Lazybones Easy-Street Blogging Tricks;
Eager beavers, out. Read no further. Seven ideas for loafers like me.
Here is the situation: We need to produce regular content. Not only do we need loads of ideas, we need good ideas. And more than anything else, we want ideas that people are interested in. Ouch.
Ok, here is how to get them.
Bubble Gum Wrapper (Photo credit: 10ch)
1. Tune Into The Discussion:
Let’s say your niche is Bubble Gum Wrappers. And let’s say that for some reason ideas are kinda slow. (I cannot comment why that would be so…) You go to Yahoo Answers, (http://www.answers.yahoo.com) and run a search for all that has been discussed about your subject. You may want to search based on “gum wrappers” (- in quotation marks, as I put it) or for “bubble gum” etc. Whatever you find has the advantage that it is a topic that actual people are interested in.
Go full steam ahead and answer the questions people have asked, or go argue with answers that others have given. You’re dealing with live bait here.
2. Now for the kicker;
Go to Google Alerts, (at http://www.google.com/alerts ) and set up an alert for yourself. You do not want twenty thousand alerts for all bubble gum wrapper business, but rather stuff from real people. To do that we need to limit the alert. So in the alert write: “gum wrappers” site:answers.yahoo.com.
Do not limit yourself only to Yahoo answers. I have seen people recommending Quora, (http://www.Quora.com), AnswerBag (http://www.Answerbag.com) and Answers (http://www.Answers.com). Set alerts from them all. You can choose to receive any mention of your search term or only the most relevant ones, and you can choose to get it once a day or as they come in to the GoogleBot.
Google Alerts are not foolproof, sometimes you may get an alert days after a friend of yours received an alert for the exact same phrase, but it’s the best there is and it’s free, so no complaining, Ok?
3. The Keyword Tool
Drop your keyword, “bubble gum wrappers” into Google’s free Adwords Tool. (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) See what it suggests to you. It will be suggesting things that people are actually searching for, and you can get some valuable ideas for cheap.
4. Monitor Social Chatter:
To get an idea of what interests people, Tweeter, SocialMention and HootSuite are what to look into for monitoring Twitter and FaceBook. Google for them.
5. Your Own Ideas:
Generating ideas on your own: I find mind mapping to be a great tool. Without going into any detail about what mind mapping is or how it works, I do recommend that you use it.
You can get a free mind mapping program here at FreeMind; http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page.
(This version is multi-platform so you can use it on Windows, Linux and Mac OS).
Start a new mind-map, with the focal word you are focusing on in the center, and then add the thoughts as they occur to you, without censoring yourself. Within minutes, you will find yourself armed with a list of new ideas. Not only new ideas, but even entirely new directions. Then go Thee, and blog about them. Enjoy!
6. Work In Hyper Units:
Focus on the methods above for 33 minutes. Set an egg timer, and focus from the start until it rings. This is copywiter Gene Schwartz’s secret; limit yourself, so that the task will be small enough to handle, but do give it your undivided attention for 33 minutes.
Do you know what you can accomplish in 33 solid minutes?!
7. MindStorming:
Thank Brian Tracy for this: Use the twenty-idea method. Take a sheet of paper. On the top write down the subject you are investigating. For instance, you will write across the top “Bubble Gum Wrappers”. Then write numbers on the left side, one to twenty. Now sit yourself down and write down twenty ideas.
The first seven, even ten, may come to you in a quick rush. Those are the ones you know about already. Another five or six flow slowly, each one taking five minutes or so. Its like you need to squeeze them out.
The are the ones that are murder. You agonize and sweat, each new idea making you cough blood. Those, my friend, are the gold. They are genuine uber-ideas, fresh new and powerful. Do not stop, under any circumstances, until you have the full twenty ideas. Keep on banging away. Like a cold shower, it hurts to even think about it, but afterwards it’s maaarvelous!
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