Do a quick search on Google for writing inspiration, writing ideas, or writer’s block. You find literally millions of articles.
That indicates a problem. And the millions of abandoned blogs littering the Web certainly confirm this fact. No group is likely to be more afflicted by writer’s block or idea anxiety than bloggers. Faced with a reverse chronological, flowing river of content, any pause or break in quality can mean lost readership.
However, we might also have the best tool any writer could hope for to battle the blank page–web analytics.
I Need Fresh, New, Original Ideas
Nothing is more daunting to a blogger than a blank page. Chances are you are like many bloggers, started with a bang.
You were passionate about a niche or believed your blog was going to light your business on fire. The first several posts flowed out with ease. You were proud of them. You promoted them. You built a nice little audience.
Then…oh my goodness! I am out of ideas.
You probably turned to all the popular writing blogs for writer’s block busting ideas. That worked for a while. But you can only take so many walks, only travel so much, only read so many books, and only browse so many blogs. Then you still have to put a topic on the page.
Stuck again.
I Want to Give My Readers What They Want
The other problem that bloggers are often faced with is focus. They want to keep their readers happy and they want to attract in more of the right audience.
This was easy at first. You knew your niche and you knew your topic. As a result, you were right on point with your first few posts because you knew the pain points.
However, as you drifted off looking for new ideas and inspiration you have lost focus. If you are like many bloggers you meander off into topics less interesting to your original audience. Even more problematic you are potentially attracting less targeted (or less period) new readers.
Now your blog is becoming not only a writing frustration, but also missing your objective for starting it to begin with.
This is an emergency! We need to fix this or we’ll have another Web ghost on our hands.
What, an Endless List of Writing Ideas?
Now that I have you wondering if you should just shut down your blog I am going to point you to the treasure. The really good news is it’s free and sitting right in your backyard.
On a daily basis, your Web traffic is giving you a running list of new, fresh, and original topics. That’st people searching for answers, searching for new solutions, searching for your services are leaving you bread crumbs
Every one of these search queries is landing in your Web analytics. These are topics that you have brushed on and Google already thinks you are an authority on.
That means two big things for you:
1.) Your readers are telling you exactly what they want from you, and
2.) Google is telling you if you write more on these topics I will send you even more traffic.
Bingo! Writing motivation, happy readers, and more traffic. That sounds like a slam-dunk for blog success. Maybe even business success.
Quick How-To on Google Analytics
If you are not sure where to get this magic list let me give you a quick how-to on Google Analytics. It’s free and probably the quickest and easiest way to harvest this list of new writing ideas.
- Sign-up for Google Analytics
- Click on Add Website Profile
- Type in website URL
- Cut’n paste code snippet
- Edit the ‘footer’ portion of your blog template
- Add the code snippet to the footer, just before the </body> tag
With these few simple steps you will be building a whole new targeted list of writing ideas for your blog in no time.
Image courtesy of Pixabay
