5 Ways to Get Blog Post Ideas

By Michele Scism
The Results Lady

I recently asked a group of business women the following question: “What is stopping you from blogging?”

Several of them responded by saying that they were afraid that once they got started they wouldn’t have enough to blog about.  Not enough content!

I thought it would be best to start with the concept behind blogging and I found the following video “Blogs in Plain English” by Lee Lefever of www.commoncraft.com.  It is short and gets right to the point of explaining why blogs are such a big deal but in a really cute way!

So now back to our original question!

What Can You Blog About?

Actually I should start with the fact that I felt the same way a year or so ago before I started blogging.  As I stated in a previous post I posted my first blog on July 24, 2009 and I titled it “Scared” because, well,  I was.  I really had no idea what I was going to blog about but the one thing I learned from the movie Julie & Julia was that you just need to pick something and start to blog.

So ask yourself this – Why do I want to blog?

Is it to generate leading authority status for you or your business in your industry?
Is it to direct traffic to your website?
Is it to keep a log of your growing children?
Is it to keep a log of your elderly relatives?
Do you love recipes and want to share them with the world?
Do you just have stuff in your head that you want the world to know?

Once you know the why the content will come.  You know the line “build it and they will come.”  It doesn’t just work for baseball fields.  It works for blog content as well.

The one thing I can tell you is that you have within your immediate grasp enough information in your brain to write your first several blog posts.  You can worry about the rest later.

5 Ways To Get Blog Ideas

1.  Sit down with a piece of paper and start to write one, two or three word phrases that explain something you have done or know something about, just as they come to your mind.

If I did this at this very moment this is what I would write:

blog posts, pictures, what can I write, 10 minute blog, brownies, laundry, WordPress, marketing, trucking, assistant, and I could go on and on.  (Brownies because they are cooking in the kitchen and smelling so good.)

OK, you get the idea.  Just randomly write down things that you know anything about.  Then pick 5 of them that you would feel comfortable having a discussion about with a colleague – those are your blog post ideas!

2.  Ask a question on Social Media. Asking questions on Twitter or Facebook can really get you some great ideas.  I once asked the members of my Decisive Minds Fan Page “What is the 1 thing you really need help with in your business?”  I got some really great answers which lead to 5 new article ideas.

3.  Watch what other experts in your field are writing about. Are there particular subjects that are trending in your industry?  For example right now in business there is a lot of talk about blogs.  Yes there could be many other people right now writing an article about what to write blogs about but none of those posts would be like this one.  The fact that I am writing it makes it unique and different from the others.

4.  Once you get started people will comment on your blog and ask you questions. This will give you even more material for blog posts.

5.  Remember that you do not have to write all of the blog posts yourself. There are lots of people in your industry that would love to be guest bloggers on your site as long as your site fits with their topic.  If you look at my blog you will see lots of blogs from guest bloggers.

My friend and mentor Adam Urbanski has a saying “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly to begin with!”  That means don’t wait for perfection.  It rarely comes!  Just get started.  Write your first post about how scared you are, like I did.  You can even call it Scared if you want to – I don’t mind.  I promise your post will be different than mine!  Just take action and move forward!  Then drop me a line to let me know you did it!