Looking for ideas of what to blog about next?
Here’s the “secret strategy” I’ve been using lately to come up with new ideas that will deliver value to my readers and drive search engine traffic.
Answer a Question
One great way to come up with post ideas that will be helpful for your readers is to find out what questions they’ve got and answer them.
When you answer questions you’ve got a great shot at search engine traffic since people are likely typing that question into search engines to find the answer!
How to Find a Question to Answer
Check one of the question and answer sites to see what questions people are asking around the topics you blog about.
For example:
- www.quora.com
- www.ask.com
- www.blurtit.com
- answers.yahoo.com
- answers.google.com (still searchable even those no new questions can be submitted)
Here’s how it works at Quora
Step 1: Go to Quora.com and find the search box at the top of the page.
Step 2: Put in the keywords or phrase you want to find a question about.
As you type, suggestions will pop up. You can click on a suggestion to go directly to that topic or question.
Step 3: Find a question that inspires a blog post idea!
In a search for “blogging” all of these ideas come to mind for me from browsing through the list of questions:
- how to convert blog traffic
- how to use your blog to generate leads
- what to look for in a WordPress theme
- how to add advertising to your website
- strategies to promote your blog
- how often to blog based on your goals
- how to turn wordpress into a wiki style website
- brainstorming blogging ideas
- how to use Twitter to drive traffic to your blog
- how to deal with spam on your blog
10 ideas in 10 minutes or less!
Your Turn!
Try a couple of the question sites and see what ideas you find to post about. Does this help inspire post ideas? I’d love to hear how it works for you, so please share in the comments.
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Hi Michelle,
Thanks for the great tip, I already added it to my evernote, to use when I’m out of ideas ;)
Lena
Awesome. :) Evernote is a very cool tool.
What a clever and fun way to breathe new life into our blog topics. I just discovered an intriguing question on Quora that generated 32 comments so far.
Thanks, once again, for sharing fresh and useful ideas.
It’s a fun way to see what people are talking about. :) Thanks for stopping by, Flora.
Michelle – what a brilliant way to come up with new ideas that are relevant to what people are looking for, genius. I use OneNote to store these gems so it will be going in there right after I finish this comment.
Thanks for sharing.
Lynn Baillie
Good plan, Lynn. :)
I have used Yahoo and Ask for for fresh ideas for my blog but I’ve never used Quora or Blurtit. Typing keywords into Google will bring ideas for your posts as well.
Thanks for sharing Michelle
I should try Google–there’s a million ideas waiting to be blogged! :)
This is great advice Michelle and in my line of work people ask many questions. Thanks for sharing.
A very smart way to create content to write about Michelle. I think we all hit a brick wall at some time or other when it comes to creating good content.