When I first started blogging as a beginner, one of my main concerns was running out of things to say. I remember telling my mom about my brilliant idea of starting a blog and her first reaction was, “What if you run out of things to talk about.” My answer to her was a laugh….like, do you know me? I’m a talker! LOL.
But, in all seriousness, I WAS afraid of running out of things to say. I mean, there’s only SOOO much you can say about one topic before getting bored or just not feeling inspired…
…and once you HAVE talked about everything there is to talk about a particular topic, what do you do then?
With all this looming over my head, I started a blog anyways. I figured that if I ran out of things to say, I’d cross that bridge when I got there.
What To Do When You Run Out of Content Ideas for Your Blog
I’ve been blogging for a while now and I can say that I’ve never had so many ideas for posts right NOW.
Don’t pigeon-hole yourself
First, I would say that you want to have a lifestyle blog where you talk about more than one subject in your blogging schedule. On my blog, you’ll find examples of me talking about a variety of high demand topics like parenting, doing inspirational and encouraging posts, recipes, home decor, household tips, saving money tips, how to make money from home, and organizing to name a few.
Many bloggers tell you to just do one or two subjects. If you’ve heard that, don’t do it! I HATE that “rule.” I feel that I’ve made my way to success faster by doing the OPPOSITE of what all the guru’s say to do.
My reasoning?
I’m not a two topic person. I’m not a one-dimensional character. I love organizing just as much as I love parenting. I love creating recipes as much as I love teaching people how to live on less money. Why do I have to fit in this little box?
The truth is that you don’t.
After being in the blogging industry for a little while and learning to stand on my own two feet, one of the things that I promised myself, swore to myself even, was that I would just be ME. If people didn’t like ME, that’s okay. There are other blogs out there that teach the things I teach. It’s okay. But for me, I have to be myself. If that means losing all my traffic because everyone hates me, then, that’s okay. If I scare people off because I have weird quirks, that’s okay.
The day that I promised myself that, to just be ME at all times, a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Suddenly, I felt like I COULD talk about more topics and it wouldn’t matter. It’s okay that I talk about blogging even though many of my readers aren’t bloggers. I don’t need to create a separate URL for that. I can be me here on this blog. That is why I named my blog SarahTitus.com and not www.fillintheblank.com. My site is about me, my life, what I like, what I don’t, and most importantly teaching others how I’m able to do all that I do. I love teaching others all the things that they want to learn, but in the process, I can’t lose WHO I am either.
Questions come up all the time. I’m constantly asked questions by my readers, and that seriously, makes me the MOST happy in writing this blog for you. Knowing that you’re involved enough to HAVE questions and want to ask ME. I’m honored. It’s the best feeling in the world. But that doesn’t mean that while I’m answering questions and being a blog that you all will want to read, that I lose myself in the mix.
I think this is a main problem that many bloggers do and it’s so easy to get there. We start focusing on traffic, on money to support our families as blogging IS A JOB. Believe me, this blog takes 80 hours a week to have it this nice and there are many people working behind the scenes helping.
There are my fantastic contributors, who are absolutely amazing. There’s Katie, who is THE best assistant EVER and makes my job so much lighter. There’s Becky, who helps me with editing because even though I majored in English and love spelling and grammar, I’m still not perfect and it’s NOT my favorite thing to do. There’s Laura, my fantastic design technician who makes this blog look so pretty.
We are all a team. It takes all of us doing what we do and I love every minute of it, but I do have to pay them, and that means I need to monetize this blog to be able to continue providing awesome FREE TO YOU content. 🙂
So, as you can see, it’s so easy to start focusing on the wrong thing. There’s a lot riding on the line. But, we as bloggers, can’t lose sight of why we started blogging.
Remember why you started
That would be the second thing to remember when you feel like you’re running out of content. Remember why you started blogging. What did you want to teach? WHO did you want to teach? What are their needs, their desires, their problems? And teach them that. It’s really that simple.
All the questions that you get from your readers, turn them into posts. I got a fantastic question from reader, Gina, on prayer a few months ago and it has inspired me to write several articles on prayer, including creating an upcoming video on how to teach kids to pray. That one question inspired several posts!
What your audience is asking is a good gauge of what they want to learn from you. Take all their questions and create posts. For every one person asking you a question, there are a good 1,000 other people not asking you the same question, but dealing with the same issue!
