Our Blogging Challenge and a Quick Content Idea

You may be new to blogging, or you may have had a blog for a long time. Either way, blogging can be great fun, rewarding, and very hard work!

Blogging is a great way to grow your reach and engagement with your target audience. It’s also fun and easy to do and frankly, it can be quite profitable if you do it right. Over the next 10 days I invite you to join me in a blogging challenge. I’ll have a fresh new blog post for you each day that will help you accomplish one of two things:

Give You Plenty of Ideas for New Content to Help You Become a More Consistent Blogger

My first goal with this challenge is to give you plenty of ideas for things to blog about. It’s hard sometimes to come up with something fresh and unique to write about. When you’re stuck with writer’s block or just feeling a little uninspired, look no further than these quick and easy content posts.

Use them right away, or file them away for those days when you’re struggling to post consistently. That will be Mondays then!

Tips, Strategies, and How-To Info to Help You Become a Better Blogger

My second goal is to help you and challenge you to become a better blogger. We all have things we can improve and strive to do better. Every day I’ll have a new tip, idea, or strategy for you. Try them as we work through the challenge and start incorporating as many of them as possible in your blogging.

The reward will be more engagement, more traffic, and more subscribers and hopefully, at the end of the day, more cash in your pocket – results will vary of course, but I promise to share my best stuff with you.

How This Will Work

Each day for the next 10 working days, I’ll post here on the blog and share either a content or strategy tip with you. I chose 10 days as that is basically 2 working weeks. Some of you may be able to work weekends, whilst others may not. I therefore will email Monday – Friday for 2 weeks. Hope that makes sense!

I hope you join me and follow along in this 10 Day Challenge. If you haven’t already done so, you can sign up for the daily emails where I’ll share the days post and some other bits and pieces with you there. And feel free to invite other bloggers who may find this information helpful.

Let me share a quick content creation tip with you. This 10 day challenge concept can be applied to any niche. You can also choose any number of days for the duration of the challenge. 30 days is a popular number. If you’re a food blogger, share 30 recipes that follow a certain theme (i.e. 30 Day Slow Cooker Challenge) and invite readers to follow along.

If you’re in the parenting niche, share 30 simple crafts, or recommend 30 children’s books. If you’re in the self-improvement niche, run a 30 Day Inspirational Challenge where you share an inspirational quote each day. The basic idea is to challenge yourself and your audience to do something consistently for a certain number of days e.g. 10 or 30 days. Try it. I think you’ll love getting into the habit of blogging daily, and you’ll be amazed at how much your audience and your traffic will grow in those 30 days.I am hoping that you will action the steps daily, as this will build up your blogging habit. However, I also know how busy peoples lives are. So if you are unable to carry out tasks each day, try and catch up on your missed days when you get chance.

So without further ado, here is Day 1.

Day 1

Blog Post Ideas Based On Your Categories

Day 1 we are going to brainstorm some blog post ideas. We are going to use the categories that we have already planned. If you are still unsure about your categories, this is a good opportunity to finalise these.

It is a great idea to make a list of potential blog post ideas. There is nothing worse than sitting in front of your laptop, attempting to write a new blog post with nothing but a blank screen staring at you. We all have those days where inspiration just doesn’t strike and we can’t come up with a single workable post idea.

Or maybe you’re in a rush and you need something quick you can write and publish to stick to your blogging schedule and keep your readers happy. You don’t want to spend time trying to come up with something to write about.

In either scenario it’s nice to have a list of blog post ideas ready to use. And that’s what we’ll work on today. I’ll walk you through a simple little brainstorming exercise that will result in dozens of blog posts ideas you can use over the coming weeks and months, or whenever you need a little extra inspiration.

So grab a notebook and pen, and let’s start brainstorming a whole list of future blog posts. I prefer to do this exercise with pen and paper, but if that’s not your thing, by all means use a word document, spreadsheet, mind-map, or whatever program you prefer for brainstorming topic ideas.

Step 1 – Log Into Your Blog and Make a List of Your Categories

Start by making a list of all the categories on your blog. You may have a pretty good idea of the main ones or the ones you use the most, but there may be some you are forgetting.

Log into your blog and look up the categories you have set up. Copy them down in your notebook, leaving at least 10 lines of space below each category.

Step 2 – Come Up With At Least 10 Sub Categories

Now that you have your list of categories, try to come up with 10 sub-sections for each category. For example, on this blog I have a category of ‘Blogging’. My 10 Sub topics are:

Starting a blog.
Using images.
Researching the niche.
Questions.
Blogging challenges.
Plugins.
Advertising.
Affiliate Marketing.
Editorial Calendar.
Make money.

Go through your categories and think how you would section them up. You can use the same sub-category in more than one category if it will fit. For example, let’s say you are in the make-up niche. Your categories may be eyes, lips, face, etc. You could have a sub-category of ‘make-up tools’ that would fit in all categories.

Step 3 – Come Up With At Least 5 Blog Post Ideas Per Sub-Category

Now that you have your list of categories, come up with 5 blog post ideas for each sub-category. Don’t censor yourself, just jot down the first things that come to mind. Remember this is a brain storm. The idea is to generate ideas. You’re free to tweak, edit, and reject them later. For now, get them on paper and come up with a long list of potential post ideas.

For example, if I was looking at ‘researching the niche’ I would write down the places I get information for my niche:

Google – using my keywords followed by A-Z.
Keyword planner.
Answer the public.
Pinterest.
Feedly.
Other blogs.
Amazon books and magazines.
Forums.
News.
Own blog posts.

I would also list the things I look for when researching my niche, for example, other blogs it would be their posts with lots of comments.

Step 4 – Rinse and Repeat As Needed

One of the best things about this technique is that you can repeat it whenever you need a new batch of blog post ideas. By the time you get back to this brain storming technique (which means you’ve used up all the previous ideas), it will be easy to come up with fresh blog post topics for each category. And since you’re focusing on coming up with ideas for each category, no area of your blog will be neglected over the coming weeks.

This can be easier to do once you have actually started blogging. It is as if you have got yourself into your groove! I try and do this brainstorming exercise every couple of months as it keeps your ideas current.

Give it a try and see if this simple idea doesn’t help you generate a long list of future blog post topics.

Let’s Recap

Your homework is to come up with a list of future blog topics!

List the categories on your blog.
Come up with 10 sub-categories for each category.
Start brainstorming ideas for each of your sub-categories.
Come up with 5 blog post ideas for each sub-category.
Enjoy your long list of future blog posts!

So, this is your tip for Day 1. Give it a try and see if this simple idea doesn’t help you generate a long list of future blog post topics.

Any questions or problems, ask in the comments box below. I will be in touch tomorrow with another tip.

Build a Better Blog Challenge – Quick Content Idea