Ever since I was a kid, I enjoyed writing down my ideas...
Great ideas pop up all the time.
And I know you have awesome ideas and stories that you want tell the world about.
So here are 6 tricks that will help you to get your ideas out to the world...
1. Write every idea down
Take a small notebook or use a mobile app to capture every idea you have.
Don’t let your valuable ideas disappear because of distractions or simply forgetting them.
You never know when (or if) they will pop up again.
Once you've got a topic idea you want to create an article about, write it down.
Don’t wait for the most wonderful idea, just write down any idea you get.
You can tweak it later, or build on it, but don’t wait until you start writing to come up with ideas.
When you start writing a blog post, the blank screen and blinking cursor have a tendency to wipe your mind of ideas temporarily. :)
Always have a pool of ideas ready to write about.
Without this pool of ideas, you'll waste a lot of time thinking instead of writing.
Instead of writing an article in 3 hours, you'll spend 3 days, just because you spent the first two days trying to think of a good idea for a blog post.
It's hard to force great ideas to show up.
That's the weird thing about them.
Once you stop trying to force yourself to come up with great ideas, and work on something else (like vacuuming your car), they suddenly show up again.
Go figure.
So, instead of wasting your precious writing time trying to come up with ideas, just catch them the moment they pop up.
2. Read great blogs
In blogging, like business, if you want to be great, you have to study greatness.
Learn from great competitors to find your own competitive advantage.
What exactly can you provide better than other great blogs in your niche, to make your blog stand out?
Create list of the best blogs that are similar to yours, and follow the bloggers behind them everywhere.
Find them in other channels, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Determine their strengths and weaknesses, and how you can benefit from that information to provide something unique.
You'll need to regularly check their content.
After analyzing your competitors, ask yourself:
What are my strengths and weaknesses?
Focus on your strengths, and work to minimize your weaknesses.
3. Ask, "How can I help?"
Have you ever wondered how a first time visitor found your blog?
Most of the time, people like me and you search for solutions on Google.
We use questions to find what we want.
So, to write better blog posts, your content should solve problems.
You can actually find great content ideas by seeing the actual questions that your readers ask everyday.
QuestionSpy will show you all the questions your readers are asking...so you know what content to write about.
By getting this valuable insight, you'll be able to get more ideas to help you to solve their problems.
Eventually, the fact that you help them solve their problems will make your blog stand out.
At the end of each blog post, ask you readers to post comments with questions or thoughts that they might have.
Let them give back, by helping you understand their needs.
Also, put your contact info in a visible place in your blog, so that visitors will easily be able to contact you with questions.
And don’t underestimate the power of social media in terms of pages and groups, where you can interact, engage in discussions and get feedback quickly.
4. Go comment diving
When I was a kid, I knew a police officer who would dumpster dive while on duty late at night.
He'd patrol shopping malls and when he drove around the back, he'd find incredible stuff just being thrown away.
He made money selling this "trash" on eBay and at flea markets and yard sales.
There's a ton of information about your target audience at your fingertips, available for free.
Most of it isn't being used by your competitors.
Turn their "trash" into your treasure.
One of the best places to learn about your target audience (their problems, challenges and interests) is in the comment section.
After creating a list of related blogs in your niche, you'll need to regularly visit them and read their comments.
This will help you understand your audience so you can write content they love.
Join the conversations.
Don't spam.
Share real value.
When you "compete" with other bloggers, you're competing to see who can provide the most value to your readers.
This "competition" is a win-win for your readers.
So, when you join the conversation on other blogs, simply add value.
As a reward, you'll get all the knowledge you need to write better blog posts.
5. Write "sequels"
Research your niche, find problems to solve, and then put them on a list.
Re-purpose every piece of content to create more related content.
Then, schedule your publishing on a monthly or yearly calendar based on certain themes or topics.
Take this article as an example.
It's intended to help you with writing better blog posts.
I can then take each point here and write six more posts, one for each of these tricks, going into further detail and providing more value.
I could then write more detailed content about the tips on those pages, and so on.
Choose a theme for the month or quarter, and focus on that specific topic.
Don't just post about a topic one time.
Why?
Because if you don’t have any related content on the topic, people in your audience who are only interested in this specific topic right now don't have anything else to read.
6. Harness topic trends
To write better blog posts that (more) people really want to read, you should know what keyword trends are happening in your market.
You can use Google Trends to find trending keywords.
You'll learn which keywords or topics are trending up, and can new content topics to write about.
If you want to speed up the process and find hidden trends, take a look at TrendMiner Pro.
TrendMiner Pro finds hot keyword trends, and will help you to avoid wasting time writing blog posts for topics that are dying.
Here's another tip.
Grab that list of ideas you are making (the one I mentioned earlier) and search for trends around those topics.
You'll find topic trends, and you'll know exactly which ones are the best to begin writing about.
The moral of the story:
Getting a Top 10 rank for a keyword
with steady volume is good.
Getting a Top 10 rank for a keyword
that is growing 5% is great.
Getting a Top 10 rank for a keyword
that is growing 5,000%+ is extraordinary.
Just get started...
There's a lot of information here.
Don't get overwhelmed, just start.
In order to write better blog posts, write down every idea you get and don’t wait till you start writing.
Know exactly what other related blogs are providing better than you, and find something that you only can provide better.
Write blog posts people really want by solving problems.
Find what problems your target audience has already. (see QuestionSpy)
Go deeper in every topic you write about, so that you don’t lose audience interest and fully cover every problem you are trying to solve.
Utilize the publicly available trend data to make sure you are not talking to yourself on an isolated island. (see TrendMiner Pro)
And let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below...
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