Four Quick and Easy Blog Post Ideas

by Aaron on October 6, 2009

IdeaOne of the challenges of blogging can be to come up with interesting topics. Whether you’re writing for clients or writing for peers, fresh topics are always needed. Here are four quick and easy ideas for a blog post:

  1. Write a post that answers an email message – If a client, customer, or peer sends you an email message, consider if the response might make a great blog post. Does someone want clarification on one of your photo packages? Write it up and post it. Is it a peer looking to find out more information about how you handled a situation? Instead of emailing one person, perpare a blog post that can be read by anyone. You’ll want to leave out any sort of secret details, but in the future when someone else has the same question, they might find the answer on their own or at the very least you can point them to the post, saving you a bit of time and effort.
  2. Take a comment and expand it into a blog post – Take a meaty comment (either left by a reader or yourself) and expand it into a blog post. Maybe it’s someone who disagreed with your premise. Maybe it’s a reader who shared a similar story. Perhaps it’s one of your own comments that you left as clarification. Take the idea and run with it, expanding it into a post.
  3. Write a post recommending another blog – This works better if you blog for peers than if you’re blogging for clients. Write a post that calls out another blogger whom you admire. Explain a bit about that blogger, what they usually write about, and point out a post or two that you find interesting.
  4. Write about what has changed since an older blog post – If you’ve been blogging for a while, go back into your archives and find a post that talked about one of your services, experiences with a client, or some sort of industry trend. Write a new post that talks about how things have (or haven’t) changed since that original blog post. Not only will you have a new post, you’ll be pointing folks back to older material as well.

What are some other quick blog post ideas?

Photo by brunkfordbraun, used under Creative Commons licensing

These other posts might be of interest to you:

  1. Tease Me, Stuff Me, or Fill Me with Facts: Effective Blog Post Titles
  2. What Should a Photographer Blog About?
  3. A Blog vs. a Post

Tagged as: blogging, ideas, Inspiration

  • Hey how are you, I like the jib of your site great work. Also must say some great ideas here, it can be hard to find motivation for posting but sometimes it is the simplest of ideas that lead you on to awesome writing. Another great way I have found is to have a FAQ section where people can submit their own Question.

    Take care and have an awesome day, might even catch up with you over at pb.com
  • I agree that looking in emails and comments can help you come up with a new post idea. I find that the forums I particpate in are also great idea-generators, and that tends to help generate more traffic for me as well.
  • these are good ideas to always have on hand when you need a blog post idea. One of my favorite 'ready-made' blog posts is to spotlight a couple of the bloggers linked in my blogroll -- by highlighting their blogs, I remind my readers to click out the links I provide. The bloggers I spotlight almost always notice the extra traffic and check my blog, giving me a linkback to my post. And since I checked them out before I put their blog into my blogroll, the research is already done -- my blog post is a matter of a copy/paste, link creation and a sentence or two about why I enjoy reading the blog.
  • Wow, what a great list of ideas. I love the last point on "Write about what has changed since an older blog post". I've got to go through my blog and see what I can write about.

    Thanks and see ya at pb.com
  • Love the quick and easy, especially since they can quickly and easily turn into lengthy, quality posts.

    I also find that as I'm replying to a forum post, I blatantly see the potential for a blog post.

    Another quick and easy approach I use is to subscribe to Yahoo Groups that are related to my industry. This allows me to follow 'the pain' of my target market and see what I could contribute via a blog post.

    See you back at PBcom!
  • Hah - liked the email response and recommend another blog ideas - thanks for these.
    (linked from problogger)
  • Great ideas!

    From my experience, item 1 & 2, "Write a post that answers an email message" and "Take a comment and expand it into a blog post" generate lots of buzz and attract traffic consistently.

    - Your fellow Problogger Forum member.
  • @aaron: Have you ever answered in the post and sent your correspondent the link? Mischievous yet effective.
  • I've done that a few times. Usually I preface the response with something like "That was a great question. I thought it was such a good question that I wanted to share the answer as a blog post..."
  • Thanks for the ideas on generating blog posts.
    It's a good list, including for ProBlogger.com !
  • Excellent tips Aaron,

    I often publish the answer to an email as post

    Dan
  • These are some great suggestions. Will come back to these ideas.
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