We’ve established in past posts that content creation for your blog is important. More so, we’ve established that daily, consistent, quality content is not only important, but will heavily affect your site’s performance in search results. If you are in fact posting weekly or, better yet, daily, you are bound to run into writer’s block sooner or later.
The following tips will help you not only combat writer’s block, but also give a few pointers on how to add variety to your blog content overall.
Turn on the News
If you can’t think of any blog topics off the top of your head, check news sites in your related industry. Your readers may not be aware of important updates in your field, and reading the news might help inspire related topics.
If you already use this method, try visiting a legitimate news site you’ve never been to before. Sometimes, reading the same websites for information will stifle creativity and block you from finding information you never would’ve discovered. Get outside of your comfort zone and discover new sources. Better yet, ask a friend or fellow industry professional for their favorite news sites.
Mix Up Your Blog Type
You may have a topic you’d like to write about, but be completely sick of using the same format (paragraph style, headings, a few photos, etc.). While Google loves content rich blogs, you also want to keep readers’ interest. Nothing is wrong with mixing it up every once in a while and creating a fun, interesting, exciting post. The following are a few examples of how you can mix up your content and break the mold:
- Animation and GIFs: Spice up your content by adding appropriate GIFs.
- Infographics: These do especially well when are easily read and not too huge. Infographics featuring flow charts especially engage your audience.
- Charts: Turning your information into an interesting chart will actually make readers want to read your data. Even better, charts that relate to the reader (think age, city, even likes/dislikes if appropriate) will especially engage others.
- How-to Guides: Like this one! You can also simplify a how-to guide using a number format and photos for every step.
- Whitepapers: If you have a whitepaper you’re willing to share, blog about it!
There are hundreds of other tweaks you can make to your blog the make it interesting even with a severe case of writers block. Graphs, videos, lists and more can also help you get inspired to create some fresh content.
Dig Deeper
Back to thinking outside the box, dig deep to see if there is anything your business is doing that readers would love to know about, but you don’t write about. For example, if you’re a construction company and usually blog about construction or product details, you might eventually get bored. Try thinking about what else your company does, behind the scenes. Do you help with community events? Have you recently promoted an employee that’s been loyal to you for several years? Maybe you just remodeled your office to include ping pong tables and Segways for each employee. Well, blog about it! You’d be surprised how interested your readers will be.
