10 Ideas To Inspire Your Blogging

We’ve talked many times about how much we love writing, or blogging here at CubeSquared. We love doing it for ourselves on topics to help you and we’re always advocating for a blog to be included in any websites we develop for our clients. It’s one thing to have a blog, but quite another to write for it consistently.

In the early days of a blog, inspiration tends to come pretty easily. The honeymoon period means there are plenty of topics to write about, whether it’s telling your customers about your new (or existing) products or services or talking about how you can help them. The list of topics goes on, but not always for very long.

Regular blogging means that, sooner or later, you’re going to hit a creative wall. Whether that‘s due to running out of ideas of your own or experiencing some writer’s block from looking at the blank page for too long.

It can be hard to keep going, especially when the easiest thing is to close it down or just stop writing, but you must persevere. To help you out, we’ve come up with 10 ideas to give you some renewed inspiration when it comes to your blog. Enjoy!

1. USE YOUR AUDIENCE

Unless your blog is brand new, in which case you should have plenty of ideas, you will have a dedicated audience for your online musings.

Having a community of avid readers is a great feeling, but you can also use them to your advantage when the creative well is running dry.

To generate new ideas you can utilise your community of fans, think of it like a hive mind. If you don’t want to ask them outright (which you absolutely can), take a look at the comments section of your previous blogs. There is bound to be feedback from them over time, whether it’s constructive criticism, ideas, questions, things you might have missed or their own opinions, all of it can be a goldmine of ideas.

If there are questions, make a list of them all and use this list as inspiration when the ideas lightbulb above your head isn’t shining as bright as usual.

2. USE LISTS

Speaking of lists, who doesn’t love lists? Here’s the second one of this particular post. When writing blogs, there are going to be times when the ideas are flowing and other times when it’s not. That’s how it is for everyone.

Whilst this blog is really concerned with the times when it’s not, you can still use the other time as a tool to help you.

When you’re in the zone and the topics to write about are coming thick and fast, don’t write blogs for the sake of it.

It can be tempting to use this period to post every day on all the topics in your head. Instead, keep to your normal schedule and create lists of those ideas.

Write down as many ideas as you can so that when the dry period comes, you’ve got a list of topics ready and prepared to help you out.

3. USE YOUR KEYWORD RESEARCH (ASSUMING YOU DID SOME)

Think back to when you started your website. Remember that keyword research you did? What do you mean, No??

We’re sure you did it (if not, take a look at our Back to Basics piece on that very thing) so you can revisit that work as it will contain a plethora of ideas for new blogs.

Amongst all those keywords and phrases will be blog-infused gold dust; ideas for blogs you will have forgotten about.

Look at them and ideally go for long-tail keywords where you can and Google them again. What do they bring up?

Chances are they will be your competition, so take a look and critique it as objectively as you can and try and improve on it (without plagiarising it) and write similar blogs.

Not only will there be a wealth of good ideas, because they are part of your keyword research, but they will also help your overall SEO strategy. Ranking words creating blogs containing more ranking words? What more can you ask for?

4. USE GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE

Whilst your own keywords and phrases will be a great source of ideas, they will have been generated by you for the most part (assuming you did it at all ;-).

Another way to find inspiration is to find the words that have brought people to your site by using Google’s Search Console.

Many people use this platform to eliminate crawl errors on their website, there is also a ‘Performance’ report within it.

This section allows you to see the search queries that people use that help rank your website. Many of them will be hopefully influenced by your research, but they could also include queries that you might not have even considered before.

Use these new pearls of wisdom to help you create content that fits around what your visitors are really looking for.

5. USE THE NEWS

Another way to come up with some ideas is to take a look at what’s going on in the world at the moment and talk about them from your (or your business's) perspective.

This can give you an almost never-ending list of topics to dip into when ideas are running low.

In the last year in the UK alone, we’ve obviously had the horrendous COVID-19 pandemic, the divisive Brexit saga and the General Election. Three huge topics that could give you any number of ideas on how they have affected you specifically, your business or your industry or you could just write about your opinion in general.

It’s important to write in a way that stays away from cliches, is sensitive to everyone (remember, your experience or outlook might not be someone else’s) and doesn’t look like you’re taking advantage of any situation.

As much as they give you ideas, also use current affairs to think about how they are affecting your audience and the help they might need.

