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I have a confession to make. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been a little worried about my creative output for ViperChill. More specifically, I’ve feared that I would run out of blog post ideas. The simple reason for this is because I cover topics in so much depth that I don’t ever really need to write about them again.
You can find blogs that will give you a few link building tips each week and then I go ahead and write 15 in one post. You will find blogs with tips here and there on WordPress SEO, and I go and write what I think is the only guide you’ll ever need. Thanks to a very productive hour I spent last week, I’m now no longer worried in the slightest.
Though my biggest feature (in-depth articles) is my biggest flaw (not needing to cover a topic again) I was able to come up with dozens of post ideas after one quick brainstorming session. Don’t think these are just generic articles that you’ll find on other blogs either; I actually can’t wait to share some of them with you all.
As more and more people realise you can make a living via the internet, each niche online is becoming substantially more crowded. On any given day you can literally find the same type of blog posts on dozens of different websites. I went from having over 150 blogs in my feed reader in the last few years to just 12, purely because I was seeing the same content over, and over (and over) again.
Not only will the following tips help you generate tons of post / article ideas for now, but you can also come back to them in a few months and they’ll almost certainly give you a new jolt of inspiration.
StumbleUpon Buzz
A little known feature of StumbleUpon is their popular (buzz) pages for different subjects. These pages show the most viewed articles that the StumbleUpon audience voted for and enjoyed. I’ve said a few times that StumbleUpon isn’t the best traffic source in the world, but there’s something to be said for writing articles that capture their attention.
If you can occupy the attention of someone who is randomly clicking through websites via a browser toolbar, you can occupy the attention of anybody.
Not only will you see the pages that are the most popular, you’ll also see exactly how many visits StumbleUpon sent to them which is perfect if you have lots of ideas from this source but just want to focus on a few. I obviously don’t recommend that you copy titles or ideas directly, but instead think you should use this as inspiration for titles that work well, angles that people in your niche are taking, and the type of subjects that people want to read about.
You can find ideas in literally any niche, with some examples being their marketing, finance, gadget and humour sections. Simply change the tag in the URL to whatever you write about and you’ll find popular content around that topic.
Use Postrank to Find Engaging Posts
When I wrote a post about the 28 items in my internet marketing toolbox, I covered a nifty little service called Postrank Analytics which lets you see your most shared blog posts on sites like Digg, Delicious and Twitter. While the service was a little too basic to pay for, I do still enjoy the company’s Postrank tool.
Head on over to their homepage and enter the niche that you’re writing in or even the RSS feed of one of your favourite blogs and you’ll instantly see their blog posts which went viral. Though some blogs do show off their most popular posts for you (mentioned below), it’s very useful to see what other bloggers are writing about that is grabbing their readers attention.
As an example, you can see the most posts you all enjoyed the most at ViperChill by going here. This tool alone can be very powerful in terms of getting your creative juices going.
Delcious Popular Page
Similar to StumbleUpon, Delicious has it’s own popular page which you can sort by tags which are related to your industry. While StumbleUpon shows the pages with the most thumbs up, Delicious shows posts with the most saves (bookmarks).
I’ve had a lot of success with Delicious on this blog, regularly being featured on the popular pages for SEO, Bloggingand Social Media. Depending on what you write about, there’s a great chance you’ll find inspiration by searching for relevant phrases to your niche and finding the most resourceful content.
Personal Experience
What I noticed when I looked through the Google Analytics account of PluginID last year was that most of my popular posts were ones where I was not only sharing actionable content, but also talking about my personal experiences.
One of the most viewed posts was on the topic of public speaking; something many people are afraid of and want to get better at. I was too, and I totally fine with sharing this on the blog. I also shared the story of how I signed myself up to a speaking club and gave a speech once every fortnight which helped me to overcome this fear.
Not only does honesty and personal experience help readers connect to your work and encourage them to engage via the comments, it’s also a great way to generate new ideas for your blog.
What is something you’ve struggled with in your industry that you’ve managed to overcome?
How did you succeed with managing finances, overcoming anxiety, making money online, becoming minimalist or whatever else is relevant to your niche?
