Have you ever stared at a blank screen or page with the intent to write, only to come up empty without a single idea of where to start? You’re not alone, and there is a solution.
Some may cringe and balk at the solution, but having a plan will save your hide every time. What your plan ends up looking like will be different from the next person, because there is no right or wrong way of creating a plan. The point is to have one.
Before you can start writing, you need to have an idea of what you’re going to write about. The best way to develop a pool of ideas to draw from is to establish a routine for brainstorming.
Brainstorming is the lovely, chaotic process of simply letting the ideas flow. To get the most out of it, make a record of every single idea that comes to mind. Don’t get hung up on making decisions during this process. Don’t judge the ideas that you come up with, and don’t dismiss them as being silly or too difficult. Every idea has a way of leading to another idea – even if it doesn’t seem related.
There are many approaches to brainstorming – both on your own and with others. Again there’s no right or wrong here, it’s finding what works best for you. As a blogger, it’s entirely possible that most of your brainstorming will be a solitary exercise. But the good news is that research suggests that it’s actually more productive to come up with ideas on your own. The Harvard Business Review explains that when you work in a group, everyone’s ideas tend to converge, making you think similarly about the task at hand.
When you brainstorm alone, you’re less influenced by others and your ideas will be more unique. We’ve included a variety of tactics below for brainstorming by yourself.
That said, there are also benefits to brainstorming with others, such as building off of each other’s ideas. Since your situation just might find you in a position to draw on the ideas of others as well, we’ll include some strategies for this too.
Expand each section below for more information on the different types of brainstorming activities that you can test out to find the one(s) you like best.
Why not begin with a tried-and-true brainstorming technique? Mind-mapping has been around for a long time, and it’s a great way to kick off your ideation session.
Begin by writing your blog’s topic in the center of a sheet of paper, then break it down into subcategories. Continue to expand your map (creating more branches and subcategories) while writing down ideas that come to you along the way.
The internet is an endless treasure trove of blog inspiration — if you know where to look. You can come up with new blog post ideas by browsing through your own social media pages, as well as those of competitors. Look for comments that pose interesting questions, and consider writing blog posts that address them.
To take this a step further, you can visit forums related to topics of interest to see what people are discussing. Sites like Reddit are full of threads that may spark new ideas.
Google itself can be a helpful tool for brainstorming. Start by typing in your general blog niche and see what the search engine suggests in its predictive results. This will give you an idea of what people are searching for and can help you come up with new topics that may perform well.
Another useful solo brainstorming technique is called starbursting. According to MindTools, this strategy involves coming up with “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” and “why” questions related to your topic. These questions will often lend themselves to informative blog ideas.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Can you imagine what millions of pictures must be worth then? Fortunately, Pinterest happens to make the process of browsing pictures extremely easy simply by searching up keywords, and it then provides you with additional search suggestions that are related. You might want to set a timer for this exercise as it can be a rabbit hole that will keep going for hours – but you’re guaranteed to come up with a broad range of new ideas every time you take a dive into Pinterest boards.
You can counteract the effects of groupthink with this creative exercise. HubSpot reveals that during “brain-writing,” everyone writes down a few ideas on their own piece of paper. Then, each person passes their papers around in a circle, with every group member building on the previous person’s ideas.
As you may have guessed, this strategy involves word association. Begin with a primary topic, then have everyone toss out the first words that pop into their heads. Continue expanding your list, working together to turn random words into blog post ideas.
Sometimes, the best way to come up with new ideas is to get a little silly! One fun brainstorming activity is to play “Whose Line is it Anyway?” with your group. Bring in several props related to your blog topic and let each person pick one object. Have everyone create a story or character based on that object. Have fun with it for 10-15 minutes, then see what ideas spawn from the game.
Now that you have some ideas on how to brainstorm, you may be wondering what to do with them. There are several applications for brainstorming when it comes to blogging. You can use this process to come up with:
- Broad topics related to your niche
- Specific topics that are deeply focused
- Keywords that you can use for SEO
- Planning for your categories and tag usage
As an analogy, think of a world globe. You have Earth, Continents, Countries, States/Provinces, Counties, Cities, Towns, Villages – each layer getting more and more specific. There are topic opportunities at the larger, broader levels, all the way down to the more granular topics.
As you work through any of the brainstorming methods, keep this in mind and allow all ideas to flow. Whether you use them right away or not, they’ll become a resource pool for you to draw from over time and they will also help to guide you on how to best organize the content of your site.
As covered in the categories and tags lesson, organizing your content to make it easier for your visitors to navigate will help to encourage visitors to stick around longer.
As you brainstorm more and more, you’ll start to form a clearer picture of what content excites you. You’ll start to get ideas of what to write about on various topics that you add to your brainstorming records. You might even stop brainstorming in order to flesh out some of the ideas that are surfacing.
This is going to be a terrific indicator of what content to include in your blog. Because the more excited you are about the ideas you generate, the more motivated you’ll be to create that content. It will also turn out to be some of the best content you create.
During the brainstorming process, it’s also a good idea to consider some of the different types of content you could create and the purpose behind it. Keeping that in mind while brainstorming will open up the channels for more ideas to flow.
It’s likely no surprise that your task for this lesson is to get busy doing some brainstorming. Test out one or more of the strategies above and see where they take you. This may start to sound repetitive, but this is also not a done and dusted task. So don’t feel the need to get it all done in one sitting.
Either set a timer and see what you can come up with during the time limit, or set a goal of five, ten, or fifteen topics. Either way, celebrate at the end of it, because this is a win.
Moving forward, set aside time specifically for brainstorming. Schedule it into your calendar just like you would any important meeting, and make it part of your regular blogging routine. You can pick the same day/time, or fit it in each week as your schedule permits. Go ahead and schedule at least one more brainstorming session in your calendar now.
| Pro Tip: If you’re inclined, consider color coding some of your ideas based on what type of content it would be best suited for. You could also format the ideas into columns. This will help when you’re creating your content calendar to mix things up and add some variety to the cadence of the content you’re creating. |
Click to explandResources
- Blogger’s Block: Writing Resources to Try When You’re Out of Ideas (Article)
- Your Team Is Brainstorming All Wrong, The Harvard Business Review (Article)
Back to top