Blogger burnout? Writers Block? Need new ideas to keep that blog fresh and engaging?
I’m not going to sugar coat it, there is a high probability your blog will be dead within a few months. It’s life cut short before you’ve had a chance to blog your heart out, or maybe that’s the problem. You blogged your heart out and now the ideas have stopped flowing. Worse yet, if your blog has been a hub for your social media activity, you’re now risking cutting off the fresh content for your online communities.
Here are a few ideas to help generate topics for your blog and hopefully breath new life into your writing.
1) Review Your Analytics
You do have this installed don’t you? Or better yet, you do look at you web analytics once in a blue moon don’t you? If you have a chance, take a peek into two areas of your analytics.
The first is the terms people have searched for on your website. That search bar at the top of your site or blog can provide great insight into:
- what people are interested in on your website
- or what people would like to find on your website.
If you are using Google Analytics, log on and go to the content overview. Your site may already be tracking search results through the subfolder “/search/” or perhaps a parameter like “/?s=…./” . Want to make life a bit easier for tracking search? If you are using google analytics you can get the step-by-step walk-through on how to track site search.
The second is the search terms that brought people to your website. What are people finding you for? Why not write more about what is bringing the people to your website? Not to mention, now you are taking the opportunity to do better with your search engine optimization, targeting terms that are already bringing you traffic. Have a look at the referrals from google or bing and see if there are terms that will bring topic ideas to mind.
2) Online Question Forums
Perfect example, Yahoo Answers. What is the world looking for answers to? Go where people ask questions and provide a solution.
Simply do a search for terms related to your blog or business and voila! Instant access to a plethora of content ideas. A simple search of “SEO How To” returned up to 2050 potential blog post ideas. Ideas on what people actually want to know. After writing your forum inspired post why not head back to the source and post a response with a link to your site for the answer…
3) Ask Your Community
Have you been working on fostering your own social communities online? How much do you engage with other communities? Why not throw together a quick poll and ask what your followers and fans would like to read more about? Unless you are writing for just yourself, then please, by all means babble on.
Oh, and timely enough. Facebook just released new Opinion Polls that work within the wall. Now you have a way to get new blog ideas and an ability to spread your ideas through Facebook further. Play with these. THEY ARE FREE!
4) Get Help! Guest Bloggers.
“HEEEEEELLLLLLPPPPP MEEEEEEEEE! Er, I mean, anyone want a great place to promote themselves by providing me with great content to keep MY audience happy? Those sidebar ads won’t click on themselves…” Sorry, that didn’t sound like I was promoting this as a great idea, when in fact it can be.
Having regular guest bloggers can be a great way to freshen up a blog. New content, new styles, new partnerships… this one can depend on who your audience really wants to get their fix from or what they’ve come to expect. It would be like going to Gotham because you want to see Batman and all you get is Robin signing your chest. Make sure people like Robin too and keep an eye on those analytics when you start to shake up the expected consistency.
Yes I have more ideas but time for you to get to work.
(Yes, I did <h3> tag that. It’s is officially a sub heading).
Alright, now go out and blog! If you use one of these methods to research new content ideas submit a link to it below, I’d like to have a read. Have your own way to get over blogger burnout? Let us know?
