Three Cool Places to Find Blog Topic Ideas

What to write?

How many times have you said those words to yourself as a blogger?

Staring at the “white screen of death” with the flashing cursor and realizing you’ve got nothing.

Been there? Yeah, me too. Not fun taming that gremlin.

Tons has been written on how to get blog topic ideas.

Some of them resonate with me, others not so much.

Here are my three cool places to find blog topic ideas:

1. Barnes & Noble magazine racks

Personal confession: I’m addicted to Barnes and Noble. It is my go to place when I want to work away from the office. It is also the place that I drink tons of Starbucks coffee.

More importantly, it is a cool place to get blog topics.

If you have been to a Barnes & Noble before, you know that they have huge magazine racks filled with mags from every possible niche, Cars, knitting, sports, fashion, dating, psychology, New Age, writing, crafts, skiing, camping and a bunch more.

Voila! Instant blog topic ideas at your finger tips. Pick a magazine that fits your blog’s theme and message and flip through it. Look for images that spark an interest. Look at article titles, they often contain a seed for a post. Read the Editorials – they usually address a specific topic – often a controversial one – that you might use.

Grab a coffee, have a seat and get to flippin’.

2. Niche specific Forums

Another personal confession: I am not a forum kind of guy. Usually they drive me nuts. Too much whining and moaning for me.

But I know a good resource when I see one. Online forums are just that, a great resource for blog topic ideas.

The cool thing is, there are forums for just about any niche you can think of. Many match those listed above – dating, knitting, pipe smoking etc, etc.

Find one that suits your audience, register to join and then try this little technique: look for questions that people are asking and write a blog post that answers that question.

Example: WordPress has forums where people ask a lot of questions. If your blog has anything to do with WordPress, take a question from the forum and make it into a blog post.

Remember to provide value for the forum community and answer the question for them as well.

3. Daily life and a trusty Moleskine

I know it is American Express that says “Don’t leave home without it,” but, if you are a blogger, that truth should apply to you and a Moleskine notebook.  They are rugged and durable and oh so cool.

Okay, so it can be any notebook or pad, the idea is to be able to take down notes as you work and play throughout your day.

As you encounter your day and find things that would be interesting as a blog post, write the idea down. Keep this up throughout the week and you can have yourself a ton of material to write about. Use a couple ideas this week in your posts and keep the notebook handy to draw from for next week’s writing calendar.

Use this method everyday and you will lessen your runs ins with the flashing cursor and white screen of death.

Your Turn:

These are my three. What are some that you use to come up with blog topics?