I took some time out to write down the whole process of me going from someone who knew nothing about domains, hosting or SEO at 15 and managed to build a very successful internet empire now at 20. Each step on the way has given me a post idea I can write about.
Popular Posts on Other Blogs
When I removed the categories from my sidebar and instead replaced them with the most popular ViperChill posts, the amount of pages each visitor viewed and the time they spent on the site here greatly increased. Many bloggers are finding similar results, so they proudly display their most popular posts in their footer or blog sidebar.
For example, in the internet marketing niche you can head on over to sites like Copyblogger (sidebar), Problogger (homepage, center box) or Quicksprout (sidebar) to see the posts that their audience engaged with and shared the most.
While it’s more common to see this on marketing blogs, there are probably tons of blogs in your niche too that make it clear which content resonated with their readers. If you can write more posts that people are going to love and be the signal through the noise, you can be sure that you’re on your way to building a very popular blog.
As with StumbleUpon Buzz, I’m not suggesting that you steal post headlines or article ideas directly. Simply use them as a way to get your creative juices flowing and as an indicator to what your audience probably wants to read about.
Google Keyword Research Tool
When Google came out with this tool a few years back and internet marketers could stop guessing which phrases were popular online, it changed the game forever. Especially in regards to my own affiliate marketing strategy. But it’s not only search volumes I use this tool for; it’s also great for content ideas.
Let’s say you have a blog about social media and want to know what topics you can write about. Typing social media into the tool will give you, among others, the popular phrase ‘social media strategy’. Now you know people are looking for actual tips on a strategy they can implement when using social media — probably to get more brand exposure and increase their site traffic.
If you know what you’re talking about, you can then simply go and write a post about around this term.
Note: I wrote my post on social media strategy involving 9 experts before I found this phrase. It’s a nice coincidence though.
Simply enter the type of niche you’re in or even the phrases from some of your most popular posts and see what else people are looking for. If people are searching for it in mass on Google, it’s probably safe to say that your blog readers would like to know about it too.
Yahoo Answers
If you don’t want to ask your readers directly what they would like to read, you could browse a popular site like Yahoo Answers and see what related questions people are already asking. If you run a health blog then you can easily see the types of questions have regarding losing weight, sticking to a diet and keeping track of progress.
If you write about finance then you can see people asking which tools are the best to track your money, whether investing in homes is a good idea and how they can teach their loved ones to be more responsible with their cash.
If you take some time on this site, you can literally find dozens of post ideas in just a few minutes by writing on topics that would answer these questions.
Be careful though, your readers might just think you’re reading their minds.
Use Google Forms for Reader Feedback
You may have noticed that for two days I had a link in the sidebar here asking people what you would like me to write about. Because I really feel like I’ve come such a long way on my own online adventure I can sometimes forget what people struggle with on their path to internet success.
Google Forms, which is a tool found in Google Docs, allows you to easily capture data that is entered into a form. I simply asked people the question “What would you like to see me write about?”
Because I didn’t require an email address, I received some requests for me to write about chicken and male genitals so be prepared for some irrelevant answers. To prevent this you could require an email address or ask more questions, but note that this will decrease the amount of responses you receive.
I only needed the link there for two days as I received some great suggestions which I’m going to use as inspiration for future posts. You could also ask your blog readers for post ideas directly in a post and see what they suggest in the comments. I like the forms option as it’s discreet and all answers are instantly inserted into a spreadsheet for easy viewing.
Now, who can tell me which one of these 7 suggestions gave me the idea for this post? (Hint: read the intro)
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Glen,
I think, you got the idea for this post from your personal experience.
BTW, nice post. Really useful for me (and many many many others).
Hi Book,
Really glad you enjoyed the post. You may be right, but I’ll let a few more guesses come in before I reveal
Did you get this idea from your feed reader?
Well done once again, Glen!
Hey Mark,
I hope the family is doing well. Nope, that was not the source of inspiration for this one.
