I love blogging, I really do. It’s an opportunity to connect with readers, gain an international audience around my cause, and most importantly- to share my wisdom.
There is only one problem; it’s not every day I have an epiphany-level insight to write up in the form of a blog post. And sometimes, there just isn’t all that much time to research and write up a post that would leave Mark Twain jealous.
This is my personal checklist for coming up with great blog post ideas at the drop of a hat.
Controversy
Nothing stirs up responses like a good controversy. Blog about something that people are heated up about and they will respond. They will comment. And if they like what you have to say they will share it on social media. As a professional blogger, it’s important not to go as far as to actually insult anyone, but you can make waves and stir up the controversy. It is even okay to take an unpopular stance on an issue, but if you do take the unpopular position make sure that if you do take the unpopular stance to explain yourself thoroughly.
Story with a Moral
Tell about a mistake that you once made and then explain what you learned from it. In this way you first engage the reader with a story, and everybody loves stories. Then you teach them something cool. But since you admit to your own transgression of the mistake your post won’t come off sounding preachy. These make particularly awesome posts.
Lists Blog Posts
Of course, there are plenty of bloggers that tend to overdo this one, but a good clear list can be a pleasure to read once in a while. List articles are best for subjects that don’t require a whole lot of depth in order to be understandable. For instance, if you want to explain some ways of making money online, that would make a good list.
Introduce Your Readers to Other Blogs
You surely have some blogs that you read regularly. Perhaps your readers would like to know about them. This idea may seem like a quick way to lose readers, but your readers have access to all of cyberspace anyway, introducing them to good things will just make them appreciate you more. This also serves another great purpose, you can get in touch with the bloggers that you have publicized and make them aware of it. They will appreciate it, possibly enough to help you out in the future too.
Talk Instead
Sometimes the written word just doesn’t work as beautifully as the spoken word. Say what you want to say on a simple YouTube video, and write up a short intro as your blog post along with the imbedded video. When readers see your shining face they will feel a more personal connection with you.
Another great aspect of the YouTube video is the backlink you can get from it. When you load up a video to YouTube make sure that you write your url in the summary of the video.
Make sure to include the entire address of your site including the “http,” that way the backlink will work. Even the simplest of YouTube videos are often able to attain a PR of 2 or 3, so a good video can rev up your search engine rankings too.
Oh and one particular blog post type that I try to avoid, no matter how rushed I am is the “Take a Picture of My Greasy Lunch and Blog About It” Yuck.
Happy Blogging!
Image Credits: Explore Abhishek
16 comments
The idea of getting backlinks from youtube is new to me. Thanks for this informative post.
If every blog post looks the same that can get boring. Incorporating different kinds of content, like videos and infographics, into your blog posts is a great way to switch it up. It may even help to attract a new audience.
That’s a good point Nick, a little bit of change can hold a completely different appeal and reach out to different audiences.
These are good suggestions. I really like when a blog offers suggestions or lists of other blog posts to read not only are some of them really good posts but it introduces me to some new blogs that I might not have discovered otherwise.
Good list to go through if I can’t think of anything to write. Thanks for the checklist, maybe I can use it too!
Seems looking very cool with some amazing tips and blogging is the nice way to get good number of traffic and backlinks.
Thanks for the tips! I often find myself wondering about what to write about, so this was very helpful.
I’ve found a lot of my political posts get a lot of traffic (and most of the comments are from people with conflicting political view haha). I guess that would be listed under “controversy.”
This is good point “Introduce Your Readers to Other Blogs” but my opinion is that if you recommend any other blog to your audience they will leave reading your. Very few readers appreciate what they read, many just read and say good, thanks for sharing.
These are good suggestions…….it introduces me to some new blogs ,,,Thanks for this informative post.
Hi,
I agree these styles will be forever and blog commenting will be used by SEO’rs. This is a very effective link building technique when done effectively. Try making natural links on any comment you do.
Thanks
Thanks for sharing. They are quite good suggestions. Thanks
contents that has story and moral lessons that are used as blog post are one of those best quality anyone could read. Since if a content is full of facts and very informative then it will never ran out of style. For it can help a lot of people who tends to stop by and read it. So this also goes to other people who will share the post. Perhaps contents that are made for tutorials and lessons online offered.
I like the last two ideas of blogging and totally agree with you. Last two methods are the best way of doing blog posting. People love video blog instead of reading they want to hear and see… Similarly including picture in blog posting is another good way of doing blog posting.
A blog post is a part of a blogger. So it means that, the content of the post relies on what the blogger is going to formulate. A great post with a great content will surely hook your readers. Just try to avoid making posts with boring ideas.
Susie I agree with you that story telling would be a great blog post idea. I used to write post like this, telling a story of mine, perhaps my experience or things I had gone through in the past, then share my experience about the mistakes and ways to avoid these.
Getting blog post ideas everyday would be a nightmare, so sometimes we may need to do some reading on others blog and the latest news on your niche.
Anyways, good ideas you have here Susie.