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3 Strategies for New Post Ideas for Your Blog

Coming up with new ideas each day can sometimes be a challenge. Having a successful blog though is going to depend on your ability to provide fresh quality content on a regular basis. Sometimes no matter how inspired we are we’ll suffer from bloggers (writers) block. So you’ll need some ways to keep on top of it all to guarantee that you provide your readers with that fresh content.

If you’re like me then you are not a professional writer by any stretch of the imagination but that shouldn’t stop you from being able to write good content on a regular basis. You just need to be committed to it and I use some simple techniques to keep the ideas flowing and push out the content.

Post Ideas WordPress Plugin

This plugin is simple and effective. The plugin allows you to simply store all your ideas until your are ready to write them. It’s extremely useful in the way that it helps you to prioritize and record the ideas you have, as you have them but don’t actually have time to write them.

It’s a pain (for me at least) to put everything into a draft and then come back to it later. Right now I have about 30 post ideas stored and prioritized and if they were all in draft format then I’d have a difficult time finding what I wanted to write about and in which order I’d like to publish them.

That’s where PostIdeas comes in. Once installed you can find the plugin in your tools menu in WordPress. You give the idea a title and a basic description of what the post is about. It proves an area for url’s that you might want to include so that you can refer to other blog posts or references of any kind. You are able to add your keywords right in there as well so it makes your SEO efforts easier. Probably the most powerful part of the plugin though is the prioritization system. Set a priority for your post ideas so that you know, and can easily find the posts that you want to publish first and those that are just fillers for when you are thinning out on ideas or may not be ready to post those higher priority posts. You can download the plugin at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/post-ideas/.

Google Alerts

One of the best and most under utilized functions of Google is the Google Alerts system. This system has so many applications and uses that it still amazes me that so few use it let alone even know what it is or how it works.

Google Alerts is simply a system that monitors the internet for specific keywords that trigger an action. As I said it can be used for so many different applications and you will regularly see me refer to the system for various topics because of how simple and powerful it actually is.

When it comes to your posts not only does your content need to be fresh and unique but it also needs to be relevant and current. How do you keep up with all of the important changes and new developments in your niche? If you spend all your days scouring web sites and other blogs trying to find new topics to write about, what time do you have for actually writing your articles?

That’s where Google Alerts comes in. If you don’t already have one, create an account with Google. Go to ‘My Account’ and select the Google Alerts option. Simply add a keyword, a delivery rate, and a delivery method and as soon as Google spots anything to do with that particular keyword it will notify you of that particular web page, blog post, or news item. You simply review the summaries, choose what is relevant or important and go and have a look at it.

You can choose your delivery rates which is a great feature. There is an option to alert you ‘as it happens’ so when a new item is discovered you’ll be sent an email right away. I personally don’t want to be receiving an email from Google every 3 minutes so I choose to receive my alerts once per day. I can easily see which news items or blog posts I am interested in reviewing if any at all. I then review those pages and then create a post idea from that including the keywords and original reference posts in the idea. If your not using Alerts and you have trouble with new post ideas then go and check it out today. You’ll be glad you did.

Read Other Blogs

Another very effective way to keep fresh, current ideas coming is simply to read other blogs. Either visiting them directly or subscribing to their RSS feed. You can keep up with the hot topics quickly and easily.

I have about 15 blogs that I keep up with on a daily basis, all by RSS feed. I use the NewsGator for Outlook plugin which makes life very simple. My mail client is always open and automatically checks for new feed item hourly.

Note: Don’t allow your schedule to be sidetracked just because a new item comes in. I have slots in my daily schedule for research which includes reading these feeds. This is very helpful to me and I have no doubt will be for you too.

In fact in the last 48 hours I have noticed a couple of very hot topics which I have set up post ideas for and have given a high priority to. I’ll write the post, proof read it, then schedule it for publication.

Reading the comments of the post is also important because you will see what types of questions and ideas other readers of those blogs have. Perhaps the original blog post that you read created more questions than answers for those readers. You now have an opportunity to write your own version of a similar post that addresses all of these questions.  You might have different opinions, or have something more to offer to the topic.

You readers will now have different perspectives on the topic, they will get answers to their questions and you’ll have included that one golden ingredient that all money making blogs require; You’ll teach you readers something that they wanted to learn. Doing that will build credibility, loyalty, and trust. It’s going to be far easier to ask your readers to buy something you have suggested or recommended when you have their trust and loyalty.

Following these simple techniques will enable you to always have fresh ideas for your post topics, they’ll help you to stay on the cutting edge of your niche and you’ll always have something useful to teach and offer to your readers. They’ll quickly become loyal fans of your blog, and keep coming back for more. Lets face it if you want to make money from blogging you don’t want readers, you want raving fans and this is just one of many effect ways to get a fan base.

So go and set up your Google Alerts, install the post ideas plugin, and subscribe to your favorite blogs RSS feeds. Before long you’ll have more ideas than you know what to do with.

Do you have other effective methods that you use to find new ideas for your blog posts? Leave a comment and let us know what they are.

To you blogging success!

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Tags: Blogging, make money blogging, Motivation