I Don’t Know What To Write About – Tips for Brainstorming New Article Topics

What do you do when you have to write 100 articles on the topic of “dentists?” How on earth do you get ideas for creating unique, engaging and informative articles on the same darn topic month after month? This is one of the great challenges every web content writer faces. Here are some ways to come up with article ideas.
Pilfer Your Old Articles
I’m not talking about rewriting old articles – that would be dishonest, unethical, lazy, boring and utterly uncreative. It would offer no value to anybody whatsoever and it would just save you a tiny bit of your precious time. What I mean is that you can go through old articles and take one of your points to expand into a whole article.
For example, you’ve got an old article on why people don’t visit dentists often enough. The reasons are that it’s expensive, people are busy and the thought of visiting dentists creates a feeling of anxiety. These three points in your old article magically give birth to three new articles:
1) How much do dentists cost / how to pay for the dentist;
2) How to make time to visit the dentist, get into a routine, etc.;
3) Getting over fear of dentists.
Of course, these are three new articles, not just expanding on the paragraph you wrote in your old article. You can run with them and create 3 totally original and high quality articles on these specific topics.
Forums Where People Are Talking
Forums are great places to find out what topics are hot. You can take almost any thread on a forum can turn that into an article. Sometimes you can even find useful information to use in the article in a forum. Sometimes, when I have 10 articles to write on some topic, I’ll just find a good forum and read it until I’ve got my 10 topics. You can also search using forum search engines, which makes it easier.
Forums are great for coming up with topics, but they’re not always good for finding actual information. After all, anybody can basically post anything on a forum, so it’s better to do your actual research somewhere else.
Any Questions?
Question and answer sites are also good. You can see what the most people are asking and use those as topic ideas. The only trouble with them is that lots of the questions are the same. There might be 30 people asking, “How do I get over my fear of the dentists?” Not a lot of quality control there. Still, it’s good for getting some basic topic ideas and learning about what people want to know.
Save Template Ideas
Finally, create a file for template ideas. You can buy eBooks that have tons of them, but there’s no reason to. Whenever you’re looking at article directories or other sites, just start writing them down and saving them for rainy days. Examples are:
The Pros And Cons Of Whatever
The Top 5 Blah Blah Blah
Such And Such Myths And Facts
X Things You Didn’t Know About Such And Such
Just keep a list going and use them when you’re out of ideas. Templates are a good way to reuse information across several articles by reframing it.
Other than that, what really helps me when I’m actually suffering from the dreaded Writer’s Block is to get away from the computer. I keep a tiny notebook with me at all times. I’ve noticed that my best ideas hit when I’m walking, riding the train, talking to somebody or doing something else totally unrelated to writing. I’m rarely thinking about work at those times, but sometimes something just smacks me right in the face.