looks like for you, or how your home office is organized, or how you managed your last launch. Just keep it relevant. If you only talk about how you like to have your coffee in the morning, people will get bored (unless you are Oprah or George Clooney!). Show them something interesting, something they can relate to and that they can use as a positive example. Especially in the online world, it gets lonely sometimes, so it always enjoyable to see how other people are doing this.
– Off topic:
I don’t encourage you to publish too many off-topic articles on your blog, but one every 30 regular posts should be fine. It will break the regular pattern of your content, so your blog and brand will be more interesting.
– Destroy a myth:
it seems to me that we are living in a world full of myths. Between “I made $1 million in one month with no sweat” and “I am working around the clock on my business, I am making hundreds of thousands of dollars every month, I am a good mother of 7, I cook every day, and I look like a supermodel”, all you need is a breath of fresh air. So take notice of what are the myths in your industry and write a post to bust them, one at the time. People like honesty. Plus, this type of content usually gets a lot of shares, because it is controversial.
Entertain
– Educational content presented entertainingly:
if you have a little acting spark in you and can act naturally in front of the camera (something I wish I would!), then you MUST include some form of entertaining content into the mix. Video works best for this type of content. Start your YouTube channel and stream your online “tv show”. Need some inspiration? Check out what Marie Forleo is doing with her MarieTv: great speaker, valuable content, funny elements thrown in – https://youtu.be/ucu9n47PNIU
– Parody post:
are you tired of seeing those things in your industry that should not happen? Are you sick of all the myths and misleading information? Then write a post about it, using parody. It gets your message across, and it certainly is entertaining. Check out what Bushra Azhar is doing with her Lucy Diamond McDreamy character: https://www.facebook.com/persuasionrevolution/videos/658953160973033/
Be Useful
– The Review post:
you can write a detailed review of a tool you are using for some time, a product you have just purchased, an interesting book, an online course, etc.
– The survey results post:
for this one you will perform a survey among your audience (using something simple like SurveyMonkey or a simple poll in a Facebook group), then you analyze the information received, formulate the conclusion and write all about it. This technique applies well also to the “research” type of blog post.
-The new trend post:
whenever some new marketing strategy or technology enters the market, I am usually one of the latest adopters. So for a (long) time, I just like to watch other people experiment with them, before deciding if I should also do it or not. This was the case with live webinars, then Periscope and now Facebook lives, for example. But if you are not like me, if you are always happy to test the latest thing, do it and then document your experience and your results in a blog post or video.
Engage
– Answer question:
whenever you come across a question related to your topic, collect it in a file and then answer those questions with a blog post.
– New freebie post:
I guess you already know that you should periodically test new freebies on your website so that you attract new email subscribers. Every time you upload a new freebie, write a short post about it and let your audience know, just in case they also want it.
– Contest post:
host a giveaway. Besides building your email list fast, you can also reward your existing readers. And who doesn’t like to be rewarded, right?
Promote
– Featuring Clients (case studies):
showing what your clients have achieved by using your products or services is one of the most effective ways of persuading other people to buy from you. It is basic human psychology.
– Income reports:
I have seen a lot of examples lately of people in the online business world who fully disclose their monthly earnings with a detailed blog post. Pat Flynn is maybe the most famous example. He also mentioned that he considered stopping these posts but then saw that they were so popular that he reconsidered. So you might want to write something like this if you are comfortable with telling everyone how much money you make. Again, it is basic psychology. People are curious to know about things that we tend not to share: secrets, behind the curtains, inside peek and especially money, of course.
– Launch post:
there is no secret that content is a big part of any launch, or at least it should be. So whenever you plan a new launch, take this into consideration and plan your blog posts accordingly.
As a side note, I want to say that while I have mostly written about blog posts, you can use the same ideas for a vlog, if you enjoy this more or if you just like speaking more than writing.
This is it. Think of a topic that will help your audience, pick your format from the seven categories and start writing.
I know there are a lot of categories listed above, so I have also put all the blog post ideas in a convenient one-page list. You can download it, save it to your computer, print it and use it, so that you will never run out of blog post ideas again.
Grab it for free below.
Download the blog post idea list
Where do you want me to send it to you?