Hey Ethan!
Great question. I answer this here – “How do you think of ideas for new blog posts?” in https://www.makingsenseofcents.com/2019/04/how-to-earn-money-blogging.html
Here’s a copy and paste of that:
“I have published around 2,000 articles on Making Sense of Cents. And, I’m not running out of ideas any time soon.
I currently have a few hundred blog posts ideas that are just waiting to be written and published. Plus, nearly every single day, I add at least one more to the list.
This makes me laugh, because if you would have told me just seven years ago that I would really, really enjoy writing and that I would write millions of words for a living in the near future, I would have called you a liar!
I just didn’t enjoy writing when I was in school at all.
But, it’s pretty much one of my most favorite activities today.
Two questions that I receive quite often from readers include: 1) How do you come up with ideas for new blog posts and 2) How are you constantly coming up with new blog posts after several years of blogging?
One of the most difficult parts of blogging is creating new content, and sometimes you may feel that you have hit a brick wall and can’t find any inspiration.
For me, though, I have a system that has worked quite well, and due to that, I don’t think I will EVER run out of ideas for content.
So, how do I still have things to write about after several years of blogging?
I find topics to write about through:
– Life experiences. Here on Making Sense of Cents, I generally only like to write about topics that I have experience with. I think this is what helps set me apart from others. I also receive the best motivation and inspiration from taking financial topics that I personally come across in day-to-day life and turning them into fun and engaging content.
– Reader questions. I receive a ton of emails and comments each day from readers, and most of them are questions, like the topic of today’s post – is it possible to earn money blogging? If I feel like I have something valuable to share, then I like to turn questions into blog posts. This way, I can share my knowledge and expertise on a subject, and I also help a reader by diving further into a subject than what I could say in a simple email. Plus, if one person has a question, I know that many other people probably do as well! Turning questions into posts is also great because the next time I receive the question, I can easily send the link over to the reader.
– Research that I’ve done and articles that I’ve read. I read a lot of articles every day simply for fun, and sometimes I come across something that I feel should be expanded upon, a topic that I think the average person doesn’t understand, things that boggle my mind, and so on. For example, if I see a crazy statistic that I find interesting, I may turn it into an article.
– Brainstorming. Occasionally, I will simply sit down and have a little brainstorming session. While I do have a long list of possible content ideas, I like to keep my list fresh and update it often. Some of the things I do in my brainstorming sessions is that I may read older content of mine and see how I could possibly expand further on a subject to make it better, think of new blog posts that I could write about on a subject that is popular on my site (I may look at Google Analytics or Pinterest Analytics to determine this), and more.
– Survey readers. Sometimes I ask my readers what they want to read more about. This always leads to a ton of ideas for blog posts and can be a very quick and easy way to add to your content list.
As you can see, there are many ways to come up with new blogging content.”