11 Proven Strategies To Brainstorm Content Writing Topics When You’re in a Creative Rut

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It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been blogging for, there will be days when you won’t have any motivation or inspiration to carry on. It’s completely normal and happens to everyone, unfortunately. The problem is, when you lose your inspiration shortly after realising that you have no content writing topics that are appealing to your audience. 

Do you have to hide under your covers and pretend that your blog doesn’t exist?

Or maybe delete your blog altogether?

The answer is… no!

Recently, I came across this problem. Even though my list with content writing topics has over 300 ideas in it, I haven’t updated it in ages and realised that I have no ideas for one of my content pillars. To make things worse, my content bank had a lot of content writing topics that were no longer relevant and didn’t align with my current vision. And, I couldn’t come up with any new ideas that would be both searched for in Google and exciting for me to write at that moment!

I immediately started feeling defeated and anxious.

That’s when an idea for this article was born. I bet I’m not the only one who struggles with coming up with new, interesting content writing topics. You can find many articles with ready-made blog post ideas, but honestly, they’ve never really helped me. I know some people rely heavily on them, but I think it’s better to either use them as an inspiration or come up with your own ideas from scratch. It’s more difficult but surely possible to do!

I’ve collected 11 tips for coming up with content writing topics when you’re stuck. I’ve tried them all, some of them just recently, when I got hit with yet another creative block. Hopefully, they’ll help you as much as they helped me. Let’s dive in!

Content writing topics

Take a break

This is usually the easiest way to get your creativity back. Take a break, go for a walk, work on your offline hobbies. One day I was really anxious about the fact that I neglected my content calendar and have brainstormed no ideas in weeks, if not months. I needed one good blog post idea to prepare for the week ahead, and I couldn’t come up with anything worth writing. 

Defeated, I took my new jigsaw puzzle set and spend an hour or two working on it. Then, I watched Cars. And you know what? 

The evening rolled in; I started journaling as I always do at that time of the day, and I started getting new ideas on how to approach my problem. I created a game plan that included organising my content writing topics bank, which I immediately got into the next day.

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It turned out that I not only had plenty of ideas scattered around, unassigned to any of the categories, but I also found some topics that I was quite excited to write about and they inspired me to come up with a few more. This post is one of them.

Get inspired

This is also one of the best ways to make sure that you stay relevant and you expand your knowledge. If you cannot come up with any content writing ideas, read a book about the topics you usually write about. 

Watch YouTube videos. 

Go to the museum or art gallery. 

Try working from a different place than you usually do. Sit in the garden or by the kitchen table. Go to a cafe or a library. It can be also a great opportunity to observe other people get inspired by the situations that take place all around you. Sometimes, seeing other people arguing or overhearing their conversation might give you a splendorous idea to write about. 

Life writes the best stories, after all. 

You might also want to do something different for the day. It can be anything, taking a different route to the shopping centre, listening to a new music genre, or trying a hobby you wouldn’t normally try.

Inspiration usually struck when you don’t expect it at all, so don’t stress too much about it and just enjoy yourself. I bet you’ll find new content writing topics once you stop actively look for them.

Go offline

I’ve mentioned a lot of times that social media kills my creativity and I stand by that no matter what. I can’t stay away from it for long, which is bad, but that’s a story for another time. 

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Going offline or at least limiting the use of your phone and time spent on social media can be a good thing that will help you get creative again. And I know social media can help you get inspired. That’s true, especially if you have a big, active community. 

There’s only one caveat – the probability that you open your social media app with the intention to look for an inspiration but end up scrolling mindlessly through your feed is huge. 

Ask your audience

If you have a community on Instagram or any other social media app, ask what they’d like to read about. Check your messages and comments for questions they asked you.

Sometimes it might feel weird to ask other people to help you come up with new content writing topics, but the truth is that you’re writing for them. For those people who follow you and support you. Topic ideas they give you are probably the best things to write about since you know that there are people who would love to read about them. And, your connection with your audience might deepen once they realise you listen to them and treat them as your friends.

Update your idea list regularly

It’s not really a tip for coming up with new ideas.. But if you create a running list of ideas and keep updating them regularly, there’s a huge possibility of getting more and more ideas with time. If you teach your brain that you don’t pay attention to the ideas it gives you, you’ll stop getting new ideas soon. But if you pay attention and write them down, you’ll subconsciously start thinking about them and creating new connections between things you consume during the day.

Updating your content idea list regularly will also become a habit which will make coming up with new content writing topics much easier to do in the future. It will also minimise the risk of getting your content bank ideas messy and unorganised, like I did.

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Check your competitors

Another great idea to find content writing topics is the one I often forget about. When you don’t know what to write about, check your competitors! Look at what they’re writing about and try to do it better or in a different way. 

Plenty of keyword research software has tools dedicated to this. I’m the most familiar with Keysearch, but I know that Ahrefs and SemRush also have something like Competitor Gap. 

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Just put your website against your competitor’s website and let the software to find new opportunities for you to write about. You can also check what keywords they rank for and where they get the most traffic from. 

There’s one problem though – those are just tools. They aren’t always accurate. There were multiple of times when I checked a website to see what keywords it ranks for and I got nothing. It’s strange seeing that I found it on the first page of Google, isn’t it?

Go back to the basics

Sometimes the easiest way to come up with new content writing topics is by going back to the basics. Do you remember creating a persona and their characteristic when you were just starting out blogging? Find your notes and go through them once again. This will help you remind you who you’re writing for and why. What problems does your target audience have? How can you help them? How do they feel? What do they want?

