How you do develop blog ideas?

TheArticulate Level 1

August 25, 2017, 10:34 am

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I'm not a blogger by any means, but I do enjoy reading certain blogs that are in my interest areas. For those of you who are bloggers, how do you develop your ideas for a blog? I assume you choose to write on a topic that you're knowledgeable about and have a passion for, but how do you keep your content fresh, original, and standing out from the crowd?

What have you found is the most difficult thing about maintaining your own blog?

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Tronia

Tronia

You can find ideas and inspiration everywhere around you. All that you have to do is keep your eyes and ears opened! You can find content for blogs on radios, television, newspaper, trending things on social media and more. Sometimes it can be hard just because there are so many topics already covered by people - you do want to stick out from the crowd but you can do that if you manage to find new approaches or point of views on topics. It takes creativity and thinking out of the box.

Most of the time I don't find it difficult though because I read a lot and inspiration just flies into my mind!

9 years ago

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Baburra

Baburra

I agree with you. I also listen to radio and watch television a lot so I am almost never out of ideas. I try to keep an eye and an ear open for topics and I make sure to list them down so I don't waste the ideas. I don't even actively do it just for the topics, but more so I just do it for recreation and the ideas just pop up as I do it. As long as you know what to look for, you can find ideas anywhere by just watching and listening to media and talking to people.

9 years ago

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treecko142

treecko142

Definitely, current events in the news are great sources of inspiration for your daily blog, and writing about your hobbies and any interesting anecdotes can help you provide a good content for your website. Branching from current events, you can do something like a 'today in history' type of content where you can mention something important that happened on that date in history or in your life.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

I tend to draw from my own life a lot and to incorporate current events and interesting things that I have read or experienced which I feel that an audience would appreciate or be entertained by. I also always try to incorporate an element of humor in all of my blogs. Life is short and tough, and even when I am tackling a very tough subject, even a tragic subject, I try to provide some levity, or at least positivity, for my readers and visitors. This isn't always easy, but the challenge of it keeps me going no matter what subject I am tackling.

9 years ago

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TheArticulate

TheArticulate

I definitely think you're taking the right approach to your blogging methods. One of my favorite humorists is David Sedaris, and if he'd dedicated himself to blogging I bet he would have been just as successful at that as he is with writing memoirs.

He takes various life experiences, some of the rather grim or tragic, and puts his unique outlook to them and somehow makes the topics not just more manageable for me as a reader, but able to comprehend it in a lighter tone and from a different perspective.

It's definitely a great skill to have, making people laugh!

9 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

I also get ideas from the things I hear, see, and feel. When I watch the evening news, I always get something that can be made into a blog even if it's not directly related to my niche. I don't know what it's called but an idea will spring forth from seeing something. For example, the news report is about a truck that hit a child. My niche is pets and that incident will create an idea that is related to the niche - what if that truck hits a stray dog? So maybe that can be a root for a blog about stray dogs.

9 years ago

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treecko142

treecko142

yeah, it's a great way to share your thoughts on your experiences and is also relatively easy to do compared to other stuff to blog about since you don't even have to research as much because you've experienced a particular situation firsthand. From there, you can just relate whatever you did in that situation and how others can learn from your experiences too.

8 years ago

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Authord

Authord

Well, i don't own a blog that i write on, but they are many ways to generate blog ideas, you can probably use anything, your environment, the news you heard on the radio, some people make use of google trends also. but it all depends on your niche or level of expertise.
And many make use of movies, I’ve read some great blog posts inspired by movies like Moneyball or performers like Lady Gaga and Adele. Inspiration is everywhere if you take the time to look, and time away from the office will stimulate your mind and reboot your creativity, especially if you feel burned out (which let’s face it, is when blogger’s block tends to strike).

9 years ago

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Barida

Barida

I agree with you that it is all about being able to think outside of the current office environment. You cab hardly say that one is lacking ideas with the avalanche of things that can aft as source of motivation to write.

