30 Ways to Come Up With More Writing Ideas
By: Marc Guberti
Tags: Writing Tips, Blogging, Writing, Authors, Content Strategy

30 Ways to Come Up With More Writing Ideas

A key element of every full-time writer is the ability to continuously produce new content. However, it isn’t always easy to come up with new content ideas, especially as you produce more content.

A lack of ideas is the writer’s worst enemy, and one that can stop any aspiring full-time writer in their tracks.

For full-time writers and people who treat writing like a side hustle, it’s just as important to have enough ideas to write about as it is for them to write new content.

To make sure you stop running out of writing ideas, I came up with a list of 30 strategies you can use to come up with new writing ideas.

#1: Write About Personal Experiences — Connecting personal experiences with your writing adds more depth to your content and makes it unique. Personal experiences tend to be easier to write about if you can remember them vividly unless they are dark. Whether it’s a regret, accomplishment, or random story, personal experiences can become great content.

#2: Write About A Friend — How they made you feel, one of their achievements, or something else. You can write about your friend without mentioning them by name if you desire.

#3: Read Through The News — We shouldn’t stay stuck in the news too long, but it can give us great ideas. Current events can give your content a greater chance at standing out. I created a YouTube video about Airbnb’s IPO a few days before it went public, and that video got over 1,000 views in under 24 hours. That’s the first time I’ve ever gotten that many views in 24 hours…all with zero promotion on my end.

#4: Browse Through Other People’s Content — I like to see what other people are publishing on Medium for inspiration. For YouTube, I’ll look at other investing channels and see which stocks they talk about in their most popular videos. I don’t talk about stocks just because they are popular (i.e. Palantir), but if a stock I want to talk about is popular in the YouTube algorithm (i.e. Airbnb right before its IPO), I’ll talk about it in a video.

#5: Have An “Idea Day” — I fell into a problem on Medium where I’d come up with an article idea and then write the article. Sometimes I’d be 2–3 ideas ahead but not much more than that. Now I have 2 “Idea Days” each month. On each of these days, I don’t write any content. Instead, I come up with at least 20 article ideas and do light outlines for each idea. That way, I can write articles the rest of the month without having to come up with ideas before writing new content.

#6: Read Through Your Comments And Emails — Sometimes your audience will give you great content ideas. Pay attention to how they comment on your content, what points they bring up, and any questions they ask via email.

#7: Read Through Comments On Other People’s Content — Don’t just stop at your content. You can follow this same approach with other content creators. Scroll through their comments to get some additional content ideas.

#8: Look At Your Most Popular Pieces — Success begets success. Creating content similar to your most popular content will give you great ideas that have a higher chance for success. If it worked the first time, give it a second go. Perhaps you can create a Part 2 of your most popular post or further explore a point you vaguely touched on it one of your more popular pieces.

#9: Look Through A Book’s Table Of Contents — Go on Amazon and browse through some books’ table of contents. You can get an idea of the book’s direction from the chapter titles. These chapter titles can help you come up with additional ideas.

#10: Browse Through Udemy Course Sales Pages — Udemy course sales pages have a table of contents structure similar to books. Some Udemy table of contents can get deep, so consider browsing through some courses to come across additional content ideas.

#11: Listen To Podcasts — Podcasts can spur content ideas you normally wouldn’t get from reading books or watching training courses due to their conversational nature. If you want additional content from me and more ideas for your content, make sure you tune into the Breakthrough Success Podcast

#12: Step Away From Writing — Taking the occasional day off from writing can leave you refreshed going into the next day. And a refreshed mind more readily comes up with great writing ideas.

#13: Write Down All Of Your Ideas — This one is obvious but overlooked. Writing down your ideas allows you to keep them somewhere you can reference. What’s the point of thinking of great writing ideas if you forget them the next day?

#14: Word Storm — Take a word and form phrases with that word. These phrases can become headlines for your future articles. For instance, if you take the word Money, you can come up with Money Habits, Money Mistakes, Money Lessons I Wish I Knew Earlier, and other phrases through a word storm.

#15: Mind Map Of Your Reader — It’s important for every writer to create a reader avatar. Rather than writing to an entire audience, you write to an individual. This individual will become more clear as you create more content and grow your audience. Create a mind map of this avatar where you draw out their wants, goals, problems, current situation, and everything in between. This will help you create better content specifically for your audience rather than a broad audience.

#16: Write About People — “5 Productivity Tips” can be an enticing article, but if you write an article called “5 Productivity Tips From [insert celebrity name here],” you can continue running with that idea for the rest of your life. Just write about different celebrities, entrepreneurs, and other high profile people.

#17: Tap Into Your Bucket List — I almost never write articles specifically around running, but I mention it from time to time. That’s because I have a bucket list of marathons I will run in my lifetime. You can use your bucket list to come up with great content ideas or add some flair to a future piece.

#18: Walk In Nature — You might observe something in nature that helps you construct a new content idea. You’ll have to get extremely creative with this approach, but it is possible. Walking in nature also helps you clear your mind which is essential for coming up with great ideas and writing them to completion.

#19: Ask Friends And Followers For Help — Just ask them what type of content they’d like to see from you. That’s it. Let them tell you what to write.

#20: Read Through Product Reviews — You can learn a lot about what customers like and don’t like about a product by reading the reviews. This can help you with future content ideas, especially if you read through book, training course, and podcast reviews.

#21: Take On A Challenge — I’ve seen a lot of my friends take on the 75 Hard Challenge. It’s a 75 day challenge with a few criteria such as two workouts per day and no cheat meals. Each day is a new piece of content for your social media posts, and after the challenge concludes, you can write an entire article about your experience.

#22: Use An Idea Generator — Portent’s Content Ideas Generator can yield some great content ideas. Since this idea generator spits out random headlines, some of the ideas can be a bit wonky, but you might find some good ones along the way.

#23: Go On Twitter — See what people are talking about. I’ll sometimes go on Twitter and search for #investing to see what I find. Someone might ask a great question or bring up a great point that becomes a future article.

#24: Search Through Instagram Quotes In Your Industry — Follow the same logic we just mentioned for Twitter, but apply it to Instagram quotes in your industry. You’ll agree with many of them but you might strongly disagree with a few of them. These can all help you come up with solid content ideas.

#25: Interview Someone — The only reason I’ve produced over 600 Breakthrough Success episodes is because I interview people. You get new content each time you bring someone on your podcast. In the case of writing, interviewing people about your topic and writing about what you learned from the interview can be great content.

#26: Holiday Based Content — No matter the time of year, there’s always an upcoming holiday. Incorporate it in your content to take advantage of seasonal traffic.

#27: Browse Through Quora — See what questions people are asking to come up with more ideas. You should also browse through the answers to those questions because you’ll learn new things along the way.

#28: Participate In Facebook Groups — See how other people interact regarding your topic. Ask questions in the group and engage with people in the comments. This will give you a better understanding of what potential readers want.

#29: Re-Read Your Pieces — This will help you find opportunities to expand your content. You can expand the content by spinning it off into new content ideas or updating your old piece. Updating your older pieces is great for SEO purposes.

#30: Look Outside Of Your Niche — Some of the best ideas emerge when you look outside of your niche and see how other content creators produce content for their audiences. Taking a step outside of your niche can help you produce unique content within your niche.

Those are the 30 different ways to come up with additional writing ideas. If you have another way that you come up with writing ideas, share your tip in the comments.

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