I definitely check out the Stumble Upon buzz, haven’t heard that one before. Delicious popular page also sounds like a winner – I use mainly for bookmarking my favorite sites (like yours).
I hate searching for keywords, it’s soo robotic and bland in my mind. Your “tutorials” mixed with your personal style are a big GO-GO, I’ve started to be more personal in my recent posts and it does seem to have more effect on your audience. Plus it’s super-slick to write them – brings the emotion back to the digital world.
Thanx for sharing, Glen !
Hey Mars,
Was awesome to speak with you yesterday on our call. I’m looking forward to seeing you take your blog to the next level.
I don’t think you have anything to worry about where ideas for great posts are concerned, Glen. You always have terrific, intriguing ideas.
There is a lot to think about here. Thanks for the tips.
Forgot to say, I don’t know where you got the idea from, but I will guess it was Reader Feedback?
Hi Anne,
Nope. Keep guessing
You’re welcome Anne,
Thanks for your comment. Lots of very cool posts coming soon
Wow! Glen,
Great post! I wanted to go into a guest posting marathon, I don’t want to give the same rehashed content and I don’t want my blog to suffer.
In fact, I was here to check your popular posts section to find this post.
This post came at the right time and I will make use of every single element mentioned.
Thanks a lot for the great post,
-Onibalusi
Hey Oni,
Awesome to see you stopping by here as usual recently. Best of luck with your guest posting marathon!
Hey Glen,
Awesome post as usual.
I really like the idea ..of StumbleUpon and delicious. Thanks for sharing this awesome advice.!!
And i think polls are beast way to ask from readers what they like..-:)
Thanks,
Dev
Hi Dev,
Glad you liked the post! I think polls are also a great idea, though they mean that you give the post suggestions so you probably aren’t lost for ideas.
Thanks for the comment!
Glen,
Firstly, great post as always.
Second, I guess you found the idea for this post from a popular blog which covered one or two ideas for generating content ideas. Is that right?
Third, I like StumbleUpon buzz (long back they had a seperate buzz page, right?). I have never used post rank. Will give that a try.
Here are some other methods I use:
Reading books
Google Alerts for specific keywords
Reading magazine headlines (copyblogger style)
Thanks for some very good ideas.
-Ramkarthik
Thanks for the other ideas/methods you use.
.
I use Google Alerts but, more so to keep up with specific news, than post ideas. Never thought of doing that either I have to admit, so thanks
I think the thing that sets ‘expert’ bloggers apart is those that share their own experiences as opposed to aggregating things they’ve heard or read about into the ’10 Best Ways to create a blog describing the 10 Best Ways to create a blog’ – that’s the real value for me and a reason why this, amongst a far smaller list of sites than perhaps a year or 2 ago is one I am happy to spend time reading – keep it up.
Glen,
I have been using the Google adwords for a while now with some success in getting engine traffic but StumbleUpon and some of the others are new to me. I am bookmarking this page as a reference, thanks for the help.
Hi. I’m from Poland and I’m here first time. That post.. in fact all Your posts are full of fantastic ideas. I’ve just added You to RSS Feeder. Thanks so much and sorry for my English
Hey, your English is fine
. Thanks for the kind words Krzysiek. Glad you found us as well!
Hey Glen,
great post in terms of preparation and depth as always. That’s why you made it into my feed reader (and I just started to handle it the way you do – so I’m kicking a LOT blogs out of my reader).
And I have to admit that kicking a lot of blogs really helped in order to create blog posts on my own. not only that I have more time right now, thoughts are coming to my mind more easily. When you don’t read the same stuff over and over again it is way more easy to think about different things and coming up with own opinions.
And here’s the point where I might argue a little with you (wow, never thought this might happen
): Without any doubt you covered a lot of useful sources. But isn’t this a way of creating posts that is…well…hard to say… But when creating posts that way it’s like you’re not writing what you want the world to know (sounds pretty pathetic, doesn’t it?) but you’re giving the people what they already like? Hope you understand where I’m coming from? You see everybody’s talking about the new iPad clone that can cook and fly so you’re covering this topic too..
