PureBlogging

Is your brain an empty vessel? Have you got a blog post to write? It happens to all of us eventually. Sometimes the drought may last only a couple of hours; at others it may last for days or weeks. When you’ve written thousands of blog posts, one day you’re bound to think: what will I write today? Luckily there are ways that you can find ideas for content that will be useful to your readers, even if they’re not that creative.

Reviews

If you can’t think of anything new to say, review what someone else has said. Have you read a blog that made you sit up and take notice? Maybe your readers would like to know about it. I review other writing blogs on my freelance mentoring blog, Get Paid To Write Online. I don’t do it often, and I only review blogs that I like and subscribe to. However, I don’t always do them the minute I think of them. I just add them to a list, so that I can remember to write the review when I’m short of inspiration.

Linking To Others

Even if you can’t find a whole blog worth reviewing, there’s always something around that makes you think. Sometimes a particular post is so thought provoking that you need to write a whole post of your own in reply. If not, you can simply let readers know that you find it interesting. Although I have posted long lists of links in the past, I think it’s most useful to readers when I put links into context. Mostly, I do that by putting links together thematically, though others have used the linkfest concept much more creatively.

Linking To Yourself

Even if you feel that you’ve said it all before, it doesn’t mean that your readers have read it all before. Pick out a few gems, explain why they are relevant and add a bit of recent context. If your blog has been going for a while, you can do this around particular themes or categories. Don’t use these all at once, but save some for a rainy day.

News Reading

Find out what’s going on outside the world of blogging. Perhaps it will give you a content idea. Take astrology, for example. How do the qualities that are ascribed to you relate to the content of your blog. Major world events might also give you ideas. If you’re searching for inspiration, broadening your focus might get you back on track. Once you’ve found something, posting an excerpt with a commentary will get you off the hook and add value for your readers. One of my most popular posts last year was a link I posted to a blog post on freelance pay.

Surfing

When you work online, sometimes you forget to browse and see what’s out there. There are all sorts of ways to find blogs that will inspire you, no matter what you write about. My three favourite blog discovery tools are StumbleUpon, Entrecard and BloggingZoom. Used right, they can help me find blogs that will inspire me, both within my niche and outside it. I’ve already discovered some great blogs on writing and blogging through these tools, and I’m now looking to take a pot luck approach and see what I find.

Whichever technique you use (and why not use all of them), the important thing is to make sure that you’ve posted something you might like to read yourself. Then you can be sure that you have provided something valuable for readers, even if it’s not creative.

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