Liam CavanaghSome post ideas you can experiment with in order to battle the blogger’s block in the year ahead.
During the beginning of the year, everything is fresh and we all seem to have a tremendous amount of creative energy, and blogging ideas. However, as the year wears on you might need some inspiration, or a few post ideas to get you over the “blogger block” hump.
Since this is my first post after joining the NxE team as a staff writer, I thought that I would give you, the NorthxEast readers a gift that would help you throughout year. The gift that I would like to pass on consists of 52 post ideas that you can utilize in any way that you like, if for some reason your creative juices just are not cooperating.
That’s correct, I am just giving them to you, for FREE to use however you like. If you use one of my ideas, and should you be feeling charitable, a link back to NorthxEast or MyTropicalEscape.com is always appreciated, but not required.
Blogging consistently on a day to day basis is a challenge and we all go into slumps so if you would like to let your mind take a rest once and a while there is one idea listed below for every week of the year. I hope you find them useful.
I generated all of the post ideas by utilizing the mind mapping technique that Darren Rowse, over at ProBlogger, has been writing about lately. The methodology, I picked ten posts, within ten different categories and mind mapped five new ideas from each article. At the end I also give you two bonus ideas.
A little more about mind mapping
If you would like to use mind mapping as a tool to help you to create new post ideas all you need to do is get a piece of paper and a pen, or open a new text document. Then write down the title of one of your favorite posts that you have written, or the post of another blogger, and from there you begin to brainstorm topics that would help to enhance the given article. Or you can get even more creative and head in a completely new direction. The real trick is to allow yourself to be as innovative as you can and not to limit yourself or hold yourself back, but rather just to write the ideas down.
After I chose the ten posts that I would work with I was ready to get started. Typically, all of my posts ideas and creative content development start as a title first. I find it is much easier to craft an article if I have a working title. So, that is what you are going to get for your post ideas in this article –
Fifty-two titles that you can work with and hopefully utilize as they are, or easily modify and create some variations.
As stated above I decided to use ten different categories and create FIVE new post ideas from each of them. The categories are as follows; blogging, linkbait, marketing, social media, humor, entrepreneurship, online business development, design, guest blogging, and blogging tools. This should give you a very good start toward getting over your blogger block (and well onto home run post creation).
Category 1 Blogging – NorthxEast 15 Powerful Ways to Differentiate Your Blog from the Crowd
In one of the best posts about blogging from last year, Leo Babauta dispenses a treasure trove of information about how can you differentiate yourself and get your blog noticed.
- A look at Techorati’s Top 5 Blogs and Why They Stand Out
- Your Site Stinks – Ten Tips to Help You Maximize Your Site’s Potential
- Create Innovative Must Read Content By Following These Three Easy Steps
- How To Swim Against The Stream By Making Your Blog Sexy
- Are You Ready For Server Crashing Traffic – All The Information You Will Ever Need To Make Your Site Remarkable
Category 2 Link Bait – MyTropicalEscape 30 Must Read Articles To Help Kick Start Your Blog, Attract More Readers, And Stay Motivated
My first intentional link bait post that actually had a pretty high (and unintentional) return for me in terms of the people I was able to network with after linking to them.
- Blog Post Buffet 15 Articles Guaranteed To Scramble Your Eggs
- Top Ten Best Marketing Posts Ever
- How Do You Get Your Blog Recognized – Read These Articles To Find Out
- The Absolute Best Posts From Technorati’s Top 50 Blogs
- Blogging 101 Twenty Five Posts To Ensure Your Blog’s Success
Category 3 Marketing – Skelliewag.org Like it Or Not, You’re a Marketer
This post by Skellie was one of my top five favorite posts from last year. If you haven’t done so yet I highly recommend that you go read it now. The article discusses Seth Godin’s “be remarkable” mantra in relation to marketing a blog and growing reader traffic.
- Feeding Green Grasss to the Purple Cow
- Gain More Readers By Showing Up Everyday
- Five Steps For Becoming Remarkable
- The Value of Growing Traffic One Reader At A Time
- Increase Readership With A Viral Marketing Campaign
Category 4 Social Media – Muhammad Saleem What is a top Social News User Anyway
Muhammad dispels myths and quantifies the individual components that classify “what a top social news user is.”