Take a piece of paper and brainstorm all the ideas that come to you, no matter how silly they feel. There’ll be a time to sift through them and pick ones that make the most sense to write about.

Don’t forget about Pinterest

Many people don’t know about it, but you can check the Pinterest trends and predictions for the year. There’s no guarantee you’ll find something useful for yourself, but there’s also a huge chance that you’ll come across one or two keywords that will match topics you’re writing about. Sometimes you might even create an entire blog post series from it, which would be awesome!

Why should you check Pinterest, you might ask? The answer to this question is quite simple, really.

Pinterest is a visual search engine and using it is one of the best ways to grow your blog quickly. Sometimes you might want to write about topics you can’t find any relevant keywords in Google for, or all the keywords are very high difficulty and it’s impossible for you to rank for them.

You can still get traffic to those articles… by using Pinterest! I’ve seen many people writing blog posts using keywords found in Pinterest, but even though it’s an interesting approach to blogging, I would be cautious with it. I would stick to using Pinterest in addition to great SEO, not instead of it.

Keyword research 

At first, I wasn’t sure if I should include this in here since keyword research seems like a very obvious thing to do when you’re looking for new content writing topics. It can be also a very tedious job if you don’t know where to start, and you get irrelevant suggestions or keywords that there’s no point trying to rank for. 

But, there’s also something called Keyword Sheeter which gives you plenty of different keywords suggestions based on your input. 

If you have a Keysearch, check out Brainstorm too, too. Once you start typing, you’ll see many suggestions from popular search engines. You can also find there Twitter and Google Trends which sometimes can be very helpful. 

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See what Google suggests you

Have you ever tried to look for keywords by typing your idea on Google and seeing what suggestions it will give you? It’s especially useful for looking for a long tail keyword, and it’s a free alternative to all the tools I just mentioned.

You might also want to try YouTube, since it’s a search engine too. Even if you won’t use an exact keyword you’ll find there, it might help you come up with even more content writing topic ideas.

Check Reddit, Facebook Groups, and other forums

Similar to asking your audience, you might want to check relevant subreddits and Facebook Groups to see what people are currently talking about. This is a good way to check what’s currently trending in your niche and see what are the most common problems people ask about.

How do I start content writing with no experience?

Just start writing! The easiest way to improve your skills and gain experience is by practice. If you’re here, it means that you’re probably a blogger, but if you’re not, become one! Blogging is probably the easiest way of gaining experience in writing about specific topics that you want to get paid to write. You can then use your blog as a portfolio, or monetise it once you grow your following.

You can also join Facebook Groups that are dedicated to people looking for writers or content writing sites like Fiverr, Upwork, or Skyword. 

Is content writing hard?

If you asked me this question a few months ago, I’d reply “yes” without thinking twice about it. It sounds bad, but honestly, I struggled with content writing really badly. 

Now, my answer is the exact opposite.

Content writing is easy.

What changed then? Why did it become easy suddenly? The answer is really simple. I stopped writing for the algorithm and focus on writing for people. I also finally stopped being afraid of being myself while writing. 

Even if you enjoy writing, you might have days when content writing will be hard. That’s completely normal, but if it stays this way for weeks or even months, it’s worth checking in with yourself and asking if it’s something you really want to do. If the answer is yes, then dig deeper and try to find reasons you struggle with content writing. 

Can anyone be a content writer?

Yes, and no. Why? Because even though I believe anyone can be a content writer, it doesn’t mean that everyone will enjoy it and decide to stick to it for long.

Even if you like writing, you might not enjoy creating content regularly, especially when you won’t see any immediate results.

And the other way round, you might want to become a content writer just because you saw a great opportunity to earn money this way and you’ll have to force yourself to write every day to stay on track.

Anyone can become a content writer, but only a few of them will successfully make it their career.

How to choose a topic for content writing?

Once you gathered all your content writing topics, sift through them and check which one you’re truly interested in and which one makes little sense to write about. Keep in mind your mission, purpose, and your target audience.

Then, perform a keyword research. Check which topics have keywords you can try to rank for. Sometimes, even if you think you found a great idea to write about that nobody’s covered ever before, it might turn out that you can’t find any keywords with low difficulty. It happened to me more times than I can count. In this situation, you might still want to write an article targeting such keywords and hope that you’ll rank for them in the future, when you grow your blog and its authority. 

There’s one thing that I forgot for months, and it’s writing for your audience, not the algorithm. Even if some articles won’t rank in Google at all, people still might read them on your blog and enjoy it.

But let’s go back to the key question.

So, how to choose a topic for content writing once you finished doing your keyword research? Pick keywords with the highest volume and the lowest difficulty at the same time. Add them to your content writing topic ideas bank, add relevant tags to find them quickly in the future, and add them to your content calendar.

PIN IT FOR LATER!

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Conclusion on content writing topics

Looking for new content writing topics can be difficult no matter your experience with blogging. There’s been many times when I struggled with coming up with new ideas, even though I’ve been writing blog posts more or less regularly for almost two years now. Yup, it’s been almost two years. I also can’t believe that.

There are many ways to get inspired and get out of creative rut. I know that being stuck can be hard, but it will pass. Trust me. Go offline, take a break, go for a walk. Connect with your close ones.

And once you feel refreshed, do the keyword research, ask your audience what they’d like to read about, check competitors, or look for new ideas on Reddit. Don’t forget to keep updating your content writing topics list regularly and use it to your advantage. Good luck!

Have you ever had trouble coming up with new content writing topics? What helped you the most when you felt stuck? Let me know in the comments down below, I’m curious about what works for you best!