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Welcome to the third post in the series “Write Killer Content” for your blog.
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In this post I will concentrate on how to find ideas to write killer posts. Not all posts you write on a day today basis for your blog becomes a killer post. This is totally normal.
Even with the popular blogs, not all blog posts are killers. Some do miss the mark. Some are just average blog posts, while some touch the reader’s heart, go viral and become a source of reference for a particular topic.
Killer posts happen. But killer posts usually take a lot of effort and time to write and complete; I mean, they don’t happen easily, just like that. After all, it is a killer post and it deserves that, right?
OK without further delay let me discuss effective ways to brainstorm for ideas to write killer posts.
Extensive research
It takes extensive research to create killer content. And this step cannot be skipped. For this, you need to create a plan for your post. Decide on the topic you are going to write and do extensive research.
Your research should be focused on knowing the ins and outs of the topic you are planning to write about. There is nothing worse than creating a killer post with inaccurate facts or inconsistent theories. You need to know what you are going to write about.
Second, you cannot write an extensive post without some supporting facts or examples to back up what you’re saying. For this you certainly need to find those examples or supporting statements – once again by researching on the topic.
Apart from the reasons mentioned above, researching a topic before attempting to write is a good practice in general. It gives you the necessary confidence and knowledge to write extensively on a topic.
Reading a lot
This point is somewhat similar to what I mentioned above, yet different. Doing extensive research is to get yourself established on the topic and to cross check the facts and figures. But reading a lot helps you find a killer angle for your post and also a killer topic.
For this very reason, it is in general a great practice to keep up with a handful of high quality blogs and read them on a regular basis. You can observe and learn from those blog posts and find out the “killer” aspect or the formula they use, and well…. Steal it.
I mean, steal the formula, not their content.
Idea collection
While you’re researching or reading, make sure you have a means to capture the ideas that spark. You may think “I’ll work on this idea right after I finish reading this blog post” and then you will move on to share that post on Twitter and Facebook… and there you will see a cute cat video on Facebook and then on and on.
Finally the idea would have already evaporated from your brain even without your knowledge.
If you want to create killer content for your blog, you need to have the practice of capturing blog post ideas. No, not all of them will become killer posts, but you need to have a bank of ideas. That’s the point.
The killer idea formula
A killer post should do any of the following (also refer to the previous post on characteristics of killer posts). So choose your ideas accordingly. Your killer post should
(i) solve an acute problem of your readers (a problem that your readers are seeking an immediate/FAST solution),
(ii) be meaty,
(iii) be unique - goes without saying – if there’s already a post that gives the same solution, you should not re-hash the same content,
(iv) need not be long,
(v) serve (at least) one purpose,
(vi) be practically usable (not just a theory but should be applicable).
So when you brainstorm for an idea make sure it can be developed into a post that will comply with some or any of these mentioned above.
Takeaway
Brainstorming for killer ideas is not a difficult thing. If you have a practice of lot of reading (I don’t mean you should be always be reading and not doing anything – but allot a few minutes to an hour every day for reading other blogs) it will be a lot easier for you to generate killer ideas.
Make sure you record every idea (no matter how good or bad it is) that occurs to you.
Find a killer angle to develop that idea into a killer post by cross checking with the killer idea formula.
Next week we will talk how to identify viral content topics. Stay tuned.
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As always, I appreciate your comment.
PS: If you haven’t checked out Danny Iny’s Write Like Freddy training program check it out now!
