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Being a consistently good blogger is hard work. Writing up posts that interest and captivate your visitors is a challenging task. Where do great bloggers get their inspiration? While others may have different opinions, here is how I’d go about getting blogging inspiration.
Step One: The Very Beginning
Building a blog is like building a pyramid. Cover off a broad base of questions and knowledge before moving on to more esoteric stuff. Generally, this means first building a foundation of basic content. I assume that my audience knows very little about my subject area so I have to educate them on the basics of the topic.
In order to help me along, I think about what questions my visitors may have if they are just learning about the subject. Also, I consider how to answer their “questions”. Perhaps this can be easily accomplished with a FAQ posting? Or, for highly technical topics, a glossary of terms? Maybe a guide would be useful to your visitors–on my Cell Phone News blog, I have a guide on How to Pick a Cell Phone Carrier.
Step Two: Getting More Inspiration
Once you’ve settled on the basics, it’s time to build on the generalized content. Report on news in your topic, opine on developments, link to useful posts and resources by other bloggers and sites. Do searches in the search engines for your topic, read related blogs, set up your newsreader subscriptions to other related sites so you can take a pulse on what the hot topics are.
The idea here is not to reinvent the wheel nor is it to rehash what everyone else is talking about. It’s all about incrementally adding value to ideas/opinions/posts already out in the blogosphere. Suppose someone has just broken the news of a great new product. Perhaps you can opine as to how that product would make some currently hot product completely obsolete. A great example of this was done over at Performancing where Chris Garret posted about how the new and free Google Analytics stats package might make other stat packages that charge money obsolete. He then went on to review some popular stats packages to see whether they stacked up against Google Analytics.
Some blogs distinguish themselves by trying to be the first to break news. The Apple-centric blog Thinksecret regularly posts rumors that later on turn out to be true (though some have been false). TechCrunch also does the same thing. If for some reason you are “in the know” (by, for example, knowing someone on the inside), perhaps you can use that to your advantage.
What if you don’t have anyone on the inside? Perhaps then you can analyze data that is publicly available and discover something unique. Perhaps you can take a visit to the local bookstore and review some magazines for inspiration then incrementally adding value by taking a different perspective.
Step Three: Top of the Pyramid
Once you’ve gotten Steps One and Two going, you can start to focus on Step Three. Step Three is the top of the pyramid and it is hoped at this point you are viewed as an authority on the topic of your blog. Now you need to be on the cutting edge to distinguish yourself from the other blogs out there. You need to read and be up to speed on the latest theories, news and techniques of your topic.
You should have well-formed opinions on any number of sub-topics related to your blog’s main topic. You should be a regular contributor to a number of other popular blogs. You should consider taking perspectives others have not considered before.
You should try different techniques for expanding your blog’s reach. For example, guest bloggers help present a different perspective and adds to the authority of your site. Darren runs contests from time to time and regularly conducts polls. Increasing participation is the name of the game at this point.
Summary:
- Step One. Get the basics of your topic area set up. Post on FAQs, set up a glossary, create a guide for beginners.
- Step Two. Contribute incremental value to existing ideas and perspectives. Try to be a “news breaker” if possible.
- Step Three. Take a different perspective on a hot topic. Try to interlink topics/viewpoints/perspectives. Participate in hot topics, engage your visitors.
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