A Fool-Proof Method To Brainstorm Blogging Ideas

Do you struggle with coming up with original ideas for your blog posts? Want to get out of the “echo chamber” and not just report repeat news that’s been posted everywhere else? Yes? Great! You’re in luck today because I’m going to share with you my fool-proof, idiot-proof method of brainstorming great ideas for your blog that, chances are, nobody else may have thought about. Bring originality to your blog posts, increase readership and add value to your existing readers with “The Visitor Grid” method of brainstorming!

Brainstorming why your visitors are visiting your blog will help to focus your blog post topics, writing style, and traffic generation and monetization techniques. It is important to be able to “connect” with your reader and having a big brainstorming session before writing does that.

[Incidentally, Copyblogger has a post that expands on why connection with your reader is important in this post.]

It’s with those thoughts that I’ve been thinking about how to better make my posts be more responsive to visitors’ wants and needs, and I’ve come up with my own solution. It’s called the “Visitor Grid” and it helps me to focus my blog posts and laser-target the tone, writing style and topic of my posts.

Visitors to your blog visit because they are “looking” for something (a “need”) and “want” some result.

Blog visitors may be looking for/need:

• Information about people, places, things or services
• Opinions and/or reviews of people, places, things or services
• Like-minded people who share common interests and beliefs
• Funny, sad, provocative news about people, places, things or services
• Tutorials that teach them how to do stuff

Blog visitors may want:

• To be entertained
• To be re-affirmed in their beliefs
• To be helpful
• To be confronted
• To be enlightened

When I’m brainstorming ideas for posts, I match up those needs and wants in a system called “The Visitor Grid“.

How to Create The Visitor Grid

Make a big grid of six columns across by six rows down. Write in the boxes on the top row each of the things a visitor to your blog may be looking for. Write in the boxes in the first column each of the things your visitor may want from visiting your blog.

Once you’ve done that, you should have a table with “wants” in the left most column and “things visitors are looking for” (a/k/a “needs”) in the top row.

For example, say your blog is about gadgets. In that case, visitors may come to your blog looking for/need:

• Information about gadgets
• Opinions and/or reviews about gadgets
• Like-minded people who also have an affinity for gadgets
• Funny, sad, provocative news about gadgets
• Tutorials that teach them how to tweak gadgets

Using the Visitor Grid, place each of those bullet points in the boxes on the top row. Then, down the first column, list your visitor wants (you can use my list above or create your own) in each of the boxes. If you’ve done everything correctly, your visitor grid should now look like this:

Next, fill in the boxes with ideas on how you will match up a visitor’s wants with what that visitor is looking for (i.e., his/her “needs”). For example, your completed grid could look like this:

Now all there is to do is to focus your posts so that you are blogging about a topic from the top row that matches a need from the leftmost column.

For example, a visitor who is looking for opinions and/or reviews about gadgets may be looking because he wants to be confronted with different uses of the gadgets than intended. So, based on the Visitor Grid, you could focus your post on a review of a gadget that is being used in a different way than it was intended.

Here’s a real life example: John Chow has a posting about how an Ipod could be used as a source of power for a vibrator.

Another great feature about the Visitor Grid is that a properly filled out grid will allow you to laser focus your news search efforts on the topics that match the visitor needs/wants grid box. Also, you’ve just outlined ideas for 25 great posts.

Does the Visitor Grid get your creative juices going? If so, what are you waiting for? Get blogging!