3 Ways To Find Content Idea Starters
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Some days you may need to create a blog post, a newsletter article, or even a short social media post, and you come up empty.
Maybe you’re not sure what topic to write about. Or maybe you know the topic, but you’re not sure about how to approach the topic (what angle/perspective/slant).
That’s where this article comes in, as it serves as an “idea starter” to help you brainstorm and research fresh topics and angles for your next piece of content.
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Ok, let’s jump in…
Step 1: Brainstorm Using Prompts
Defined: Idea starters are basically prompts to help you think about ideas and angles of what to write about.
To that end, go through the following idea starters and write down as many ideas as you can think of for your niche.
TIP: You can go through this list and write down ideas for your niche without having a specific topic in mind. Starting with only your niche will help you generate ideas for dozens of topics within the niche.
However, this list also works well when you do have a specific topic (such as “getting rid of aphids” or “replacing a classic car’s upholstery”), as then you’ll get dozens of ideas for ways to approach these specific topics.
Here are your idea starters — list as many ideas as you can think of for each one:
- X Common Myths You’ve Heard About _______
- For People Who Want to ______ But Can’t Get Started
- How to Prevent ___________
- How to Get Rid of _____________
- Fast Relief of ______________
- Five Hacks for ______________
- How to Save Time When ___________
- How to Save Money When ____________
- How to Stay Safe When _______________
- The Fastest Way to ________________
- The Best Way to _________________
- The Cheapest Way to _____________
- The X Stages of ________________
- The Pros and Cons of _____________
- What To Do When You’re Worried About _____________
- How to _____ Like ______ (How to do something like a famous person)
- X _______ Ideas That Don’t Require ____________
- How to ______ Even if You Don’t _______________
- The #1 __________ Mistake You Don’t Want to Make
- How I Turned __________ Into ________________
- What I Learned From _________________
- What __________ Taught Me About _____________
- Why You Should Never ____________
- Why I Do __________ Differently Than Everyone Else
Next…
Step 2: Do Some Research
Your next step is to do some research to help generate even more ideas. The strategy here is to look at existing content and ideas and then reflect back on the idea-starter questions above to generate additional ideas.
I’ll first give you a list of existing content to review, and then I’ll provide you with examples of how to implement this strategy:
- Check your competitors’ blogs.
- Read your competitors’ newsletters.
- Browse social media pages in your niche.
- Search for niche information in academic journals (use Google Scholar).
- Browse YouTube videos and YouTube channels in your niche.
- Review PLR (private label rights) content in your niche for ideas.
- Check paid products in your niche.
- Browse slide shares in your niche on SlideShare.net.
- Look at your own existing content.
Let’s work through an example…
Let’s suppose you go to your competitor’s blog, and you find an article with 10 tips for losing weight. You can look at the article as a whole, as well as each individual tip, and run through your idea starters.
“X Commons Myths You’ve Heard About _______” becomes “Top Five Common Myths You’ve Heard About Losing Weight.” You can then turn a positive tip on the list into a negative myth (that you debunk).
Let me give you a specific example…
Let’s suppose one of the tips is on the topic of eating multiple smaller meals per day to boost metabolism and provide the body with a steady supply of food to fuel one’s activities.
You can turn this idea around to become a myth. E.G., “Eat Two or Three Big Meals Per Day” is the myth, and then you can share what to do instead (eat six small meals per day).
Step 3: Use A Tool
Need more ideas? Then your next step is to use a tool to generate additional ideas.
One of the best tools to use is BuzzSumo.com. Not only does this tool give you topic and angle ideas, it also presents ideas for content that’s already popular in your niche.
Start by entering your broad keywords into BuzzSumo, such as “gardening” or “dog training.” Then write down any ideas that spark your interest.
Then…
Enter broad keywords from OTHER niches.
For example, if your market is dog training, then enter completely different market and niche searches such as:
- Weight loss
- Traveling (or even more specific, such as “RV traveling” or “overseas traveling”)
- Camping
- Gardening
- Marriage/wedding
- Relationships
- Conception/infertility
- Adoption
- Anti-aging
- Bodybuilding
- Self-defense
- Home security
- Computer security
- Running
- Hiking
And similar big, evergreen markets and topics. For each market or topic you feed into the tool, you’ll get dozens of ideas. In turn, you can take these ideas and apply them to your own niche.
For example, let’s suppose you feed the keywords “weight loss” into the tool, and you get a result such as “It’s Never Too Late to Start Losing Weight.”
You can then take this topic and bring it to your niche (dog training). E.G., “It’s Never Too Late to Start Training Your German Shepherd.”
Or let’s suppose you enter “gardening” and get the result: “10 Gardening Ideas that Work Even If You Don’t Have a Green Thumb.”
You can brainstorm and apply that to your niche, like this: “10 Dog Training Ideas That Work Even If You’re a Complete Dog-Training Newbie.”
Let’s wrap this up…
Conclusion
Now that you have a list of idea starters and access to research and tools that can help you generate even more ideas, your next step is simple: start brainstorming 😊
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