We are deep in the Ultimate Blog Challenge – actually, we are on Day 8. Each day, participants are provided with an idea of what they can write about on their site. Participants can use the suggestion or brainstorm for their own idea.
When you are trying to choose a niche for blogging, or you have chosen a niche but you need to come up with ideas for blog posts, then you need to learn how to brainstorm. Brainstorming is a great way to come up with a lot of topics in a short period of time. Everyone has a different way of learning, so their brains think differently. Here are a few different ways to brainstorm ideas for your blog.
Mind Maps — This way of brainstorming is for people who are right brained. If you’re right brained you’re more artistic and can think better in pictures. Essentially, a mind map starts with writing down a keyword in the middle of a piece of paper, then drawing branches out to other words, and more branches from those words. It starts looking a bit like a map. Do this for about 15 minutes without judgment.
Free Writing — This technique works well for left brain people who are more analytical and need things to be streamlined.聽 Just start writing down a list of topics, giving some space in between so that you can write subtopics under each main topic. If you use the computer and a word processing program to do this it’s much more simple than pen and paper. Give yourself a time limit of 15 minutes to just write whatever topics come to mind.
Look at All Sides — Take your list of topic ideas and look at it from all sides. In literary circles, this is called “cubing”. A cube has six sides, so you need to look at each topic from six different points of view. The six sides of the cube stand for: Describing, comparing, associating, analyzing, applying and arguing (for or against).
Organize Everything — Once you have a list of topics, now you need to organize them. Chunk them together into like groups, and then look at your calendar and determine where these topics would best fit. Once you have the topics organized, you can finally get started on the implementation of your ideas.
Remember the 5 W’s — For each topic that you’ve come up with, to write about them, simply remember the 5 W’s from high school English class. Write about the Who, What, When, Where and Why of the topic. Finally, you can add in the How of any topic too and come up with a great blog post.
Research Keywords — Another way to come up with topics is to do some keyword research into your niche. The keywords themselves can become titles to posts, and even new products if you take each keyword and practice the 5W’s and cubing.
As you do any of these activities it’s imperative that you are focused on the audience and how they will view these topics. You may need to break them down if your audience are beginners, you may need to approach things from a new angle if your audience are seasoned professionals. Never forget who you’re writing for, and why. The purpose of your blog is as important as the topic.
Thanks very much for that post, Paul!
I am sure this will come in handy!
Amy
Keep it handy, Amy! ANd nice to see your gravatar 馃檪
I collect notes, thoughts, articles and store them in OneNote and Mendeley. Then, when I am ready to write, I search by keyword and can pull a slew of these together to use for my post (or series of posts). I am NOT a Post-It kind of guy- too often, the fans in my room render them confetti that I must clean up.
LOL – I can just picture that, Roy! All sorts of Post-It Notes flying around!
Mind maps are one of my favorite ways to brainstorm. (Yup. I’m right brained. 馃檪 ) I’ve found Keyword research kinda challenging in the past, but your suggestion for the 5W’s has me intrigued. Thanks, Paul!
I use MindMaps on and off… When I use them, I like them a lot! For some reason, however, I don’t use them for a while until I remember them – LOL.
I actually really enjoy the brainstorming process for coming up with new topics for my blog…I just need some work on keeping them organized! I have notebooks full of random lists and keywords scribbled down on any available scrap of paper I have handy, lol.
Find something that works… and stick with it! Maybe put those scraps into a notebook that you keep on your desk?
The 5Ws are my secret weapon for content organization. I occasionally use mind maps to brainstorm and save/bookmark research sites in ‘Pocket’ in Google Chrome. When I’m ready to write, I use tools and general search terms for keyword research and include in the title and sprinkle throughout the content. Great cheat sheet for those new to blogging.
I will use mindmaps occasionally to track things!
These are great tips Paul.5Ws help when nothing else does.
Glad they helped! Wait.. did they help? LOL
Thanks for the ideas Paul! I thought I had enough ideas for the month but I’m almost at the stumbling point at only a week into it! We are so busy cleaning out our shop of 53 years, I’m becoming brain dead!
Glad to help, Martha!
When I started The Boomer Explorer blog in 2017, I was in panic mode regarding coming up with new and relevant blogs each and every week. However, I was definitely surprised with just the opposite…I believe I have instituted, and have been around Paul’s Inner Circle group long enough, a combination of his tactics works that works well for me. Sometimes I don’t plan what I am going to write because after watching the news shows, I usually get 2 or 3 ideas to incorporate into blog series for the weeks ahead. And Paul has also passed on to me something I didn’t believe in the beginning, and that is you most likely will never run out of ideas. And, he was right!
Thank you for the kind words, Sherry!
These are some awesome tips. I tend to do a lot of free writing and then try to organize it.
Two-Thumbs Up, Angel!
love these tips and have used them in some capacity or the other.. need to learn to work on my mind maps some more..
i put my ideas and interesting links for inspiration on a google doc for myself..
this post is going there too, for inspiration 馃檪
Awwww… thanks, Vidya!
Mind mapping isn’t for everyone. Personally, I go in spurts… I will use them a lot, and then they just seem to drop off. Then at some point, the pop up again and I start using them again. The cycle continues!