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Finding the Ideas – What to Write About

advice | copywriting
Flatlay of someone writing in an open notebook

Coming up with ideas for new content is not always as easy as it seems. Eventually, the well of ideas runs dry as you realise you’ve tackled all the common subjects in your particular field. So, what do you write about? How do you find new ideas to keep your content fresh and current? Here are 4 ideas to help!

Read blog posts

It might seem a bit of a cheat to read other blog posts in order to get ideas for your own. But, actually, by reading what others are saying with similar businesses to yours, you should become inspired with new ideas about what to write about for your own business.

The key here is the word “inspire”. No one likes a copycat and you should totally put your own spin on an idea to make it unique to you and your content. But, honestly, there is no such thing as a completely unique idea anymore. We are all churning out and repeating ideas. But what you can bring to the table is YOUR TAKE ON IT. That is completely different and unique to what anyone has done before. That is the thing you should aim to focus on.

Another option with reading similar blog posts is that you might have a difference of opinion, in which case, share that! Respond to opinions with your own well-reasoned arguments, offer a different way of thinking. Don’t be argumentative for argument’s sake – if you agree with someone else’s ideas, that’s ok too! But discussion and differences of opinion keep the conversations alive and are interesting for people to read about.

Flatlay of someone writing in an open notebook

Keep a notebook

Ideas will pop up all over the place – while you’re cooking dinner, while you’re sitting in the garden drinking a beer or glass or wine, while you’re walking around the supermarket, while you’re just drifting off to sleep for the night (that one is most annoying!). If you don’t scrawl those ideas down immediately, I guarantee you that *poof*, like Keyser Söze, they’ll be gone. I say this from absolute, infuriating experience.

Keep a notebook to hand so that when inspiration does strike, you have a method of recording those ideas. Or if the antiquated method of a notebook doesn’t grab you – sorry, but I’m still a huge fan of the good old fashioned pen and paper – then set up a space on your phone to note those ideas down. Just have them in a place where you can find them easily, ok?

Ask your audience

Who better to ask what to talk about than the people you’re relaying your information to – your audience! There’s a good chance they may have some questions for you, or want your opinion on a particular piece of information, so ask them! It’s also a great way to get some audience participation going on, right? So turn the tables – ask them to pose you questions that you can then tackle in blog posts.

Brainstorm!

This is fast becoming one of my favourite past-times when I’ve got a few minutes. I’ll just grab a clean sheet of paper and pick one area of my business which I’ll scribble down in the middle and then I’ll try and write everything I can think of about that one particular subject. Then I’ll try and break each of those sub-points down, and maybe I’ll go down another level if I can manage it.

Hey look, it doesn’t always work but usually, I can come away with at least 3 or 4 different things to say about a subject that I can write in 3 or 4 separate posts.

Brainstorm, brain dump – whatever you want to call it – get that shit out onto paper and figure out how much you already know.

hands rest on laptop keyboard ready to type

I could get more specific about places you can search online for inspiration but the purpose of this post is simply to get you to stop and look around you, chances are you’ll naturally gravitate towards a search engine at some point these days!

The point is, open your horizons – look outside of your circle and make the effort to dig out those ideas. What you’ll actually find is that, once you start opening yourself up to ideas and jotting them down, a lot more tend to come to the party. Give it a try! And don’t forget to write them down!