I agree that this might bring a lot of traffic to your blog (and that is what a lot of people want to achieve, sure) but this is not what I consider as “high quality” (even if it’s well written).
Hope you understand what I was trying to say – but maybe I’m just a little to sensitive regarding this topic. Working in the SEO industry I simply see to much sites / blogs that are only focused on traffic and not on quality
Anyway, keep up to good work!
Glen,
Google Keyword Research tool is great for ideas….so is the Google Suggest search function…even moreso.
Don’t know about you mate, but sometimes the idea about what to write comes at any time and I have to run with it – make hay while the sun shines, strike while the irons hot….you get the gist….other times, well, I’m biting my nails and racking my brain about an article topic. This is where the Google features above help. Actually, any help during these situations is welcome…:)
Jamie
I’m exactly the same Jamie. Except usually I’m out and about when I get the ideas etc, or lying in bed. So I’ve had to start using my phone to take notes on the ideas and write down as many bullet points as I can about it, so I don’t end up racking my brains trying to remember good points about what I’d thought about.
I’m gonna take a wild guess here and say you got the idea for this post when you were looking for inspiration for all those other posts and decided you were gonna write a post about how you found the inspiration for those future posts, phew…
Anyways, great post, can’t wait to see what your research dugg up.
We have the second winner!
Yep…personal experience
Glen,
Always enjoy reading your posts. They are very informative and in depth. I sure hope you have plenty of ideas stored away now!
Thanks Mike!
Yep, there are some good ones coming that I hope you’ll enjoy.
These are some powerful, basic tools that anyone can add to their marketing arsenal. I think that due to the advent of all the FREE plugins available, making the internet the great equalizer, people that are starting from nothing are now able to compete with those that have everything. You no longer need to have a big bag of cash to start an international business.
-Joshua Black
The Underdog Millionaire
Hey Glenn… great post. I heard you will be featured on the Third Tribe seminars… looking forward to that.
Hi James,
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to that.
Hi Glen,
Thanks a bunch for all of the very useful tips!
I have found that sharing personal experiences is indeed a very good way to connect with readers. I’ve read tons of personal development blog posts over the past three months. And those that don’t have a personal connection may be 100% correct, but you can tell that the writing is missing something when you are given “just the facts.” People seem to like hearing stories and discussing personal experiences is a way of fulfilling this need.
Hey Glen,
I learn a lot from each of your post. I saw your interview with John on HiLife2B, and it’s awesome to see that you put your readers first and genuinely want to help them out.
I actually have not used any of your strategies yet, although I use Stumbleupon to kill time. I am looking forward to implementing these ideas should I run out of any post ideas.
But for now, being in a personal development niche, I get a lot of my ideas just by talking to many people and discussing different aspects of life, good and/or bad. I found that this allows me to pound the problems that my potential readers may have right on the head.
Which strategy works better for you and why? What are some of the advantages/disadvantages of each?
I used to write canonical articles.
Then I started posting daily.
I’m going back to writing canonical articles very soon. Like, within a week or two. Looking forward to it.
Viperchill has definitely been an inspiration, proving totally false the notion that only short content works on the web.
Hey Dave,
Thanks a lot for the kind words, I appreciate that. I think the success of this site is mostly showing how much the blogosphere is changing with the sheer volume of people that are writing in each industry and how to stand out from that.
Good to see you here.
Your posts are really in depth and relevant. Even if you only posted once a month, I’d find your blog way more valuable than a blog that posts every day but much of it is fluff and simply not applicable. Some blogs on blogging post A LOT and I find I need to keep checking my reader for the posts that I may actually want to read. That’s no fun.
Your blog and Skellie’s are basically the only two blogs on blogging that I feel can give me a real boost. And then I follow Copyblogger and WritetoDone for their posts on writing/copywriting.
Hey Bamboo,
Definitely. I don’t think people ever really unsubscribe from a blog because someone doesn’t post enough. It’s only when someone bombards your inbox / feed reader that post frequency is likely to turn someone away.
Thanks for the support.
