How I Generated Over 6000 Ideas to Write About on My Blog in 15 Minutes
Ever run out of things to write about on your blog?
In this video screencast I want to show you how I came up with over 6000 ideas to write about on my blog using two tools – an Auto Responder (I use Aweber (aff)) and a Simple Survey.
Setting this up took me all of 15 minutes work – after that it’s just been a matter of sitting back and watching the ideas roll in.
You may not be able to generate 6000 ideas (and the reality is that I can’t use that many) but this technique can be used on even a smallish blog.
Video Notes
- Watch the full sized version (which may help with picking up all the detail in the video) at Become a Playful Blogger
- Video shot on a Panasonic Lumix DMC GF1 (aff) – here’s why I use that camera to shoot my videos.
How to Generate Ideas to Write About on Your Blog – Transcript
I’ve had this video transcribed below for those who prefer to get it that way. The transcription provided by The Transcription People.
Today I want to show you a technique that I’ve been using just for the last few months, on how to come up with ideas to write about on your Blog.
A lot of blogger face this problem – after a few months of blogging you run out of all those great ideas that you had when you started your blog, and you want to come up with more.
This is a technique that will work best on a blog with lots of readers, but even just some readers that, particularly readers that are subscribing to your newsletter, it can be used quite effectively, even in small numbers over a longer period of time.
So, you can see on the screen here, I’ve opened up AWeber. AWeber’s my email newsletter tool that I’ve talked about numerous times on ProBlogger.
What I’ve opened up here is the auto responder sequence for my Digital Photography School (I have a number of them).
This is an auto-responder that I’ve set up for DPS and one of the newsletters, and you can see here that on this particular one I have seven different messages that go out once someone subscribes to my newsletter. These are automated messages that go out at pre-determined intervals. You can see here the intervals on the left, they get a Welcome to DPS message straight away on the first day they sign up. Then they get a series of informational newsletters including one promotional one. So they actually hear about he products that we have and get offered a discount, but they also get emails that are purely informational that give them quality links back into archives on the site.
Number seven here is the one I want to talk about today. “What would you like to learn about Photography Next?” is the title of it.
I’ve already opened it up here. Now, they’re getting this email, you’ll see there, it’s around four months into their sequence. So they’ve already been subscribed for a while, they’ve been getting our weekly newsletter updates, which is in addition to this auto-responder.
So they’ve got some connection with DPS, and then get this email. Basically thanks them for joining, and introduces the idea that we’re doing some planning for the site which we’re always doing, and at the time I started this auto-responder, I was actually doing a week of intensive planning, and introduces the concept we want it to be, DPS to be as helpful as possible and we’ve got a survey to help us to improve the site and to come up with topics to write about. And then it gives them a link to click. When they click on that link, they are taken to a survey.
Now, I’ve set it up in SurveyMonkey. SurveyMonkey is a great tool, I think you get a certain amount for free. I’ve signed up for the premium edition, because I’m sending so many people to this as part of my newsletter. This is the back end of SurveyMonkey where you set up your questions, but here you can see the questions that I’m asking.
I introduced the topic again, and talk about why I’m doing the survey. Then I get them to begin to describe themselves in terms of the level of photographer that they are.
Then I ask the question, “I would like to see Tutorials on DPS on the following topics,” and get them to choose all that apply. Now, these are pre-determined topics that we do write on from time to time. The idea of this question is just to work out what the priorities of people are.
Then I ask them which topics would you like to see a more comprehensive guide to? So here what I’m asking is, I’m trying to get a feel for what people might pay for information on, because I want to develop eBooks. So here I’m doing a bit of a survey on that. One of the biggest ones was Travel Photography, so we developed an eBook on that. Then I asked them a question about the post-production tools they use, Photoshop, Paintshop, you know, LightRoom, Aperture, that type of thing.
And this is the golden question, this is the one I want to talk about today. Apart from those listed above, what topics would you like to see covered more on DPS? Feel free to be as specific as you’d like. So anything from a general topic like underwater photography to more specific – like slow-synch flash, or how to sharpen images in Photoshop.
So I’m giving them permission there to go beyond those broad categories we covered earlier in the survey, and to ask specific questions.