9 years ago

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Painterly

Painterly

There are so many circumstance-dependant answers to this question that it would take an entire book to speak authoritatively on the subject. Perhaps the best succinct answer I can give is to always start your posts by keeping your readers' perspectives in mind. You have to weigh this against what your marketing objectives are.

For instance; if you are affiliated with a marketer trying to sell dog biscuits you need to push the product, but you also need to be thinking about what it is the reader is looking for in the product. So long as you remember that your pitch must contain information that is valuable to people who will never purchase the product you will probably do alright. It's worth mentioning that people came to your blog of their own volition. Because of this, you want your focus to be on adding value to any pitch you are involved with, more so than arbitrarily trying to stand out.

"What have you found is the most difficult thing about maintaining your own blog?"

The hardest part about blogging, for me, has always been keeping up with the amount of material I need to produce to keep my blog relevant. I understand that may seem like an unsatisfying answer, given the wide array of nuances one must keep in mind while formatting any particular body of information to any specific need. However, it is easier to lose readership than it is to gain it. Simply keeping the flow of relevant information at a steady pace can be a miserable grind. This is why it's important to write about topics that you know something about, and have a passion for, to begin with! If you start out on a platform of prior knowledge you will have a much easier time building a meaningful body of posts which will make a dent in any specific search terms you are trying to place under.

9 years ago

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Baburra

Baburra

I just keep a notepad where I list ideas. This way I always have a library I can pull from whenever I'm facing a creative block. As for where I get my ideas from on what to write in my notes in the first place, I just get it from watching TV or Youtube or sometimes from listening to podcasts. I just make sure to write anything down that pops up in my head so whenever I'm driving or in the shower and I think of something I make sure to write it down immediately on my phone when I get the chance. Since I started doing this I almost never run out of ideas on what to write anymore because at any given time I always have at least 20 topics I can choose from.

9 years ago

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galegatling

galegatling

Same. I sometimes forget something which I think will be a good thing to blog about. So ever since, I try to list them all down. Sometimes I would save them on my phone and then later on, put it on my computer together with the list of topics that I would want to blog.

I usually blog about things that interests me, and interests everyone else. I often don't blog about trending things because for sure there are a lot of bloggers out there who are already keeping an eye out for such viral events. I tend to write about controversial stuffs but haven't published any of them yet. :'D

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

I don't know why it never occurs to me to use my phone to record my ideas for writing. I guess I am still a bit of a Luddite. I like the motor action of writing things down in notebooks, and I like accumulating them as they make a little collection on my shelf as I fill them up. I think there are tons of ideas for blogs out there--it seems like the possibilities would be endless. I try to write about things I am knowledgeable about and care about, for the most part.

9 years ago

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galegatling

galegatling

I am sure there came a time where you thought of something really good and you feel like writing about it but after a few moments you got yourself tied up to something else, which would definitely make you forget about the topic or thing that got you interested with in the first place. Now having a handy notepad or memo from your phone would save that! Sometimes, us writers have hard time trying to remember about something. I mean, I don't know you guys might not have that problem but I sure do.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

Babura,
I constantly keep a journal, usually a little black Moleskine, where I jot down my ideas from time to time. I write down things that I hear on the radio, when I am out and about, things I hear in nature, and things I hear from conversations with others as I am working and making my rounds every day. I also, like you, get a lot of ideas, especially for my fiction writing, from podcasts and online programs, blogs, and forums. I think it is very smart to keep journals and use them to reference and record concepts and ideas.

9 years ago

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LeJayJ

LeJayJ

I've often wondered the same thing myself. Where do people come up with their ideas for blogs and how on earth do they find anything new to say with so many blogs out there? I was writing a blog for just over two years and it was actually gaining some ground with some days getting as many as 300-400 hits, but I stopped for personal reasons. Finding something to write about was initially easy because it was about my relationship with a man who is twenty seven years younger than me and at first there was lots to say, but as time went on it got harder and harder to come up with something fresh. So outside of writing about the day to day frustrations that are born of such a relationship, I branched out a little and included stuff from my past as well as some poems I've written. Throughout it all I included music videos that for whatever reason, seemed in keeping with the blog post of the day. It seemed as long as I stay true to my original style and spoke freely and from the heart, people kept coming back. Over half my views were from people who had viewed the blog before. All I can say is, you have to enjoy writing your blog or you're going to dry up no matter how broad a topic you choose.

