3 ways to brainstorm blog post topics

Writing great content is always listed as the number one key to building a great blog.  We all know “content is king.”  The problem we run into is keeping that good content coming.   How about three ways to brainstorm blog post topics?

1. Ask Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

One of the most useful sessions I attended at the Type A Conference last year was led by Ang England.  She promised to help us come up with 100 potential blog posts in one hour.  And she delivered on that promise! She has the video from that session available now … and it is well worth the time to watch Brainstorming Blog Posts.   My favorite suggestion she offers is asking yourself the 6 questions of journalism:  Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?  Using these questions you can build a series of posts on any topic.  For example, if we were writing on blog design we could write posts on “Who should you hire to design your blog?”  or “What are the elements of a great blog design?”  or  “Where should the social media icons be in a blog design?”  You get the idea, right?

2.  Capitalize on Trending Topics.

Blog Post Ideas Readers Love: 6 Templates, 33 Tips, and 1 Infographic from Social Media Chimps is rich with great ideas for developing blog content.  My favorite suggestion is to use the trending topics on Twitter to brainstorm blog posts.    For example, on Thursday night, #StartBook was trending based on Jon Acuff’s lauch of his new book, Start.   Perhaps you have read another of Jon’s books and you could write a review or share a quote.  Maybe you could collect some of your favorite tweets from the #StartBook stream and make a list of why you want to read the book.

3.  Lists, Links, and Interviews

This post from Entrepreneur. com reminds of the old stand-bys:  lists, links, and interviews. Need Blog Post Ideas: 3 Easy Templates to Get You Writing Now suggests these 3 types of posts for those days when you can’t think of what to write.  We do list/link posts every week here at Design by Insight.   I personally find that list posts are very popular and can become evergreen content for your blog.  For example, this week I have had over 700 page views on a post I wrote in January 2012.  It was a list.  As for interviews, that can be as simple as asking a question on Facebook or Twitter and using the responses to form your post.

What are some of the ways you develop blog post ideas when inspiration seems lacking?