How to find good ideas and content for your blog…

Okay, I admit it, I stole this… But I’m going to tell you where I stole it from and hopefully they won’t mind. It came from a site called online-tech-tips.com. While this post is about finding good ideas and content, that blog looks like a good one if you’re in need of tech tips. The writer is passionate about his work – that’s a good sign.

Are you a blogger? I’m really not, but I do have a blog. It’s at greenpromoblog.com. I always struggle to either find/take the time to post, and often I’m not sure of what to say. The folks mentioned in the paragraph above tweeted about this list, and I thought I’d share it with you. If you find it to be helpful, or _______, tell me about it. Let me know. Feedback’s a good thing. Thanks in advance. Here goes: (sure wish fb would give us some formatting tools – bold, italic, etc.)  [I originally posted this on my facebook page, www.facebook.com/ted4promos.

Here’s a quick tip for bloggers trying to find new ideas and content their blogs. If you’re trying to write a blog full-time, one problem that can crop up and make you feel like quitting is the inability to find something new and interesting to write about. Of course, if you’re blogging about Politics or Personal Productivity, the content should probably be your own opinions or experiences in life, but if you’re writing about technology or something similar, it’s essential that you can find out about the latest things in your field.

I’m going to be writing this post with a slant towards technology blogs since I write about those topics myself, but you can easily port these tips over to any other genre as they are not specific to technology. If you have any other ideas or would like to add to the list, please feel free to post a comment!

So here is currently what I do to find new blog content or ideas for a blog post:

Read other blogs in your niche – First of all, find out what kind of competition exists in your niche. Since I write about technology, I’ve searched through blog directories like BlogCatalog or Blogarama, blog communities like MyBlogLog or Technorati, etc to find other blogs that relate to my topic. Once I’ve found a couple I like, I have looked over their posts and browsed through their list of sources (most bloggers will site [cite] sources at the bottom of a post). Now you can create a good list of “source” sites, blogs, forums (Yahoo Answers), etc whereby you can search through and find content. If you can add value to a post someone else has written, post it on your blog and make sure to link back to the original source. There’s no way any blogger can write about everything, so pick and choose topics that specifically relate to your blog. Also, browse through comments on popular blogs as readers will usually post alternatives to the item or solution provided in the main post. For example, a tech blogger writing about a program to help recover data from your hard drive will usually get a bunch of comments on other programs or solutions to recovering data. You could use those ideas as a topic for one of your posts.

Social Bookmarking sites – Sites like Del.icio.us, Digg, Yahoo MyWeb, StumbleUpon and many others are great ways to find new blog ideas, especially for tech bloggers. You’ll always find links to startup web sites or cool web apps, etc, etc. However, there are many different topics other than technology, so it’s definitely worth checking these sites out! You can also follow along news sites like Newsvine and Tailrank, which are community-based, but more focused on current events.

Audio and Video Podcasts – This is probably one of the best ways to find fresh relevant content for your blog. Audio and video podcasts have the advantage that you can get a lot more information across in a shorter period of time. There are literally thousands of podcasts that you can watch daily ranging from the latest tech news to animal life in the Amazon! One cool piece of software that you can use to find and watch podcasts is Miro. It’s completely free and has over 2000 channels with videos that you can download to your PC, iPod or media player. You can check out other podcast sites like Twit, TeXtra, DL.TV, Blip.tv, etc.

Google Alerts – This one might sound a little strange, but it really does work! Google Alerts is a great tool to use to find content on the web specifically related to the keywords you choose. You can easily find any mention of your keywords in the news or in blogs. So if you want to know the day a new product is being released, simply create an alert with those words and you can get the information as it happens. This reduces the time it takes to read through lots of news or blog sites trying to find the information you need. [Interesting; I'll have to try this. I wonder if many in the media do this]

Keyword Tools – Every serious blogger should be using keyword tools to uncover the searching habits of readers. That importance of the data that you can get from these tools is simply too great to overlook. There are several free keyword tools out there, including Google Adwords, Overture, and Keyword Discovery. The numbers may not be exactly accurate, but it’s definitely insightful and good to know when writing titles for your post, etc. [another good idea]

That pretty much covers it! I can’t really think of any other way to find topics other than through personal experience or networking with other people. If you have some other method, please share it with everyone!

It’s Ted again… great stuff huh? Got other ideas or comments? Please share!