Now, SurveyMonkey gives you some great analytics, and so you can see here the answer to that first question, I’ve graphed people. I’ve actually got 71% of readers who say they’ve had a camera for a while, they’re fairly confident, but they want to get more advanced. And we get same sort of stats on these other ones. But what I want to go do down here below, is this last question that I’ve talked about.
You can see here, I’ve had this survey running for a couple of months now. I’ve had 6,369 people tell me what they want to get more information on. Specific questions. Now this is gold. This is really gold.
You get a download button here, and you can download it as a PDF or as an Excel, whatever you’d like.
Now, 6,000+ people have told me what they want to get information on, and they’ve given me specific questions. Now, some of these questions aren’t very helpful, some of the answers aren’t very helpful, you know, I’ve got someone here that says, “Fashion.” Well, we kind of figured that they probably would have ticked the Fashion Photography box above, but here we go, look, fixing problems like blown out skies, or wrinkle removal or skin softening. There’s three topics that I could go away and write on. Fish-eye photography, taking pics of babies and pets. You’ve got a lot of quite interesting stuff here. A lot of these questions are very specific, they’re post-type questions. Some of them people joke and they give you crappy answers and stuff that they’re just trying to be funny. But this is gold. There is 6,000 responses here.
Now DPS has a fairly large audience and so we are able to get 6,000 responses and that’s great. But even a blog that may be getting only a small number of people signing up to it’s newsletter every day, what happens is, as an auto-responder, remember, I’ve set this up as the seventh thing, so they’re getting all this quality information first, but after a few months of being subscribed, they’re actually still got questions, and they’re answering them.
We have around eight or nine hundred people sign up a day for this. So eight or nine hundred people are getting sent to this survey every day. You may have only eight or nine people getting this information every day, but you will find over time, if you have this as part of your auto-responder for a year or two, you’ll begin to build up a bank of questions that you can then draw upon later.
So if I’m ever wondering, you know, “What should I write about today on my blog?” I tell you, that file, that Excel file that I opened up before is one of the first places that I go, because it is just gold, it’s got so much great information.
Hope this has been helpful for you. It’s a technique that I’ve been using over the last few months on my blog and it’s really helped me to come up with a lot of great things to write about on my site.
End of Recording.
This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips.
How I Generated Over 6000 Ideas to Write About on My Blog in 15 Minutes
How Not to Write a Book
People want to know how to write a book. It’s a valid question. Learning how to write a book can be very useful. Books are the new bands. We’re all writing books, just like we all used to be in a band. But people never ask how NOT to write a book. I want to offer that one for you.
How NOT to Write a Book
- Worry about the title.
- Think about finding a publisher.
- Ask your friends who’ve written books about their agents/publishers.
- Research topics endlessly.
- Tweet.
- Update Facebook.
- Talk about the book you’ll write.
- Buy a new Moleskine just for the book.
- Research writing software, in case you’re faster on the keyboard.
- Decide how big the book should be.
If you just did those 10 steps, in any order, to be honest, you’ll definitely not have a book any day now. Just keep at it. You’ll be amazingly well-prepared to not have a book.
How to Write a Book
- Write until you’re done.
- Edit a bit.
- Find a buyer.
- Sell it.
- Sell it more.
It’s 1/2 as many steps to write a book than it is to not write one. Are you lazy? Then write a book. It takes half the effort of not writing a book.
Questions?
Photo credit accent on eclectic
5 Easy but Great Post Ideas You Can Write Today
It happens to nearly every blogger at some point. There’s not too much going on in your area of interest and you’ve run out of great ideas “in the bank”. It’s time to write a post, you’re staring at a blank screen and nothing is racing to mind.
While it’s a great idea to find inspiration on the Web, for which our own Ben Spark has some great suggestions, sometimes you just need something now that will be quick, easy and still of good quality.
Well, if you find yourself in that situation, here are five easy post ideas that you can do right now and get a good post up in a very short period of time.
1. The Devil’s Advocate Post
Do you commonly take a single stance on your blog? Do you have a strongly-held belief that you write about regularly? Flip it around. Write from the other perspective listing arguments and view points from that side.
You can offer gentle rebuttals, but the point is mostly to represent the opposing side in a bid to understand it better.
This can be a tricky balance to strike if you have a very rabid following of your current viewpoint, but if you make it clear what you are doing, these posts can be great fodder for comments and discussion. Best of all, since you should be readily familiar with the opposing arguments, you should have no trouble brainstorming or writing this post.
