Finding Something to Write About
December 3, 2007
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We all get there from time to time.
If our business site has a blog, we know we should post something every so often. Can’t have it getting stagnant. Gotta keep the content fresh.
But what to write?
Maybe there’s nothing happening in our business that we can share at the moment. Perhaps your creative zone is a little overwhelmed with the stress of day to day business?
Well here are some ideas which might help get your creative juices flowing.
Look Around Your Life
This is my personal favorite. Life happens. All around us. By keeping a sharp eye on what is going on around us we can often come up with things to write about.
For example, maybe you just had a surprising light bulb moment that you could share (sort of).
Do you have pets? Did you find your Cats in the Dog House this morning? Sure your pest have nothing to do with your business. But people like cute pictures. And it shows a bit of the human side of your business. Me, I put most of my cat blogs on my personal blog. But they do inspire me from time to time.
Are you active on any social media sites? Perhaps you see something there that eventually grow into something like Visionary Cat Herding Princes of Execution.
Maybe a YouTube video helped you see some Lessons at the Watering Hole. If you learned from it chances are someone else will too.
Maybe life is happening to you right now. Sometimes it’s OK to tell people that It’s Cold in Here. Letting folks know there are real live people at your business is not a bad thing. Not at all.
Bring Forward Popular Posts
Take a look at your site stats. You will probably find a couple posts that get more traffic than the others. Perhaps mention a couple of these posts, bring them forward for your new readers who might not get that deep into your archives.
Or better yet, take a post that is getting particularly good search engine traffic and expand on it. Pile on more value by expanding on a popular topic and you will probably bring even more readers to your site.
Here are some of the more heavily trafficked posts on SuccessCREEations to date:
Six Ways to Make People Like You - Everyone wants to be liked. Who knew? It’s a good topic to expand on. I could probably have a whole category devoted to the posts that are waiting to be written there.
Success Principle #6 - Successful People Overcome Fear - We all have fears. People know their fears are holding them back. A person could build a successful business helping folks overcome their fears. Lots to expand on here.
Success Principle #12 - The Words We Choose to Use Make a Difference - Words have power. Choosing the right words can help you wield more power more responsibly. Writing about words can help get some words on the screen quickly.
Movies
I like movies. Especially good ones. People like to know what’s out there and if you can make a recommendation they’ll appreciate it.
So when you tell them Wild Hogs is Worth the Price of Admission you are providing a service to your readers.
Or perhaps you walked away from a film with some powerful lessons that you can apply like I did with Lessons in Amazing Grace. When you share them everyone wins.
Try Humor
Have you seen something funny lately? Then share a little levity with your readers. Everyone likes to laugh.
This morning I saw this Dilbert cartoon. Having a goatee myself I thought it was funny enough to share.
Winter is gearing up in some parts of the country. One of my Twitter friends mentioned clearing snow off the car. I hope it wasn’t like this.
Write About Writing
As a last resort you can write about writing. When you don’t have anything else to write about, sit down in front of your computer and start writing about what to write if you were stuck writing.
Before you know it you might just have a post that can help others get unstuck.
Sometimes just getting started is the spark you need to get those creative juices flowing.
Chris,
That Dilbert cartoon is superb out-of-the-box thinking!
Mike
I struggle with the idea of being too off topic, or too personal. Which is weird really, because my favorite blogs are both of those things. Being the founder of my company makes me feel like I should be “professional” in my corporate communications, but maybe I’m just being too boring.
Any advice foe working to balance these?
Mike, why is it those unexpected ideas often end up being more brilliant than the ones we work the hardest to come up with?
Advice, That is one of the hardest hurdles to cross with my consulting clients. They are intimidated by the idea of writing about their business week after week. Some are skeptical that anyone would care about where their business intersects their lives. Others are afraid of sounding unprofessional.
The reality is most of the more popular business blogs have a lot of content that share the human side of their writers.
There are times wherein we indeed struggle on what to write it even happens to a lot of professional writers. I think the best way to do is change of environment and become inspired. And also I will keep in mind some of the tips you have listed above. I think it will help me every time I suffered from writers block.
Referate, Changing scenery is a great way to help get the creative juices flowing again.
In fact, I think I’ll go outside right now.
I find a lot of times that if I am pressing to find a topic to write about, I never come up with anything good. It’s a sort of writer’s block I suppose.
You mention writing about movies, but I’d warn against going too far away from the main topic of your blog - I know sometimes I go to a blog and find something totally off topic, I feel like they are wasting my time.
Good point, Gift Ideas. I guess I just assumed that folks would naturally tie in the movie with their blog topic.
Personally I don’t have a problem with a business blog going a little off topic from time to time. It helps me see a little bit about person and fleshes out the humanity of the business.
The beauty of my feed reader is that I can skip articles that don’t interest me.
My husband has been in this “thing” ever since,he has some blog sites just sitting around with nothing in it.He asked me if I wanna write and my answer was “what ” will I write..lol
Yes,most of the time its really hard to stay focus and I dont know what to write but a lot of times too when I’m really into it,Im able to write almost about everything hihihih.
It’s actually quite refreshing to read about something else other than the usual niche of the blog. for example, a business blog can have an entry about a lighter topic. Just to break away from all the usual heaviness that comes with business news. And you’re right to say that it shows a bit of the blogger’s human side. Bloggers are people, too.