Be inspired
Finally, be inspired. You can’t live your life behind a computer. Now, before I go on, those who know me in person will say this is the #1 area that I personally struggle with, so let me explain.
You see, all my friends see me not really out doing things. We’re not in sports or gymnastics. I’m not a taxi taking my kids everywhere to everything. They are 9 and 7 years old and at this stage in our lives, and as I am a single mom, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE being home and just hanging out with my kids and with friends. I’m not horribly active, there’s nothing wrong with that, just that I’m not. I’ve always been a homebody. And when I go somewhere, I don’t want to go somewhere I’ve been a million times, I love to travel. I’ve lived in many different states and cities and had a lot of experiences. So, when I’m not traveling somewhere else, I love to be at home with my kids just playing a game, watching a movie, or a favorite TV show. Those are my favorite moments in life!
Some may say it’s boring, that’s okay. To me, it’s fun! And everyone has a different idea of fun.
With that said, I’m always doing something or having some experience that inspires me to have a great post. Just today, I got some scam in the mail as part of setting up my blog as a LLC company and so inspired by that happening, it will become a post about blogging scams. Inspiration is everywhere. If you have a site where you CAN BE free to talk about things, then you CAN talk about those things and it will fit in. For that reason, and many others, it is rare that I ever encourage anyone to sign up a new URL to be anything other than their name. If I would have set up my name as www.SavingMoneyNeverGoesOutofStyle.com I would forever have to be known for saving money. What if I don’t want to post every single day about saving money anymore. What if I want to post just once a week about it and I want to give you other topics. If my site URL were saving money, it would be hard to do that.
A lot of people ask me how I can possibly be so successful as such a young blogger (about 1 and a half years at the time I’m writing this post). The truth is that I don’t focus on a topic. I’m not the “girl who teaches about money,” I’m Sarah Titus. There are a gazillion other saving money blogs out there. Mine is different because of MY life experiences. It’s not the topic, it’s the person.
A reader can go to any saving money site they want. They come to mine because of ME. The sooner and faster a blogger realizes that it is ALL ABOUT their own unique personality, their own voice, the faster and sooner they will grow. The faster a blogger stops trying to be like everyone else, and just puts themselves out there on the line being 100% themselves consistently, the faster more readers WILL come.
The truth is that if you are worried about running out of content ideas to come up with for your blog, don’t. You will never stop BEING YOU, you will never stop learning and growing yourself, and you won’t run out of questions from your audience of things to teach. You won’t stop living life and running out of inspiration, and if you’re a blog who talks about more than 1-2 things, you CAN talk about different subjects.
One of the best tips I can give you is to keep a 5 subject notebook. In the notebook, separate it into categories. For me, it’s Parenting, Organizing, Saving Money, Making Money, and Christian Inspiration.
Under each one of those categories, write down all your initial blog post ideas and as you live your life, as you go on day-to-day, keep filling out each section. Every time someone is mean to your child and you’re inspired to write a bullying post, write down the title in your book. When you get your mail and there’s a ton of it, write a post on how to organize your paperwork and write it in the section. When you fall down and make a mistake, take the opportunity to write an inspirational post in that section. Sometimes, I’ll even write out the post and save it as a draft when I’m inspired so I don’t forget the point of it. Then I write the title in my editorial calendar (you can print the ones I use myself here for free).
Anytime you have an idea that lines up in one of those subjects or a reader asks you a question that you feel can be expanded well, write it down. My notebook is so full, even if I wasn’t inspired again for a whole year, I’d still have enough content to write about just using that book!!!
Ask questions
Another thing you can do is to ask your friends what questions they have. What they’d like to see on your blog. What problem would they like answers to, even if it’s not from you. What challenges are they facing in their lives right now. Those challenges can become inspiration for a post to help many dealing with the same things.
Get this traffic cheat sheet by visiting the post, How to Get Holiday Traffic Throughout the Year here.
Write holiday content
The last idea I want to share with you today is about writing for the holidays. There are a lot of topics that you can write about each holiday that will fill up your editorial calendar as well. Here’s a post I wrote about holiday topic starters and when to post them to get the maximum amount of traffic you can during the season.
Do you have any tips or advice on what to do when you run out of content ideas for your blog?