6. USE YOUR OWN LIFE

If there’s nothing in the news that inspires you or is relevant to your audience, you can use something much closer to home, your own life or even the lives of people you know.

This can be anything from what situations you find yourself in and how you resolved them, which might be similar to something others are going through.

You can also draw upon your day-to-day life; how you work (the software you use, the way you set up your office, favourite packed lunches, working from home, etc) or how your family/friends/colleagues have conquered a particular problem.

Remember if you are using other people’s experiences, respect their privacy. Either ask them first or change the names if they prefer to remain anonymous.

If there’s a problem out there worth discussing, chances are you won’t be the only one facing it so this can be a useful tool for your audience.

7. USE OTHER BLOGS

We hate to be the ones to break it to you, but your blog isn’t the only one out there. Shocking we know. It won’t even be the only one concerned with whatever topic you write about.

There are millions of blogs out in the world all tackling just as many different niches. Each of these will have a beautiful community around it of fellow bloggers who, at one time or another, all have a dry patch of ideas. What do the best communities do when times are tough? They help each other.

Using other blogs as inspiration for your own is another great way to get those creative juices flowing.

Just to be clear, we’re not talking about copying or stealing content (that’s absolutely not OK) but what they write about can inspire you in your own posts. Small acorns of ideas can grow into giant oak trees of the content for your own blog.

Spend a little time looking through their posts and the comments to see what works and what generates engagement. There may also be Facebook groups you can join for bloggers that might also inspire you. Even just ‘talking' to fellow bloggers via forums or comment sections about writing can be inspiring.

If you do get inspired by something someone else wrote or said to you, do the right thing and give them credit in your own post.

8. USE AN IDEA GENERATOR

Seriously! They’re a thing! Websites like HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator or Portent’s Content Idea Generator, whilst they're not going to give you ready-made, fully-written blogs, they are very good at nudging you in the right direction for inspiring new ideas.

All you have to do is enter a word (or words) and it will generate a potential blog title for you. Some of them you will be able to use, others…… not so much but at worst, you’ll have a good laugh at what they throw at you.

Even if they don’t give you titles you can actually turn into blogs, they will hopefully give you new ideas or help you re-contextualise what they are coming up with into a steady stream of content ideas.

9. USE THE CALENDAR

We’re all familiar with the big celebrations throughout the year; whether it’s Christmas, Easter, Hannukah, Eid, etc. Whilst these might offer some blog ideas for you, almost every day of the year is ‘something' Day, it’s International Women’s Day as we write this, not to mention Fill Our Staplers Day and Peanut Cluster Day. We wish we were joking.

What we’re saying is that every day is an opportunity to write about something and capitalise on it. Some are serious, some aren’t, but they all offer you an opportunity for a blog.

Websites like Days of the Year are great for helping you out and for planning your content ahead of time. You can search every day of the year for something relevant to you or your business, whatever industry you’re working in.

Fill Our Staplers Day, for example, can inspire you to talk about the best office stationery or Peanut Cluster Day could help you write about the best peanut recipes you know. Every day is a school day when it comes to blogging, whoever tenuous the link.

10. USE YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD

Finally, if you still find yourself sitting in front of a blank page or screen, it might be time to take time out and change your surroundings.

Taking a little time to get a change of scenery, some fresh air and to see something else instead of your screen, might mean you can clear your head of all the pressure and finally see the wood and the trees.

This obviously is dependent on any lockdown restrictions you might be facing (hopefully they're finished by the time you're reading this), but use your time to exercise, relax a bit and think about something else. Your brain might just spring into action when you least expect it.

Exercise, read a book, listen to music or a podcast, meditate or whatever floats your particular boat. Even taking a walk, or bike ride around your local area might help you see the way forward and allow you to find inspiration right on your doorstep.

Everyone who needs to be creative will, sooner or later, find their creative well runs low from time to time. Don’t beat yourself up about it or stress over it, just take some time, do something else and you’ll be back in the zone before you know it.

Hopefully one of these ideas will help, but if you have one of your own, please leave it in the comments below and share it with our community.

If you found this interesting, please share it with any family, friends and colleagues who you think may feel the same. The links to do that are all below, as are the links to our social media platforms so you can connect with us and never miss out on our latest blogs. Blog photo courtesy of Aaron Burden on Unsplash