I have this idea when I was trying to send out our company Decemeber newsletter. Why won’t we able to say “Merry Christmas” but “Happy Holiday”? Didn’t we all say Merry Christmas when we were little kid?
I think varieties in the posts is good. If we confine ourself to a theme that is too specific, we will get “stucked”.
I suppose it will be good for both the writer and readers to have contents that deviate (not too much though) from the norm once a while. Have fun writing!
I believe other understand too. We are all human, right?
I found out last month just how hard it can be to find something to write about. For my “real job,” I had to come up with 30 topics that we would post about as part of National Blog Posting Month. Anyhow, I’m fortunate enough that my daily life gives me plenty to write about, it’s just the discipline (or time and energy) to actually type it all out!
OMG, seriously, I am not trying to be mean, but if you have nothing to write about, how sad is that?? Even if it’s your commute to work, your thoughts on female vs male business attire, dieting, old people leaving their blinker on…..
Or what you would do differently in starting up your business, ….
seriously, stop concentrating on what to write and just let it come to you! =>
I have plenty of random ideas throughout the day that I think would make for good blog content but could never remember them when I sat down at the computer. So, I have taken to carrying an MP3 recorder in my pocket so I can make a quick voice message of good ideas for content when I think of them. It has worked well so far…
I have found it pretty useful to stay very current in the news arena, and to keep an eye out for trends that are emerging. Those serve as informative posts, as well as building good building blocks for future posts.
We’re in a building stage as well with our site and it’s hard to give updates on things people can’t see going on…those were some good tips. I guess just share personal experiences and some humor is always a good tactic to keep things fresh.
Hi,
I’m not sure that I agree. If I’m reading a business blog, I want product news, developments etc, I don’t want to know that the writer got up late, missed their breakfast and is feeling a bit under the weather, that’s the kind of thing which will stop me going back. I just want concise up-to-date info.
This topic has been discussed over and over again, will a blog’s reader be interested to read content completely unrelated to the content they expected when they signed up for the feed. i can’t say much when it comes to business blogs, but i generally don’t like other niche blogs to stray out of their area of expertise and rant on about other stuff, it so happens that most probably the off topic content might even turn away some readers. So you need to be really careful with this, whats the point in making a post to fill up for a gap in regular posting, and then end up losing readers..
All excellent suggestions, except the ‘write about writing’ part. With all due respect, Chris, that may help to clear writers block, but it’s a real turnoff for readers. It sends a message that the author has nothing to say. I say this not as an argument, but because I have tried this( more times than I wanted to). Just my 2 cents, so if I’m wrong, my apologies…
I am the primary admin for a team blog that focuses on counterterrorism issues, particularly from a techie/activist standpoint. The way our blog is set up, we NEVER run out of stuff to write about. For all of us on the blog team, the scarce resource is not ideas about what to write about, but the time it takes to get it all written and posted.
The key thing is to stoke your mental furnace with plenty of fuel, a/k/a “food for thought,” ahead of time.
Here’s where I get my material: I have a TON of RSS feeds coming into Google Reader, and I check them frequently. I don’t read every feed item that comes in - that would be impossible - but I read a good sampling from each of them. These feeds include everything from humor sites to science feeds to hard news to geek blogs to current events/political opinion blogs to personal blogs from people I have gotten to know. I get even more material on Twitter, on Gulf Coast Pundits, or sent to me by email or on StumbleUpon.
From there, I keep a mental list of items that I have an opinion about, or want more people to become aware of, or about which I want feedback from other people. I pass some of these things to other team members, for use on 1389 Blog or on their own blogs, as they choose.
For my own writing for the blog, I sometimes need to let it percolate in my mind for a little while, or discuss it with another team member, to come up with a good approach. Ideally, a blog post should cause the audience to see a topic in a new way, to make some new mental connections, to understand something that was previously not clear to them, or to find something useful that they can actually do on their own.
That said, there are times when burnout is a problem, at least for me. Too many flame wars, too many depressing news items, too much work, too little sleep, too many problems with hardware or connectivity, etc. Over Christmas, I put 1389 Blog on vacation and simply posted music and videos. And guess what - it got tons of traffic.
Hi Chris,
We’re in the process of setting up a blog for our site. I think with our site quality is more important than quantity. For example.. I’ll be using our blog to review items and I think it’s important the review information is accurate or we may lose credibility. Sometimes less is more ?
We can write a post about something we experience, but I think it takes some talent. We need to be critical and thoughtful. And that…is something that I still have difficulties on
I think Referate made a really good point. But I would expand on it a bit. It’s more than just a change of environment, it’s a change of ‘what you are thinking about’. Creativity and inspiration often come from newness. In other words, expose your brain to new experiences, new environments and forget about your writing for a short time. That should help ‘prime the pump’ again.
When I lack inspiration or I am not in the mood for writing I just go out and take a long walk on the park. Watching people and their activities relaxes me somehow.
A blogger must write about what s/he knows best and what s/he likes most.
That would make blogging enjoyable and easier. It also bring quality.
You have describe this topic in such a way that every body can understand it easily. I hope you will keep on providing such information.
Thanks
I have the same problem too sometimes when I just can´t think of anything good and informative to write about.I have purchased a few PLR articles which I re-write and add some more information to.
It’s always helpful to read something like this. Sometimes it’s not easy to write a blog, but there are always ways out. Thanks!