Since AdContented focus on monetizing Websites, I thought one of my first posts should be about the single most important part of any sites: content. With the Web and especially the blogosphere getting crowded these days, it’s getting more and more difficult to create really unique and useful content. Or at least, it gets harder to obtain strong visibility for it. So in order to be successful on the Web, it’s been said many times that you should focus on creating really good content. So here are my top ten sources to generate fresh blog content ideas.
Other blogs (Netvibes)
Other blogs in your field are, in my opinion, the single best source of information to find new content ideas. Create your top blogs list and read them on a constant basis. Personally, I dedicate 30-40 minutes a day reading all the blogs I find useful. And if you want to save time on the process, you should take advantage of services like Google customised page or NetVibes. These sites allow you to organise efficiently your RSS feeds.
Bonus: If you are interested in Search Marketing (and if you read this post you probably should…), here is my resources list. Download it, go to NetVibes and upload it in opml format. Now you have all the feeds I read already organised for you.
Technorati
Technorati is THE blog authority. It’s hard to find a blog who’s not registered in Technorati these days. So it makes it an excellent spot to find blog ideas. Look for the Top Favorited Blogs section or the Top Searches & Tags one to finds what’s hot today. It’s also an excellent way to test a potential niche. For example, if I search for content ideas, there is currently only 160 blogs that are using this tag. So I have pretty strong chances to be found when people perform a search with that keyword in mind.
Keyword tools
If you are thinking about a particular niche, you might want to judge his search potential. Keyword tools that Yahoo!, Google, AdCenter and DigitalPoint provides are all free and can gives you a good estimate in terms of number of searches per month. Just keep it mind that the numbers you will find will be ruff estimates only. You should use them as search indicators, not as real search numbers.
Digg, Del.icio.us & Reddit
Social bookmarking sites can give great post ideas mainly because they gives us an accurate focus on what users find to be of interest. Try the different “popular” categories for better results. And of course, use those sites to promote your own blog as well! If you are using WordPress, here are two very good plugins to help your readers bookmark your posts.
Squidoo, work.com
These two sites allow us to create a guide on any given subject. The information that can be find there is not always accurate, but the top 100 or the popular section can gives us an idea about what users are looking for. And then, for instance, if you find a popular guide with incomplete information, you might want to spend time to create a great post to complete it. You could even write your own guide and ultimately link to your own blog to give users additional resources.
Wikipedia
This tremendous resource with unequal information can be useful to find potential niches in your field. Here again, try to find hot topics that haven’t been fully explored and fill the need on your blog/Website. You could also try to create/edit an entry on Wikipedia, but since it’s managed by users, you’ll have to provide really complete stuff if you want your entry to stay alive.
Google / Yahoo! News
These two news giants are good tendency indicators, and particularly when it comes to new technologies. For example, if you read a press release about a new cell phone model, it can be very tempting to create a post that reviews this particular model. The search demand for it will surely increase over time, and you’ll be there already when people will search for it.
Forums and discussion lists
Google Groups, Yahoo! answers and all the forums out there (there is strong chances that there will be at least one in your field) are all excellent sources to get a sneak peek on what people are looking for. Someone is asking a relevant question and nobody managed to answer it? Here’s your chance to propose a response. Better yet, post your response on your blog and go to the forum to promote it.
Ask your readers
If your blog already generate a substantial amount of traffic, you should use the loyalty of your readers in an efficient way. These people read you on a constant basis and probably take your opinion in high regards. So once in a while, ask them what they would like you to write about. They will be glad to ask you specific questions. This is a very valuable approach since you already know these entries will be of great interest for your readers.
Blog in another language
My first language is French, and the proportion of French content on the Web is relatively insignificant compare to English content. Many subjects that have been written on many times in English would still benefit a French version of it. For instance, there are many blogs about Websites monetising and SEM in general, but only a few in French. That is the main reason why I think AdContented could have a future… And nevertheless, if I think a post could reach a wider audience (like this one I hope), I’ll probably spend extra time to provide an English version as well…
Conclusion
So here are my approaches to generate blog content ideas. And please do keep in mind that if most of them are a laborious process, I can guarantee you that your success will depends of the time you spent on creating useful content for your users…
And you, what are your methods to find good content ideas?
hey, nice post. are you in montreal btw?
Yes Julien, I am. Nice blog by the way, I added to my feed…
Very nice list covering most of the important things to note when writing blog posts.
As an aside, I’ve written a plugin that incorporates the Digg This Reloaded plugin with the Share This plugin to provide the sheer number of social bookmarking sites achieved by social with the cool Digg button. Fittingly, it’s entitled Share This Reloaded.
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