Amanda Clark
Blogger’s block. It’s very real, especially for small business owners who have to think up new things to say about their business or industry every week—or even every day!
No matter how regularly you blog, you’re going to get stuck for ideas from time to time. You know that your blogs need to be engaging and varied; they can’t simply be self-promotional or extoll the virtues of your company, because frankly, nobody wants to read that kind of thing.
Even when you work in an industry that’s vast and encompasses a lot—home improvement or finance or marketing—you will have days when you draw a blank. You will have days when you fumble for a new blog idea but can’t arrive at one.
Here are a few fallbacks for you, when those days come:
- Make sure you have some Google News alerts set up for a few industry keywords. When something new or noteworthy happens in your industry, that’s very possibly blog fodder. Maybe you want to comment on a new trend. Maybe you want to rebut a new opinion piece. Keeping in the loop about your industry is always good for those who blog.
- Speaking of Google, don’t forget to use it for keyword research. Type a keyword related to your industry into the search bar and see what the Suggested Search terms are; some of them might point you down new avenues for blogging. You can even sign into Google AdWords and use the Keyword Research tools to come up with new topics for blogging.
- Go to your blog comments section and your Facebook page. See what other people are saying. Pay attention to the things your readers care about. Not only will this provide you with some content angles, but you know they’re content angles your readers care about!
- Head to some of your competitors’ blogs! See what they blog about. Avoid just copying them, though; try to use their ideas to springboard to something new. Take their topics in new angles or come at them from different directions.
- Finally, don’t forget to recycle old content! You can find a popular older blog post and repurpose it, perhaps rewriting it as an FAQ or as a list, or writing a “sequel” or follow-up post.
If you’re really stuck, you might want to consider a ghostblogger—and of course, that’s where we come in.
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