The creation of content is absolutely essential for business.  Content is EVERYTHING you put out there in your business in order for you to be found, establish & nurture relationships with your audience and convert that audience into customers.  Every Social Media post you write, every blog you publish, every newsletter you send and whether you’re writing, recording or designing IT’S ALL CONTENT.

It can end up feeling like a MORE THAN full time job, all this content, the hungry beasts that are social media and constantly need feeding.  You can feel like you’re constantly chasing things to write about and you get writers block every time you sit down to create more content.

I am a bit of a content ninja.  Why?  Because I do love to write, record & design – content creation is absolutely my happy place BUT that’s not down to being blessed with some sort of content mojo that is indestructible.  It’s because I’ve worked out ways to make content magical everyday.

Here’s 10 ways to come up with HUNDREDS of content ideas with ease;

One of my ABSOLUTE favourite things to do (I know, right?!? 🙈I probs need to get out much more 😂).

This one is underused but always yields the very best results.  You’d be amazed at how much you know if you simply allowed it space to come out of your head.

The braindump should always be done without judgement (no deciding whether it’s a good idea, bad idea, bonkers or anything else).  Simply let all of the ideas flow out of your head and onto paper.  It might look like a spider diagram to you, it might be a list, it might be words/phrases or it might be paragraphs.  Go with whatever works for you.

Remember to take the braindump right back to basics too.  We often assume that people know ALL THE THINGS inside our heads and in fact they just don’t.  This is your specialist subject and you have to remember that your content needs to cover all areas therein.

I’d start with an overview braindump – what subjects could you talk about.  Let them all fly out.  For example I could talk about content creation, pricing, money, social media, list building, emarketing, digital products, building a service based business, confidence, mindset, momentum, next level strategy.

Then take each topic and brainstorm all the ways you can address that particular topic.  So at a very basic level I would take emarketing and talk about – funnels, list building, how to get your emails opened, open rates and what they mean to you, how to craft a fabulous newsletter.

Those topics can then get even more specific – X Ways To Know You Need To Change Your Newsletter, I Feel Like I’m Bothering People Every Time I Send A Newsletter, HELP, Why Doubling The Amount Of Emails You Send Will Be Good For Business, How To Ensure Your Newsletters Aren’t Dull, Behind The Scenes – What I Do In Order To Send Engaging Newsletters.

I then have the titles of what I can write and I can BANK those bad boys for my next content creation day.

Now, I’m not talking tabloid newspaper kinda headlines here BUT you can absolutely start to think about the titles and then retrofit the content to those titles.

My Biggest Tip When It Comes To………….

The Biggest Mistake People Make When It Comes To………………

X Steps to………………………..

Why Nailing This One Will Give You ………………(<< add benefit)

Bitesized tips to help you……..

Come up with your own, take a look at different industries to you and see whether you find any bobby dazzlers to inspire you and ask yourself “what’s my version of that.”  COPYING ISN’T COOL so don’t simply run off and copy a title someone else has crafted.  Use it as inspiration.  I always suggest that you look outside of your industry rather than within it as that inspiration will be distinctly different to what you will ultimately be creating.

EVERYONE loves a list.  Even if you’re not a list writing kinda person consuming things in a list format is REALLY EASY and has been a very popular content type for consumers.

X Ways To

X Steps To

X Things You Need To Know

X Reasons Why

Lists can be brought into every topic and they are super compelling.  People are more likely to click on posts with a number in their title AND you can really up the intrigue by adding something along the lines of “I love number 5, what’s your favourite” OR “number 6 is an absolute shocker, I bet you’d never thought of that one” – making that bad boy even more clickable 🙌🏼

Truly fab little website, type in your keyword on the website and it will find you a tonne of content ideas to create around that word.

Print out or screenshot your results and you’ll have stacks of ideas to work with.

Obviously you can do this repeatedly for all your keywords too…

What do people ask you ALL THE TIME?

What are the common struggles your crowd experience?

What is the common self talk that comes up again and again that’s stopping your crowd moving forwards?

Keep a note of questions you’re asked.

For example, if I run a webinar/live class, I go back afterwards and take a note of all the questions I’m asked.  If I find that there’s questions I repeatedly get asked – I jot those down to create content on them.

Be inspired by the questions that your clients/crowd are asking you organically.

The opposite to the one above which is the harvesting of organic questions you’re asked – WHY NOT ASK YOUR CROWD what they need help and support with right now.

It’s not always easy to get people to talk about what they are struggling with (dependant on the type of work you do) BUT here’s some hints to get the conversation rolling;

✔️ Invite your audience to send you DMs/emails with any particular things that you’re struggling with.  Perhaps they don’t want to pop their hand up and a public arena about what they need help with BUT may well be happy to let your know directly.

✔️ Provide multiple choices.  This is an ace form of content to use (particularly on Facebook as it’s ace for engagement and reach).  You shouldn’t use a poll option for the post but list out the options and label them either 1,2, 3 or A, B, C etc.  This makes it super easy for people to get involved and let you know what they’d like more help with.

✔️ Ask your clients directly what they’d like when you’re in conversation with them.  I often ask my clients for things they’d like to know more about and a really good one “if I could give you ANYTHING for free/teach you anything – what would you want to know.”

Know your numbers!

What can you learn from content you’ve put out there previously?  Take notice of how many people read your blog, which blog has been preforming the best?

Look at topic trends on your videos, blogs, social media – what is it that absolutely gets your clients clicking to read/interacting with what you’re talking about?

This is another little task you can break down.

➡️ if you haven’t already – instal Google Analytics on your website

➡️ take a look at which pages/blog posts are getting the most traffic, is that traffic staying around to read?

➡️ Take a look at your emails – which titles got the best open rate in the last 3-6 months?

➡️ What topics consistently perform well on your social media?

➡️ Which YouTube video get the most views

➡️ Which podcasts get the most listeners?

Keep an eye as to what your crowd respond to.

A little caveat note on this one though.  If you’re thinking about your blog don’t produce articles that are so similar that they ultimately end up competing with one another in terms of SEO and how Google will rank them – you deffo don’t want to be in competition with yourself.  BUT that doesn’t mean you can’t use the same topic.  For example – I’m talking about content marketing here – I have stacks of other articles about content marketing but they have different themes, angles and information within them.

The next couple come with the COPYING ISN’T COOL proviso.

We ain’t talking about ripping and running with other people’s ideas here.

A Pinterest search is an ace one to include.  Pinterest works fabulously as a search engine and you can pop your keywords in there and see all of the content that is suggested by Pinterest for those terms.  What’s your version of that?  Let inspiration hit you BUT DON’T BLOODY COPY!!!

① No Bloody Copying

② Only Ever Do This When You’re Not Feeling Wobbly And Won’t Fall Into Comparison

What are the big boys doing right now?  What are the global brands doing?

It might not even be about the types of content they are putting out there but things like – what’s the average length of time of a YouTube video in my sector?

Have a little look around to see what other people are doing.

I don’t EVER do this with people in my space but I do do it to glean inspiration from other industries.  I can always ask – what’s my version of that.  For example – the whole “before and after” thing is huge in the weight loss industry.  How can I take those principles and use them in my business?

You can truly generate HUNDREDS of ideas with these little hacks.

It should make your content creation a whole heap easier – I’d love to know if you try some of them out and how you get on.

In the meantime, it’s not always about creating NEW.  People fall into the trap of being constantly in creation mode but it’s equally important to get the best from what you’ve already got.  Make sure you’re recycling like a pro.  Here’s some hints and tips on that one…..