2. The Top 10 (or 5, 7, etc.) List
What is something related to your blog that people are always arguing about and debating? Find it and create a top ten list based on it from your viewpoint.
Even better, the top ten doesn’t even have to be a “good” list, but rather, can be a “top ten worst” list or anything else. It’s just a matter of putting things in order and giving your readers something to think about and debate.
Best of all though, these posts are often great link bait, drawing in readers who don’t normally visit your site. Not only are these posts easy, but they can be invaluable in growing your presence.
3. The How-To Post
Know how to do something others don’t? Describe how to do it. Break it down into easy-to-follow steps and include images or video if at all possible.
Even if you think it is something that most people know how to do already, you might be surprised how many people don’t and might find the post useful.
More importantly though, these kinds of posts are very powerful for search engines and having a post rank high for even a somewhat common “how to” search term is a great way to expand your traffic.
Once again, unless you pick something complicated, these types of posts are very short and sweet, usually only requiring a few steps to explain just about anything.
4. The Review Post
Did you buy something recently? Then review it. People love reviews and routinely search for them when they are looking to buy a particular product, making such posts very compelling for search engine fodder.
These types of posts can be very time-consuming if you obtain a product and use it specifically for the purpose of writing a review but, if you instead write about a product or service you used anyway and are already familiar with, it’s very easy to do.
In short, writing a review can be a fast post that will have a lot of long-term benefit for your site.
5. The Anecdote
Everyone has a story to tell, tell a part of yours. Focus in on just a tiny scene, a conversation or an incident that happened. Keep it short but write in a fair amount of detail to make it more compelling. It doesn’t have to be terribly personal but it does have to relate, somehow, to the content of your site, even if only philosophically.
Though anecdote posts aren’t great link bait or search engine fodder, unless the story is just that good, they do let you connect with your established readership in a new way and can make you seem more human in an age where everyone can seem like a faceless name on a computer.
Bottom Line
If you need a quick post but nothing is leaping to mind and you don’t want to post garbage to your site, one of these ideas might just be the ticket you need.
However, if you have something else you want to write about, I would definitely consider saving these ideas for days where you do need something quick and put other, more timely, story ideas in front of them in the queue.
Otherwise, you just might waste your emergency reservoir of ideas and just find yourself in the same position a few days later.
Copyright © 2010 Blogging Tips. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.
5 Easy but Great Post Ideas You Can Write Today
A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger.
Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/
Write a Blog Post about the Major Blogs in your Field
Who are the respected bloggers in your area, field, milieu? Seek them out. Read some of their work. What would you change about the post or article if you were the author? Was there something important left out? Was part of the blog unclear about anything?
This is easy stuff. Movie critics, software evaluators, book reviewers, and many other professions depend on others to provide them with their inspiration. You don't need much to get you started. Follow the simple pattern in the next paragraph, and your blogs will practically write themselves.
"This is why I hate/love the movie, book, program, car, blog, this is what I would change, and this is what I think was really good/bad about it."
It's a simple pattern. It has been used to death. And it works like a charm.
By the way, there are two main ways that you can attract traffic to your blog with this kind of post. As you read other blogs, you can pull in extra readers by writing a comment on their blog with your link attached.
The second way is to write to any bloggers or sites that you mention favorably and let them know that you think that they are No. 1 in your book. They will probably write in their blog about you writing about them in their blog.
Of course, you can go the way of the hip-hop/rap industry. One of the most common ways for an artist to make a name is to write and sing about other artists in a negative way. The artists that are attacked then respond in a similar fashion. The fans learn about the "war" between the artists, and for the most part, both artists become more popular.
Write a Guest Post
Help us to grow our blog! Contribute to our community by interacting with us and by sending us your posts about your SEO experiences or blogger template editing.
Your name with the name of your website/blog will be displayed with a DoFollow link to your website/blog at the end of your article.
You will receive some visitors from this blog. More higher is the quality of your post than more higher will be the number of visitors.
The rules - read them!
Don`t submit duplicated or stolen articles!
Don`t submit the article to other blog ,select: submit only to this blog or if you have submitted allready to another blog please don`t submit it!
Write only about thinks what you know about ,write accurate post.
your namethe name of your website/blogthe address of your website/blogthe title of your postthe content of your post
Thanks for contributing to OUR community!
