No, really. How do you come up with blog post ideas? I want to know!
You know how I come up with blog post ideas, so I turned the table and asked some of my fellow Blogathon bloggers how they find inspiration. I got some gems. Pure gems.
“Over the past year, I’ve found that I (being a homeschool mom of 8 children) need STRUCTURE for my blogging. I generally blog Monday through Friday so I have a theme [for each] day.”
–Kate Megill of Teaching What Is Good
“Walking around a city or neighborhood helps me think of ideas. In Philadelphia, I stumbled on America’s oldest residential street and, because a biscuit maker used to live there, I turned that into a post.”
–Jennifer Walker of My Morning Chocolate
“I post about my family, which is the most important thing to me. May is the anniversary month of my parents who are both deceased, so I will do a post about my parents falling in love and marrying in 1964.”
–Mimi of mom2blmgn.blogspot.com
“‘Ten ways to do something’ are great posts, and you can turn each of the 10 into its own post.”
–Michelle Amethyst Mahoney of Amethyst Tarot
“Because I write about health topics, I check out the national or international health awareness topics for the month/day/week. Some months, like May, are just chock full of topics.”
–Marijke Vroomen Durning of Med Health Writer
“A plan or editorial calendar is good. In fact, there’s a WP plugin for that.”
–Jane Boursaw of Reel Life with Jane
“I have a huge mindmap (using Mindmeister, which I highly recommend). Each of my general blog categories (ten or so) has a node. What this has done is create a huge battery of ideas that would last me months if I didn’t come up with any new ones.”
–Sarah Moon of Clear Eyes, Full Shelves
“Brainstorming about your blog’s audience can also help. Who’s been reading your blog? What are they saying in the comments? Are they asking about something? Do they particularly like a post? Why or why not? What are your top five most visited posts?”
–Jackie Dishner of Bike with Jackie
“I use my photos as a way to come up with posts or to remember something I wanted to write about. It’s been a very effective tool for me, and it sort of forces me to organize pictures when I return from wherever it is I’ve been that day.”
–Joan Lambert Bailey of Popcorn Homestead
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Your turn. How do you come up with blog post topics?
Nice to see these tips and thanks for including mine.
Go Blogathon! 😉
For the Blogathon, I’m keeping a Google Calendar with at least two post ideas per day. I brainstormed some of my favorite things, which include fitness/running, cooking, gardening, and photography and bounced ideas from those things!
All of these tips you gathered are great!!
Sara, thanks for pulling together this list and for including me! These are great ideas. I know I should have an editorial calendar; I would probably feel much more organized. Maybe some day.
Marijke and Jen – So glad to include your tips. I was happy to see all the chatter in the Blogathon Google Group about the topic.
And Aundra- I like your tip, too. Google Calendar is a lifesaver.
I like to use X- mind (http://www.xmind.net/) to brainstorm quickly and visually. I think it is important to start the year with at least 100 blog post ideas for those days you get stuck. Great post!
Awesome, Liberty. I’m so going to check XMind out.
I am signed up for google alerts to send me an e-mail with anything about the topics I write about (animal assisted therapy, animals helping animals, etc.) I have an inbox overflowing with ideas to write about.