Five Places to Find Post Ideas

Coming up with great post ideas is rarely an easy task. Unfortunately, it’s also not a task that you can really afford to rush. If you want your blog to actually stand out, writing about the first thing that comes into your head is kind of counterproductive. After all, a post based on an average idea and one based on a fantastic idea both take the same amount of time to write. One fantastic post however is always going to be better than ten average ones.
If you are looking for a great idea for your next post, it’s therefore important to look in the right places. While there are many potential sources of inspiration, there are only a few sources that are likely to lead to seriously popular content. I will now outline the five places that I consider to be goldmines for coming up with posts that your readers will love.
Your Comments
When reading the comments left on your blog, take note of what your readers are looking for. What questions are they asking? Answering questions from your readers in the form of posts is not only effective at filling that blank screen up with words, it’s also a great way for you to illustrate how much you care about your readers. You can also take this a step further by inviting your readers to suggest post topics in their comments.
Your Traffic Statistics
Just about every blogger pays attention to their blogs traffic statistics but many fail to really take advantage of the information that those statistics provide. If you want to come up with a post idea that your readers will love, establish which ideas they loved in the past.
And don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because you already wrote a post on one topic that you cannot write another one. Follow up posts are generally very popular among those that have read the original. And those that have not are likely to do so provided you link to it.
Your Competitors Most Popular Posts
When your competitors include links to their most popular posts, they do so because they want their readers to check out their best work. Unfortunately for them, doing so also inadvertently provides you with information about what’s currently hot in your niche. Don’t just read your competitors latest posts, read those that are getting the most attention. Doing so ensures that when you get inspired, that spark of inspiration involves a hot topic.
Forums Related to Your Niche
Forums are perfect for figuring out just what your audience cares about. Not only are they generally filled with post ideas, the potential popularity of each post can easily be judged by how many posts/views each thread has. When looking for inspiring forums, you should aim for those that are as close as possible to your niche. If you your niche is narrow and you find a forum that matches your niche perfectly, you are unlikely to ever run out of inspiration.
Popular Q and A Sites
Finally, there are question and answer sites. Regardless of what you blog about, sites such as Yahoo Answers and Quora are full of web users asking questions related to your blogs niche. Such questions are not only a great source of popular post ideas, they also come complete with two useful perks. First off, the questions themselves make excellent post titles. And secondly, where better to link to your new posts than in the corresponding answer sections?