9 years ago

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Barida

Barida

In my opinion, I think you should have taken time to divert in a way to other related niches about the man you're talking about in the sense that you could talk about other men related to the man and all that. Losing the consistency is not quite cool.

9 years ago

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DarthHazard

DarthHazard

I'm developing a gaming platform/social network and I am glad that it is the gaming niche because you don't need much inspiration or ideas to write content for the blog section. All you have to do is post about the latest gaming news, trailers and announcements. But if I had to suggest a way for other users who may struggle to come up with their own blog ideas, I would suggest that they look at other blogs. There is no shame in getting inspiration from competitors, even the big companies do it from time to time. Of course, ensure that you don't just blatantly copy it.

9 years ago

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Painterly

Painterly

I would argue a person in your position has an enhanced need to provide unique content over many other forms of blogging! The video games journalism niche is the very definition of over-saturation. There are so many people talking about what's coming out, and curating either the industry-side or consumer-side of the group-think zeitgeist that you have little chance of ranking well organically for almost any search term you can imagine.

Short of dumping advertising dollars into your blog, you are really going to need to weave a narrative that connects what you love, or hate, about any specific gaming topic to your readers' hearts. Think about how James Rolfe went about it. His "Angry Video Game Nerd" series was far from the first to cover the topic of classic video games. Even when it first debuted, it was just one of many riding a wave of then-burgeoning nostalgia for the golden age of 8 and 16-bit gaming. What really set him apart and made him the Leviathan he is today is how he formatted that message into a narrative about how some of these notable games are really awful. He brought out the humor in that topic and even showed how a terrible game can have a special place in our memories despite what a piece of junk it was.

I'm not saying you should go out and trash everything to be like the Nerd, but you do need to find a unique angle to work which is based on your own perspective. Let people into your thoughts and connect the dots between your shared gaming experience and the search terms you're trying to place under.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

This is such a smart idea for a blog, I think, because it comes with such an avid fanbase right out of the gate, like a cooking idea blog I think was mentioned here as well, unless I am confusing this forum with another. I guess it depends upon if you want to talk about just one game, a specific genre of games, or multiple games across multiple genres. Of course, I think that a vlog would be even better for this purpose because of the visual nature of the gaming world, but it's a great idea either way. I also agree with you that getting inspiration from similar sources and should be common sense.

9 years ago

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Martinsx1

Martinsx1

Starting a niche on gaming seems very lucrative because I seriously doubt if gaming discussion would ever be fully exhausted as there are tons of new games that are being produced on daily basis which would require a new discussion.

Getting inspiration from other people's blog isn't a bad idea as long as the person doesn't copy exactly what he saw on such blogs.

9 years ago

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DarthHazard

DarthHazard

It is pretty lucrative if you can do it properly and get ahead quickly. Unfortunately, it's also not the easiest niche to get ahead in because of how many gaming sites there are out there. The niche is truly saturated which is not great. In terms of inspiration, I agree with you. As long as you don't copy directly then getting inspiration from another blog or site is fine.

9 years ago

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radiowaves

radiowaves

I just try to write about things I feel passionate about. I think that you can't make people interested in things you're not interested yourself. Writing about some recent fad works for general content creating, but managing your own blog should have an element of uniqueness and personality that distinguishes it from the rest and the best way to achieve that uniqueness is to make it personal. I'm not saying that you should write about yourself, just about things you have close to your heart. When you really care about your subject theme it's easier to make the reader feel interested in what you're writing about it. A friend of mine managed to get decent traffic for a blog in an area as crowded as movies by simply being as honest as possible; not saying that pandering is a bad way to get readers, but in blogging honesty will always stand out.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

I think you are right about honesty and about writing about what you care about. I think that people still definitely react to integrity and that they will always respond positively to a voice that seems real and trustworthy. We live in a world of media spin, fake news, and mass deception, n many levels, so an honest voice crying out in the wilderness, or the cloud, I guess, is something refreshing regardless of the subject it is crying out about.