I have tried many of these sources in the past – though Stumble Buzz is new to me. I have personally got a lot of ideas from using Delicious and also a load of keyword research. However one thing you omitted when I have also found really useful is to use the Search Meter WordPress plugin to see what topics people are actually searching for on my site. This normally turns up a load of great article ideas for me.
Thanks for the heads up on the Search Meter WordPress plugin Richard – i’ll be giving that a try myself
. As for Stumble Buzz, let us know if you try it out and how it works for you 
.
Good article, but I think maybe you should write smaller articles and therefor your able to publish more. but the tips you give is another way to keep on writting.
thanks
While smaller articles would mean Glen could publish more, I think the majority of readers here, after reading through the comments, prefer the indepth articles like this one, rather than a section of it each day, or in separate posts. And I have to say I agree. One tech blog I follow, has started posting reviews up in separate parts. Which yes gives more content but, to me as a reader is irritating in that instance and also clogs up my RSS reader. In that instance, separate titles in the post would have been better, like Glen implements here.
On the other hand, I can see why smaller articles can be good, sometimes you don’t have time to read an article through to the end if it’s “too long”. – Which is why i’ve got InstaPaper/Read later on both my browser and my phone now.
It was fun to discover that one of my latest posts is on the self-improvement page on stumble upon
Haha,
There was a time when three of them on the homepage were from PluginID. I was quite proud of that
Hey Glen,
nice to see you´re back on the great-blog-posts-line. As you maybe remember i was worried about you running out of ideas and i think i was right, at least a little. Despite you wrote:
Glen says:
February 18, 2010 at 11:23 pm
Awesome
Yep – 5 years of doing this and I have no ideas after 4 months.
but great you´re now honest with us. Your blog is the only one i read regulary so no offense ^^. Its great the quality here is raising again. Amazing post today!
Jake
Heh, that was over 3 months ago Jake. There have been a lot of posts since then. I also still had quite a few ready to go live, just not as many as I would like.
Anyways, I appreciate the support and it’s good to see you stopping by.
DAMN, you are just putting out some amazing content recently. (Am I allowed to say “damn” on your site? I moderated my choice of words in the end).
Seriously, though, I really enjoy reading what you have to say. Lots of juicy info to chew on. Following your tweets is fun too.
Try to keep those bacon dishes in check, tho—are heart bypasses for 21-year-olds covered in S. Africa?
Thanks for the open, honest and informative writing.
Dave
I think it is lol :p.
. And yeah his tweets are good, if not mouthwatering at times 
(im sure heart bypasses are covered in the UK for 24 year olds lol).
Thanks for your feedback
You know I think you are aloud to take time with your posts. This blog almost reminds me in a way of Tim Ferriss’s because you post are long, they are not on a daily basis and they are full of killer content brother! and I appreciate that. I know that when I read them I don’t go…”Oh man, I feel like I just read this at ….” you know what I mean?
Anyway I believe this will definitely be the blog that will help me take my blogging to the next level. No more tiny little 300 to 500 blog post with boring same old same content.
Thanks again Glen!
It’s definitely a good feeling when you can say “i didnt just read this at…” and inspiring I find
.
This great information really helps me to ramped a good idea. Thanks for sharing this great post.
Hi Glen,
I n-joyed reading this article, .. which blogger hasn’t experienced a writer-block? Here are some good tips I didn’t know about (like Postrank), so thanks for sharing!
What I sometimes also do is check my webstats and look at the keywords, .. why? Most of the time people search on Google when they’re on a quest for a solution to a specific problem. If there are lots of people looking for the ‘same’ topic or issue (or solution), it shows in your keyword-stats and you know what to write about!
Once again, great post! Cheers & Ciao …
Glad you enjoyed reading it Gonzo.
I also find that helps me personally, looking at the webstats and keywords. Most successful though, is by using Yahoo Answers as suggested by Glen, I actually found many questions, unanswered, or incorrectly answered around my niche, so I know what I’m writing next :p.
I like reading you post. Even though is kinda long but the pictures ease the reading. So it doesn’t feel that long. Thank you.
