Unlock Your Creative Flow
6 Proven Techniques to Generate Content Ideas in Minutes
When I really struggle with writing, it’s usually because I don’t know what to write about.
If you’re anything like me, I have 6 sure-fire ways for you to quickly come up with topic ideas for your content. It doesn’t matter if you’re creating for a blog, podcast, video or social media, these tips will get you results EVERY time.
And the best part – it’ll only take you 10 to 15 minutes to do any of these and you’ll walk away with several topics to choose from.
You can even combine some of them to come up with even more topic ideas.
Before you begin any of these exercises think of your ideal customer or ideal community. Remember, you’re creating content for them, not you or anyone else. They need to be at the front of your mind as you come up with your topic ideas.
1. Brain dump
This one’s the easiest. Grab a piece of paper, a pen and your phone. Set the timer on your phone for 8 minutes.
Write down everything you can think of that may be of interest to your audience or customers for 8 minutes. Don’t stop and think about it … just write. This is a true brain dump.
If you start to slow down toward the end of the 8 minutes, look quickly at what you’ve already written down. Can you expand on any of them? For example, if you’re a personal trainer and wrote down weight loss, can you expand on it further, such as nutrition for weight loss, aerobic exercise for weight loss, strength training for weight loss, etc.
Once the 8 minutes is over, set another timer for 5 minutes. Look over your notes and circle any topic ideas that stand out and expand on others where you can, like in the example above.
2. Theme your content
This one’s honestly one of my favorite ways to come up with content ideas. You can come up with a lot of ideas that can take you through 30, 60, or 90 days of content. You can even create themes for your entire year and then expand on them quarterly, which is what I do.
Here’s how I theme the year and then come up with topics quarterly. This exercise works best with paper and pencil.
First, print out a calendar for the year. I typically print 2 to 3 months per page so I have room to write. Once printed, lay them out. (If you find this method works for you, I recommend purchasing a blank 12-month dry-erase wall calendar. Then you can keep it up and tweak as needed throughout the year and reuse it every year after.)
Next, mark any important dates. For example, if you live launch in June, write it on the calendar. Once you write down everything related to your business and your offers, mark the calendar with any affiliate promotions you may do.
Depending on how full your calendar is, this may fill a lot of topics for you. For example, If you live launch your primary product in June, all content for April and May should be related to the topic of your offer so you can lead up to it seamlessly.
If you do affiliate promotion, use 2 to 3 weeks leading up to the affiliate promotion to create content about topics related to the affiliate.
Next, look at the blank areas of the calendar to see where content is needed.
Staying with the personal trainer example, let’s say you have a live launch for your signature coaching program in May and in October. All content you create in March, April, May, August, September and October leading up to your launches should be related to content in your program.
Now look at the gaps in the calendar – you still need content for January, February, June, July, November and December.
How can you cluster topics around these months? In June and July, (assuming you’re in the northern hemisphere), you can create content about how to use the summer and warm weather to exercise outside. For November and December, you can create content about how to stay committed to exercise and nutrition during the holidays. January and February can be about a new year, new you and new commitment to self-care and becoming your best self.
Using these themes, you can easily come up with content topics related to them.
3. Google
Type in something your audience would ask about. Take a look at the search results that come up. Jot down any ideas you have related to the search results. Can you write about something similar but using your unique perspective? This is particularly useful because the most common searches come up first so you know it will be relevant to your audience.
Next, scroll down a bit and look at the “People also ask” section and see what related topics are listed there.
Lastly, scroll all the way to the bottom and look at “Related searches.” This will also give you some ideas for related content.
4. Customer and audience feedback
Take a few minutes to look through your emails and your offers and see what kind of questions your audience and your customers ask. This can be a treasure trove of content topics.
What are some of the more common questions you get? Create content to address it.
For example, as a content strategist, one of the most common things I hear from my audience is related to coming up with ideas for content.
You can easily be proactive with this idea also. Implement an annual or semiannual survey of your audience. You can use Google Forms or survey software, like Survey Monkey or Jotform, and email your audience 3-5 short questions.
Going back to the personal trainer, you can ask where they are in their wellness journey, what areas are they struggling with, what’s their greatest obstacle – exercise, nutrition or mindset, etc.
Using open-ended questions allows for greater feedback and you can use their exact words in your copy and content.
You can even incentivize completing the survey to get more responses. You can do this by raffling gift cards or giving a special discount on one of your items or offers.
5. Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest has both a free and paid membership. The free allows for 3 free searches a day, which is plenty to get you started.
Once you sign in, click on Keyword Research in the left-hand menu. Then click Content Ideas in the submenu.
Here we typed in losing weight for our search. Ubersuggest will show you popular content created about the topic and its URL. The free version will show you the top 10 and the paid version will show you even more. Est. Visits is the estimated monthly traffic the webpage URL receives so you can see how popular the content is.
Just as in the Google suggestion in #3, you can identify similar topics you can write about using your own unique perspective.
6. Your popular content
This one may be the most time-consuming of the suggested methods. But it’s incredibly useful.
Dig into your analytics for your content and see what’s the most popular. If you blog, which blog pages are the most popular and what are they about? If you podcast, which episodes are the most listened to and downloaded? If you have a YouTube channel, which videos have been watched the most?
Now that you know what content topics have been popular in the past, see if there are ways you can expand upon them or dig deeper.
For example, let’s say this blog post you are reading now becomes one of my most popular posts. If so, I may write a blog about each suggestion and break it down into even more detail. This would give me 6 new content topics just based on this blog alone.
So next time you’re in a rut trying to come up with topic ideas, set aside 15 to 20 minutes and try one of these methods to spark your imagination.
Brain dump
Theme your content
Google
Audience / customer feedback
Ubersuggest
Your own popular content
I know it can be challenging but remember, consistency is key, and by slowing down for a few minutes, you’ll come up with your topic ideas in no time.
And don’t forget to write down all of these ideas, even the ones you don’t use immediately. Before long, you’ll have a pool of topic ideas to fall back on and they may even spark more ideas in the future.
Now, get researching … you got this!