Why create one blog post topic, when you can create 100?

I feel your pain. You need to get a blog post, complete with images, live by the end of the day but you don’t know where to start.

Thinking up the topic can be the hardest part of the whole process. You’ll ask yourself – what is the most pressing topic of the moment? What one thing can I write to help the reader find out more about us?

After years of writing blog posts for various clients, I can offer you 13 words of advice when it comes to creating topic ideas for blog posts.

Here goes –

… it’s easier to come up with 100 topics than it is just one.

Why? Well, when you try to access the recesses of your creative mind to come up with that one special blog post idea – the one that embodies everything you want to say, it rarely works. The reason?  You’ll be expecting way too much from that one idea.

You’ll put too much responsibility on this one idea to be the best. You’ll put too much effort into finding that elusive title, and you’ll read too much into any rubbish thoughts you come up with, just to get the job done.

And if that one idea is not forthcoming, you’ll get desperate and go off to make a coffee in an attempt to trigger a better idea. Then you’ll end up getting sidetracked because thinking of just one idea is simply too onerous. This has happened to me many times.

Believe it or not, finding 100 ideas is much easier. Once you start writing down any vaguely blog-topic-shaped idea that comes into your head, more will follow, and more and more.

Go ahead, try it.

When you start listing every conceivable idea you can think of, no matter how absurd, and you don’t care too much about its relevance, you make no judgements about its merits. You are simply dumping your thoughts of ideas down from brain onto the paper or screen.

You may create some trash, but you will also find treasure. You’ll find that ideas pop into your head that you’d never have considered before, or you may come up with different angles that have never occurred to you. Note it all down. If it truly is rubbish, you can bin it later. But you never know what gleaming treasure you might unearth.

So take action – try listing 100 blog post topics on your business or industry – do it on your lunch break, when your mind is relaxed. The ideas can be impractical, irrelevant or ridiculous – don’t judge, just write.

To give you a helping hand – try title-generator.com to come up with ideas for your list.

Let the list sit for a couple of hours or days – then curate. If you’re lucky, you’ll have blog post topics to see you through to next year. If not, you’ll at least have 4 or 5 to work with.

Now, choosing from your curated list of topics, write the blog post.

Simple, because the hardest bit is done.