A Simple Guide to Creating New Blog Content
When you first start a blog, everything seems like it’s all sunshine and rainbows. You visualize yourself waking up each morning, piping hot cup of coffee in hand, sitting down at your computer and effortlessly pumping out new blog posts that will catapult you to the very top of the blogosphere.
While this might be true in the few weeks after you start a blog, you’ll quickly learn that it can become tricky to stay original and to continuously put out high quality blog posts. From a lack of motivation to run-of-the-mill writers’ block, feeling like you’ve hit a blogging roadblock is common.
While it’s easy to get frustrated, you don’t have to just give up. Here is a simple guide on how you can create new blog content that is fresh, compelling, original and appealing to your readers.
Step One: Look At What You’ve Already Discussed
Inspiration can often come from the content that you’ve already produced. No, this doesn’t mean that you should rehash the same old article. However, if you’re feeling like you can’t come up with any ideas on what to write, take a gander at your previously published posts. Specifically, look at your most popular posts to date. Chances are that your most popular work might have a common element. Perhaps they’re articles about something specific within your niche or perhaps it’s a certain type of article, such as a top 10 list.
Reviewing the content that you’ve already created can be very useful in coming up with ideas on what to write next. Perhaps you could even do a follow-up to your most popular article, where you answer some questions from the comments sections and add new thoughts that you’ve had on the subject since you penned the post.
Step Two: Look At Popular Blogs Within Your Niche
No, we’re not advising that you plagiarize other blogs’ content. However, there’s no reason why you can’t peruse other blogs in your niche to get an idea about what similar content creators are currently discussing. If you keep seeing a topic that you personally haven’t written about yet, then there’s your next post. Don’t worry about sounding stale; as long as you’re providing fresh perspective and commentary on the subject, there’s always room for more voices in any discussion.
You can also leisurely peruse other blogs to see what format of content they’re putting out. Remember, what you personally enjoy as a reader is most likely not that dissimilar to what other readers enjoy. If you’ve been loving a lot of photo-heavy blog posts but have yet to do one yourself, then it might be a good idea to whip out your camera. Try to create content that you would enjoy as a reader and others will enjoy it too.
Step Three: Just Write Something, Anything
Writers’ block has been the main adversary of anyone who puts pen to paper since the dawn of time. Bloggers are like any other writers, in the sense that they occasionally just can’t find the words. If you’re experiencing writer’s block, consider sitting down and just writing anything that pops into your head. This is a great way to overcome that maddening feeling that you can’t produce anything of substance.
You don’t have to publish anything that you produce during this exercise; in fact, it may be advisable not to publish it. However, be sure to save it in your drafts. After you’ve taken some time away from it, go back and review it. With a little editing, the content you produce during a free writing exercise might actually be something of substance and value.
Step Four: Leave Perfectionism Behind
Too many bloggers fall into the trap of thinking that if a post isn’t utterly perfect, then it can’t be published. Remember, blogging is an arena where you’re the sole editor, writer and webmaster of an entire media website. There’s no blog in the world that creates only perfect posts. That’s not to say that you should get lazy and purposefully produce bad posts, but don’t get caught up in a quest to be perfect with every post.
It’s okay if some of your posts are short or perhaps not your best work. Ultimately, the one component that all blogs share is consistency. Blogs that go months without new content rarely become popular, as their readers tend to become frustrated with the lack of consistent content. Push yourself to regularly post, even if everything you post isn’t always Pulitzer-worthy.
If you follow this guide, you can create a new post to put on your blog, no matter what your state of mind. It’s easy to stay excited and motivated when you first start a blog. Continuing to feel that way can be a challenge, but it’s doable.