- Want To Make The Front Page – It’s All About Give And Take (ps. give more than you take)
- Ten Tips To Help You Become A Top Digger
- A Review of DIGG’s Ten Best Stories This Week
- Where does your social media loyalty stand – A comprehensive review of Stumble Upon and DIGG
- How to Draft Remarkable Social Media Comments That Get Noticed
Category 5 Humor – IttyBiz (Naomi Dunford) In Which I Confess My Blog Crush And You Could Win Something Awesome
Great humor post by Naomi (who is a fantastic writer) in which she discloses her blog crush and comes up with a tremendously creative way to increase her Technorati ranking all at the same time.
- Seth Godin Ate My Blog Post – So All You Get Today Is This Crappy Update
- 5 Tips On How To Join The Australian Blogging Mafia (Darren Rowse KingPin)
- If John Chow Mud Wrestled Shoemoney Who Would Win – A Theory
- Ten Grammar Mistakes I Found On CopyBlogger
- Top Reasons Why The Word BLOG Disturbs Me
Category 6 Entrepreneurship – Entrepreneur’s Journey Yaro’s Business Timeline
Yaro’s Business Timeline it is actually a series of five posts but if you are looking for entrpreneurship inspiration then I highly recommend you read all of the articles and you will learn about some of the fortitude that it takes to become successful.
- Entrepreneurship 101 – Pursuing Personal Freedom
- How Failure Helped Me To Succeed
- A Roundtable Discussion With Some Top Internet Entrepreneurs
- Five Must Read Tips To Become Successful
- Entrepreneur’s Gold – Motivation and Persistance
Category 7 Online Business Development – DoshDosh The Flagship Blog Project: Creating Multiple Blogs for Profit in 30 Day Cycles
A post that I found extremely inspirational because of the innovative method that Maki discusses that can help us to make money online. Hands down, one of the best posts from last year.
- Flipping Websites – A Case Study Of Recent Success Stories
- Five Types Of Blogs That Can Have You Generating Income Today
- Create A Flagship Blog Network For Fun And Profit
- Warning – These Ten New Niches Will Make You Money
- Outsource Your Writing For Maximum Results
Category 8 Design – Pro Blog Design What Makes A Good Design
Michael discusses the main elements of a good blog design.
- How Proper RSS Button Placement Can Increase Your Subscriber Count
- The Best Font Size For Readability
- Love Them Or Hate Them – Why Header Images Work
- Improve Your Branding By Improving Your Design
- Reader’s Speak Out – What Do You Like About This Site
Category 9 Guest Blogging – NorthxEast Seven Practical Tips On How To Be A Good Guest Poster
I drafted this post after reading many articles about guest posting and I realized that nobody had really written from that angle of what it actually takes to be a good guest blogger.
- Why Guest Posting Is A Very Effective Networking Tool
- How To Craft The Perfect Guest Post
- What You Need To Know About Inviting People To Write On Your Site
- Make The Most Of Guest Posting – Utilize These Backlink Strategies
- Submitting Your Guest Post To A-List Bloggers Is Easier Than You Think
Category 10 Blogging Platforms and Tools – ProBlogger Which WordPress Plugin Do You Use
Darren provides a list of his favorite WordPress Plugins and asks the readers to classify their favorites.
- Five Plugins That Are Guaranteed To Increase Your Traffic
- WordPress Versus Movable Type – Where Do You Stand?
- Declutter The Clutter With These Simple Themes
- The One Plugin Everyone Must Have
- Ten Little Known Plugins That Can Save You Time And Frustration
Whew – Almost there, but I still owe you two bonus post ideas and here they are.
- Want To Improve Your Writing – Step Away From The Computer
- Ten Habits Of Highly Ineffective Bloggers And How You Can Avoid Them
Well, that is it. Fifty-two post ideas that you can refer back to this year if you should hit a slump. Of course, the possibilities for mind mapping post ideas from these articles are virtually endless. The above are just what I could come up with during the course of a couple of hours.
Do you have any post titles, or story ideas that you would like to share? Feel free to leave them in the comments.
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