Blogging Basics: 5 Ways to Mine Your Brain for Ideas

Image from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Blogging is here for the long haul, and it still has a lot of room to grow; as it continues to evolve into a more powerful medium.

Free-thinkers, movers, and shakers all over the world have helped usher in a new era since blogging has made the power of free expression more accessible to everyone. With blogs, ordinary people became instant Internet sensations with their brilliant ideas.

Businesses, too, saw the potential almost immediately. Today, blogging has become a mainstream platform for online entrepreneurs.

For whatever purpose it is used, blogging is an extremely compelling tool. And with blogging tools, it’s ridiculously easy for anyone to develop an online presence from the ground up. Many blogging platforms – such as WordPress.com, Blogger.com, and Tumblr – allow bloggers to set up, write, and publish in no time.

If you’re thinking about starting a blog, don’t get too concerned about the challenge of having to pick your brain for something worthwhile to blog about. Trust me: even the most seasoned bloggers fall victim to writer’s block.

But remember, whatever you decide to blog about, there will always be someone who will read what you have to say about the topic of your choice – even if it’s your mom.

So you want to blog? Here are five tips for you to make blogging an enjoyable and worthwhile endeavor.

1. Mine your inner self for things that you are good at and passionate about. Your passion is always a good starting point for anything. What are your hobbies? What are you good at? Do you love cooking? Do you love pets? Are you good at motivating people? You might also want to ask people who know you what they think you are good at.
2. Read up on a variety of stuff. A wide reader will always find something fresh to write about. Read up on your areas of interest. Watch TV programs – in fact, watch lots of TV programs. And to help you keep track of your interest, use Google Alerts. It’s a remarkable tool that keeps you in the loop on things you are interested in. I’d also highly recommended that you follow blogs that promote your passion. To search for blogs about your interest, use Google Blog Search.
3. Expand on an idea. Let’s say you want to blog about cakes. You can start by writing about what makes you feel so passionately about them. From there you can think about sub-topics like the best consistency for icing, how the show “Cake Boss” is doing it right (or not!), different cake flavors, etc.
4. Notes, notes, and some more notes. Keep a pen and paper handy because you never know when a brilliant idea might hit you. I am reminded of a brilliant joke from the late Mitch Hedberg:

“Sometimes in the middle of the night, I think of something that’s funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen’s too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain’t funny.”

Don’t let that idea slip past you, no matter how ridiculous. You’ll feel ridiculous about failing to publish an idea when someone else beats you to it.

5. Use the cloud. I know some writers prefer writing down their ideas on Google Drive (formerly Google Docs). For them it’s more convenient that way, and I tend to agree with them. With Google Docs, you have your ideas written down and saved in Google’s servers. Since you may not always carry your laptop around, you can always get access to your stuff online from any computer, even from your mobile devices, such as your tablet or mobile phone. Plus, it saves you on precious memory storage.

Finally, if you still can’t get started blogging, stop whatever you’re doing right now, open whatever word processor your computer is running, and start typing like there’s no tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what you type: you can go back later to see what makes sense and what doesn’t.

Conclusion

Blogging is here to stay. And it’s actually quite easy to blog about any topic you’re interested in by following the recommendations I’ve outlined here. By taking advantage of this tool, you can reach out to a wider audience and set yourself up as an expert in your field.

If you need help setting up a blog for yourself or for your business, contact us and I’ll be happy to show you the options.

----------------------------

Interested in getting help growing your website traffic? Contact us.