Coming up with new and quality ideas is one of the biggest challenges digital marketers face. Not only do you need a topic that you can produce at least a few hundred words about, you probably don’t want it to be something that you’ve written a lot about in the past.
Blogger’s block is something which you’ve probably had to deal with at some time or other whether you’re a content writer or you’ve just been tasked with coming up with some posts. You stare at a screen or a page, waiting for inspiration to come to you and it just never happens.
When you’ve been writing about similar topics for a while this can be particularly problematic. You think you’ve written everything under the sun which could even be slightly related to anything at all to with modelling agencies. You’re thinking about going way off topic, but then it can be a bit of a pain to try and get your key words in.
And will you still be appealing to your market?
It’s a minefield.
There’s a few excellent ways around it though, you just need to know where to look.
The Cosmo Method
One of my favourite methods is one which Brian Clark suggested on copyblogger. All you need to do is take a headline from a magazine (Brian suggests Cosmo, but really it would work with headlines from any magazine at all), and fit your keywords or subjects into that format. For example, Brian cites one of the headlines as ‘Get Ahead Faster: 12 Brilliant (and Slightly Badass) Ways to Do It’. When writing for a modelling agency, this could easily become ‘Get More Modelling Jobs: 12 simple (and slightly badass) ways to do it’. You might not be able to think of any badass ways, so you might want to change that to something more applicable. Slightly sneaky? Slightly tricky? Just insert which ever adjective works for you.
Gives you a starting point, doesn’t it?
Content Idea Generators
Idea generators are marvelous. They’re a simple program which automatically generates headings for posts based around a subject you provide. This could be anything at all, and some sites even let you input whether that word is a noun or a verb.
The sites can’t actually determine what you’ve put in, so some of the results you get back won’t make sense grammatically or might be completely ridiculous for your industry. You’ll need to take them with a pinch of salt, but as a starting point they definitely have their advantages.
The heading of this very article came from a content idea generator, because I thought it’d almost be rude not to when I was dedicating an article to them. Other suggestions which came up might not have worked quite so well (show me a man who can write a convincing blog post entitled ‘Miley Cyrus and Content Idea Generators: 10 Surprising Things They Have In Common’ and I’ll eat my proverbial hat), but as you can generate more ideas at the click of a button, it’s worth having a look.
Portent’s Content Idea Generator
It took me a few goes with my modelling agencies subject on Portent’s Content Idea Generator to get somewhere useful (’11 Facts about Modelling Agencies Everyone Thinks Are True’), and to get passed some less useful options (’10 Things Spock Would Say About Modelling Agencies’), but I really like the layout. You’re given four parts of a sentence neatly woven into one snappy header. I mean no, The Beatles probably couldn’t learn heaps from modelling agencies, but change that to ‘drama students’ and you might be onto a winner.
Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator
Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator is another great place for catchy topics. You just type in three keywords you want to work with and click ‘GIVE ME BLOG TOPICS’ and your subjects will be molded into some nifty little titles. Again, not all the titles will suit all subjects, or be useful in all industries, but you can adjust them slightly to make them work for you. It’s so simple, it’s so quick, and if all goes to plan you’ll have five ideas which you might not have thought of before.
Link Bait Title Generator
http://www.contentrow.com/tools/link-bait-title-generator
Link Bait Title Generator isn’t my favourite out there, and I probably won’t use it much in future either, but if nothing else it certainly will give you a giggle. As with the others you need to type your subject in, and then you’ll need to select which sorts of headings you’re after. Controversial, fun, lists or shocking? You can always tick all four for even more options.
You’ll be given a huge list, some which work, others which don’t quite as well, but as there’s so many you’re bound to find something which will work on your blog.
Why we love ‘em
The content idea generators aren’t perfect. They’re not polished, sometimes their grammar leaves something to be desired, and sometimes they are so left field you’re not sure where you’re meant to go with them. There’s also a finite amount of words plugged into each algorithm, so if you try it a few times the same concept is likely to crop up again, but you could just think of this as a reminder that content ideas never die, and you can always get more out of them.
As there’s so many different ones out there, and it’s such a quick and easy thing to do in your hour of need, we will always be grateful, even if it’s just for the laugh they provide.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to write about what governments don’t want you to know about modelling agencies, and somehow try and get a Miley reference in.
SME Paid Under
Comments are closed.