9 years ago

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peachpurple

peachpurple

Honesty in blog writing is a good way to bring out the natural traffic from readers. People prefer to read the truth

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

Of course they do--people do desire some authentic connections with others, especially in a materialistic world which can be terribly superficial. When people can discern truth in your content, they will return to it, over and over, because, I think. truth is so hard to find these days in all forms or our media.

9 years ago

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rj02jogoy

rj02jogoy

Everyone has their own styles/preferences for writing/reading blog posts. How you write your blog posts will likely depend on your blog's topic, your audience, and your goals. For example, a blog post about computer programming would likely be very instructional, where as a blog about relationships would likely be more emotional.

As a company, Blogging today is the best resort you have to creating a two-way relationship with your customers, while getting them to know you and your offerings better. While writing a blog, or any content for your brand for that matter, it is important that you portray yourself as an informed expert who has a fair idea of what they’re talking about. And unfortunately there are no shortcuts to that.You have to research and find out what you are talking about.

9 years ago

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Barida

Barida

I agree with you that blogging should be all about styles of doing it and not necessarily on how we try to cope with the pressure. Having that unique style should be great.

9 years ago

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iamawriter

iamawriter

Once the niche is decided on, getting ideas is not very difficult If the niche is provided then I would certainly take the help of the Net to help me. This was how I went about when I was writing articles at iwrite. The requester would give us projects to write on. I would then search for information relevant to the topic.
I do not see any reason why a personal blog would be difficult for producing ideas.

9 years ago

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galegatling

galegatling

There are factors to consider when writing blogs. As for you, since you are probably an ordinary or go-with-the-flow writer, it will be somewhat easy for you to search anything specially that you said you already have a niche to write about. That's not somehow the case with other bloggers who think outside the box. I myself, struggle on finding something to write about that is unique or isn't similar to any other blog posts out there. It's just hard.

9 years ago

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iamawriter

iamawriter

In my opinion, getting noticed has nothing to do with how much 'out of the box' stuff your blog is made of but how many follow you. Putting backlinks in your blog is one way and also 'exchange of links' will also help.
What you want is traffic and there are ways to get it.

9 years ago

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Martinsx1

Martinsx1

Choosing a niche is very important when it comes to deciding to start a personal blog, but care must be taken when deciding on this niche in not choosing a niche which has already been depleted. This would make people not take interest in anything the blog would offer because it's already an exhausted discussion.

9 years ago

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CampingNana

CampingNana

Blogging and coming up with ideas is not an easy task by any means. I really believe that a person that has a popular trending blog needs to protect their intellectual property if you will. All writers need to be cautious about putting their writing, designs, patterns, ideas online now that every country in the world has access to the internet. I am a mother of three grown children and a grandmother of 4, with one on the way. I am very cautious when it comes to posting any pictures of my family. Basically because any of the pictures can now be clipped, captured and used by anyone. That to me is scary, maybe I am old-school, but I feel the need to protect my family. I will be the first to admit, though, it is really hard not to share special moments with all my family and friends on the internet. It brings me great happiness to see all the responses and comments on how beautiful my family is. Be aware, and cautious but at the same time embrace change and keep on blogging.

9 years ago

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Soulwatcher

Soulwatcher

My blog has a easy subject, however my problem is finding the time and energy to write nice long drawn out articles. So I have been doing short articles with pictures. My real life is a mess right now and I am getting things ready for a move in 2 months. So I dont have the proper time, but as soon as I get the time I am going to start writing articles that get google searches. Because that's the type of visitors I am after.

9 years ago

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mar06

mar06

Actually I'm not good at doing blog idea but the only tips I can say to get a successful blog first you need to ensure first the genuine information and detail of you certain blog before you use it. And make sure that you know everything about the blog that you will use because that is so important to answer those question of people who ask about your blog.

9 years ago

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