One of the hardest parts to becoming a blogger is comping up with blog ideas. No one wants to come up with bad blog ideas, so we are all always striving for the ones. When we think of the best blog ideas two things come to mind, the topic of a blog itself, and the topic of blog posts. Instead of spinning your wheels, sit back, and relax.
The Best Blog Ideas for Your Blogging Niche
First, let’s talk about the best blog ideas for your blogging niche. A blogging niche is simply the fancy and trendy way to say the main topic of what your blog is all about. There are all sorts of methods to picking your blogging niche, but what it has always come down to for me is one of two things:
What do I want to learn about?
What do I want to teach others about?
Both of these things boil down to the same idea: passion. For me, a big part of coming up with the best blog ideas is all about things I am interested and passionate about. For me, even if a blog idea seemed like it would be popular, I would not necessarily write about it unless I was interested in it or saw how it could benefit others, therefore making me more interested in it.
This goes all the way back to grade school for me, and I am sure it does for others too. I always had problems with subjects I just was not interested in. No matter what, I just could not make myself get excited about the topic and really learn about it. This comes back to bite me during trivia games, since I always fail miserably at classic literature. The so called literary masterpieces are just nothing I ever liked, even though I was always caught with my face in a book.
I ended up in the technology field as a career because I loved technology. It was easy for me to be passionate and excited about it, which is essential for anything you are going to be putting many long hours into. It was also how I started my very first blog. It was all about technology, one technology in particular.
Over the years, as I became more interested about other technology topics, I naturally started covering them on my blog, therefore expanding my blogging niche. While some may say general technology is way too broad, sometimes a single topic within a niche can be way too narrow.
Do not stress out when you are trying to come up with the best blog idea. Pick something you are interested in and want to learn more about if you are not already an expert in that field. Even if you are already an expert, there is always something new to learn out there.
The Best Blog Ideas for Your Blog Content
Once you have decided what your blog is going to be about, your next hurdle is to come up with the best blog ideas for your blog content. The same principles we just talked about apply again here, but on a more narrower level.
If I have decided I am passionate about bicycle repair (we use this example in guide to writing with SEO naturally and the best example of how to write a blog post), it is going to be really, really hard to come up with the best blog ideas on bicycle repair on a broad level. I am going to need to start breaking it down. I should start asking myself questions like:
What areas of bicycle repair am I good at?
What areas of bicycle repair do I wish I was better at?
Where is the best place to get parts for bicycle repair?
What other aspects of bicycles do I find interesting?
This type of questioning from ourselves is always helpful when we are trying to come up with the best blog ideas. What makes our ideas the best is our passion behind them, because that will shine through in our blog posts.
What Makes the Best Blog Ideas the Best?
This is of course, subjective. If someone is looking into bicycle repair for the first time, they may not like our blog ideas because they themselves are not sold on the idea of repairing bicycles. For this type of person, they may be served better by another type of content.
On the other hand, if someone else shares our passion for bicycle repair, they may think we have written some of the best blog posts ever.
Writing the Best Blog Ever
Every blog you publish should be the best blog ever! Are there some blog posts you will like more than others? Of course there are. Here are some guidelines I use for writing what I like to think of as the best blog posts ever:
Be Informative. Teach something to the reader, or introduce the reader to a new concept. Give the reader information they did not have before. Arm them with knowledge.
Be Thorough. This can happen a couple of different ways. You may cover a single topic very thoroughly, or you may cover a number of topics in a single blog post. Whichever way you take it, be through either in the topic you are covering, or the number of topics you are introducing your reader to.
Do not stress about word count. I know I know, sometimes we feel like we have written too much, or not enough. The good thing about a blog post is you can always go back to it and add more content later (which is always a great idea, especially for SEO), or turn a single blog post into a series of posts on the same topic. Whatever you do, try not to stress out about the word count. Instead, focus on adding value to your reader’s day and helping them with something or teaching them something.
Be Yourself. The best thing to do in a blog post is to be yourself. Do not pretend to be someone else, and do not change the way you write and normally communicate. There is a myth that to become a better blogger, you need to change your writing style. While writing is like a muscle that takes practice to develop, it is important to let it develop in your own voice, whatever it is. This is one of the reasons why I hate all of those browser add-ons that are supposed to help you write better.
Be Proud. Do not ever publish something you are not proud of. If you have put yourself on a strict posting schedule, you are better off letting your schedule slip a little bit than publishing work you are not proud of. Remember, people are using their most valuable resource when they read your work: their time! Be respectful of that, and only publish blog posts of the highest quality.
Being proud also expands into promoting your work! Do not forget to promote your content on your social media networks of choice, and engage with your audience. Be sure to avoid some of the most common social media mistakes, and learn how to fix them if you have made them.
Keeping Track of The Best Blog Ideas
Sometimes, it can be hard to organize your thoughts as a blogger. This is why I wrote the guide to coming up with your blog idea list. A blog idea list is great, and a big part of it is making sure you review it on a regular basis and update it. Be sure to check out this guide to help you keep track of the best blog ideas.
What do the best blog ideas mean to you? Be sure to let us know in the comments, or on Twitter.