Nice post. I’ve currently got months of subject headers down for a couple of sites I’m running, but the question ‘what next’ has popped into my mind. I’ll give these techniques a try.
Glen,
Great post, as usual! Embarrassed to say, but I haven’t really used social media tools to my advantage. This post shows what a great disadvantage I’m at!
Glen I would like to just say thank you again for such another amazing post. Your blog is by far one of my most favorite blogs to read because you hold nothing back. Keep up the great work! I share how awesome your blog is with all of my marketing and entrepreneurial friends. I always look forward to what you are going to be writing about next!
-Scott
Hey Scott, thanks for sharing your thoughts (:D) about this blog with others
.
Excellent suggestions for inspiration Glen! I’ve never used the stumbleupon buzz so checking that out now. One I have found useful is the keyword questions by wordtracker at labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions
So when are you going to reveal the 12 blogs worthy enough to be in your reader
?
Kikolani linked to this post in a blog entry today and had to visit. We are always looking for blog ideas and my interest was certainly had when I saw your title. Nice points here. I want to add that Google’s WonderWheel is a wealth of blog topic ideas.
Coming up with things to write about has been a flaw that I’ve had for some time now, though having previously used some of the tools you listed I’ve been able to improve. My Favourite thing to use from the list is Yahoo Answers. Every time I see a good question on there, I’m usually able to think of a really helpful answer and I’m even considering launching an entire series of posts around the service.
Hey Jasmine,
Yeah I think I agree with you. I’d used it in the past for one of my sites, well more so answering and linking to relevant threads (site was hugely forum/community based) which was good for traffic and new members but, after Glen posted this, I started digging deeper back into Yahoo Answers and it definitely is a great idea. Glad it’s working for you as well
.
Glen,
Thanks for the awesome insightful article on this topic. As a new blogger, some days I wake up knowing what it is I want to communicate. On others, I search for things…sometimes too deep I think. I haven’t used any of these tips before for coming up with ideas for my blog, so I thank you, and will RT.
BrandonBurgh
Delicious is an endless source for topic ideas. I also like to see what Yahoo ranks as popular searches. Pooling ideas together from other bloggers (without copying or scraping) will get the juices flowing.
Hello,
I am a new reader, from Romania, I found your site when I researched how to get into google news, and google sent me to pluginhq and after that I got to Viperchill. Now that I said that, what I wanted to ask you is if you ment to make the mistake in the image with Delicious popular page, because you wrote “Delcious”. You have some good advice, and good posts, I think they worth the time reading, because I am trying to launch a new website, with English content, and I really need the search engine traffic – it is a news blog but I haven’t started yet – the domain is http://www.yourdailynews.net – I would continue to browse trough the articles.
Thank you for the info – and I’m glad if I could help ( if that was a mistake )
Very useful post again! Your blog is quickly becoming one of my favorites! Coming up with ideas is one of the most challenging aspects of maintaining my blog and I love these ideas!
We can also check our old tweets for inspiration! We can find some seed ideas in our old thinking that we can grow into a post.
[...] How I Generated One Years Worth of Content Ideas in One Hour, and You Can Too [...]
Thank you for another essential article.
Hey Glen,
Great tips! I must confess – I’ve been struggling with finding post ideas myself lately. This post will surely help, and it’s actually a great example of a post based off of personal experiences.
Thanks for sharing the list with us.
Christina
Does anyone know what plugin gets you those tabbed widgets shown above for copyblogger and problogger that show the popular posts?
Thanks.
I looked for this a while ago. All of the ones I seen came with the themes themselves as they have to be styled with CSS & use Javascript. Let me know if you find any…
Great resource, next time I’m having a case or writers block, this post will be my first stop.
Good points. This goes back to finding out what people are looking for ,what problems they have and providing a solution.
It does look like StumbleUpon’s Buzz is no longer active with their recent redesign sadly.
Thank’s for this comprehensive blog very useful. I for one have found a useful way of creating content. Come up with your own wonder wheel like the Google’s Wonder wheel when doing a subject search. put the capstan blog in the middle then separate tentacles out to other linked content topics.