Blog Content Ideas

Here are some ideas to help you find relevant content for your blog in case you’ve run into writer’s block or are just looking for something to complement or add to what you regularly post.

• News. You can find news in all sorts of places: the newspapers you read daily; the magazines you receive weekly or monthly; news web sites like CNN, The New York Times, the LA Times, etc., niche news web sites like National Geographic for science and the environment, ESPN for sports, etc. There are also news services that do the searching for you and find items relevant to your area of interest such as Clip & Copy, NewsGator, Google Alerts, and others. If you frequent sites relevant to your own, you can sign-up for their newsletters or RSS feeds and get news from them as well. Once you have the news, you have several options: You can write a post citing the news as it relates to your site, along with links to the news article online. You can notify your users of the news by including teaser text (usually just a sentence copied from the news article) and a link to the news article’s site that says “read more.” You can summarize the news article, include a link to it, and provide your point of view.
• Recalls. Like news, recalls happen. If products are recalled that relate to your site’s area of interest, post about them. You can find recalls online at manufacturers web site and sites like the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.
• Upcoming Events. Post about upcoming events, conferences, meetings, classes, etc., whether these events happen at your business or are just related to your area of interest. You’ll find out about them using the same resources you use to find news.
• Regular Posts. Everybody loves a regular column in the newspaper, whether it’s the kids going for the comics or you hitting the sudoku puzzle, so do the same on your blog. A daily, weekly, or monthly post will keep your visitor’s coming back. You can post about pretty much anything: recipe, photo, software program, quote, game, puzzle, site recommendation… this list is endless. You can find something relevant to your site or you can do what we do on Tech Talk and put up a game which isn’t related to web site design but it provides a little fun and stress relief. You can schedule these posts to publish in advance so there’s no need for you to feel rushed to get things done. Sit down one quiet day and publish a month’s worth of “quote of the day” posts. If you do that, you can then focus on the items that are more time pressing, like the news, or original content which takes more time to research, write, and edit.
• Look and listen for suggestions. If you normally visit forums related to your own site, see what people are asking or looking for and use those “suggestions” to come up with a post. Then you can answer those posts and say I’ve got that information on my site and here’s the link. You win twice with this by getting an idea for your blog and a link to it on the forum for all to see, including the search engines. You can do this with mailing lists and other blogs and comments on them as well. If you’re always being asked the same questions when people call or email, answer them on your blog. You may cut down on the number of calls or emails you get if they can find the answers on your site, you’ll have gotten a good post out of the question and answer, and it’ll be easier for you to answer those questions as you can simply point the person to your site for the detailed answer.
• Ask for suggestions. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, so post a “what do you want me to post about” question and see what comments you get. Don’t forget to ask your friends and co-workers, etc.
• Get Help. Sometimes you just need a helping hand and there’s nothing wrong with asking a friend, business associate, or co-worker to be a guest author. If it works out, it might turn into a regular gig for that person and you’ll get a break as they write their own “column” every once in a while. Don’t forget you can always ask to re-publish something you find elsewhere. A lot of authors and sites are more than willing to grant permission to re-publish their work for credit and a link back.

I’m sure there are plenty of ideas out there for content suggestions, but these should get you started. If you’ve got any to add, just leave a comment!