The struggle for many content marketers, both new and experienced, is consistently coming up with ideas for creating content. I’ve noticed that many go through a few stages in their struggle to come up with content ideas.
Sometimes it is easy to put pen to paper (of fingers to the keyboard) and write like crazy. The ideas flow easily, the phrases come to you from the ether and life is feeling good.
On the other hand (and it seems like this might be the case more frequently), it is s struggle to come up with one little blog post or article. You sit down and you got, um…. NOTHING!
Let’s take a closer look at those three stages and more importantly, what to do about each one.
3 Stages
Stage 1
Ideas are not flowing – When you sit down to create content you have to repeatedly stop and think about what to write about. The flow has not stopped, it’s just not as easy as it normally is for you.
What to Do – Step back and brainstorm. Make a list of content ideas. Don’t edit – just brainstorm. This is something you need to be doing anyway, so you always have a list of content ideas from which to pull.
Stage 2
Ideas are a struggle – Even when you look at a list of your ideas, nothing pops out for you. It feels like you are seeing the ideas on a list, but they are not making sense in your head, and not making the trip from your head to your fingers.
What to Do – Take a trip to your supermarket and check out the titles on the covers of the magazines in the checkout line. Thousands of dollars have been spent deciding how to title these articles. Find titles that you can use in your niche and get busy creating great content.
Stage 3
You are beginning to believe in writer’s block, even though it does not exist. Ideas are not only not flowing, ideas are just plain stuck. Your frustration level is high, and you’re honestly getting a little bit frightened by your lack of ideas.
What to Do – Go to your topic in EzineArticles and look at some of the top articles in your niche. See which ones are getting lots of traffic. Choose an idea that you know will appeal to your community and simply do a better job with it. This is not plagiarism. This is research because you are simply looking for ideas. You are not copying what someone else has said, you are just going to do a better treatment of it because of your skills.
The Next Step
Your next success step is to grab your spot in our upcoming webinar “Profitable Content Creation – How to Create Profitable Content in 20 Minutes or Less with Jeff Herring” Hosted by me, Paul Taubman on Thursday, April 10th at 7 pm EDT – Join us here => http://JeffHerring.com/pault
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