We all get stuck from time to time on trying to come up with new ideas we can develop into valuable content that our audience wants to see from us. Here are some tools and techniques to come up with ideas so that the next time you are stuck for an idea.
Google Analytics
One of the first places I always turn to when stuck for ideas is my website analytics. I use these analytics in a couple of ways.The first is by tracking internal searches, this way I can create content around what my audience is searching for.
If you use Google Analytics and have site search integrated you can find this report under Behaviour -> Site Search.
BuzzSumo
Using BuzzSumo you can run searches on any topic or niche that you can think of and view the top content based on social shares within different time ranges. You can look through these ideas and see if you can spin off topic ideas, update what they are saying or even offer a differing opinion.
BuzzSumo is also great for looking at what your competition is doing. You can drop your competitors URL into the search and see what content is working for them and then use this information to help you generate ideas that your audience may be interested in as well.
Social Networks
You probably belong to many social networks and you probably are friends with many individuals or follow many brands that are involved within your industry. Look at what they’re sharing and what they are talking about to help you come up with new ideas. You can even take advantage of search within Google+, Twitter and Pinterest to help you find new topic ideas.
Quora
The ultimate place to find questions being asked on just about any topic imaginable. I use Quora to search for question related to topics in my industry and then I look through the questions that are being asked and create blog posts and other content around answering those very same questions.
UberSuggest
One of the older tools in my toolbox and one I don’t use as much anymore, but UberSuggest is still highly valuable. This is a suggestion tool that uses data from several different sources, after performing a search you will receive suggestion results from A to Z based off your initial search. For example a search for dog walking will return ideas such as dog walking tips and dog walking rates which for someone in that industry can be starting points for content ideas. You can also collect all your generated suggestions and then by clicking Get, you can copy and paste them into another application for sorting; this gives you a great opportunity to mine for a lot of content ideas rather quickly.
Google Suggest
Similar to the UberSuggest idea, Google Suggest is another great way to grab content ideas. Head on over to Google and enter in your search term but don’t press enter and below the search box you will receive search suggestions which could (and often have for me) turn into content ideas.
Your Community
Along the way you will have built different communities this could be either an email list, a Facebook page, your Google+ Page or wherever your audience happens to be. Why not turn to this built in audience and ask them what they want to see from you? Your readers are there for your content, so why not give them what they are asking for?
Pen And Paper
This may seem a little outdated but I really like using a pencil and a pad of paper to brainstorm content ideas. I find that getting off the computer, moving to a different location and just sitting and writing down anything and everything that pops into my head often results in a large list of potential topics in a very short time. I can then take this list and work with it to create topic ideas and titles that I can turn into blog posts or other types of content.
Evernote
The one thing that has really helped me in keeping a fresh supply of topic ideas to work from is having set up an idea notebook in Evernote and this way anytime an idea hits me and with my phone generally near me I go over to Evernote and drop a quick note into this idea notebook. This way the next time I’m in search of an idea I can simply pull up Evernote and look through this idea file for something to work on.
Via: http://socialthreesixty.com/10-tools-you-can-use-help-generate-new-content-ideas/