What to Write when you Don’t Know What to Write
Question: How do I know what to write about? I can’t seem to come up with topics that feel good to me.
This is going to be one of the shorter posts in the series, because it comes with prompts! <3 (Yay prompts!)
When it comes to prompts for writing blog content, there are a few starters that I will use to get my creative juices flowing. That being said, this whole series serves as a case-in-point for this question. Because… well, this series of posts came directly from questions that were given to me by my facebook group, the Strategic Female Entrepreneurs. I literally asked, hey, what information do you guys need about blogging?
Case in Point
And… I am literally speaking to all of those questions here. Verbatim. Straight up. Market research, translated into blog content.
But anyway – back to it.
There are a few things to keep in mind about blog topics – first of all, sometimes you’ll have pockets of inspiration. USE THOSE. Seriously. Use them. When you’re inspired, CREATE. Make content. Make lists of topics.
Start with one question, and then write prompts for yourself based on those. Then grow it from there.
But if you’re looking to SPARK that creativity, then I would look at starting with some of these prompts. So, to grab the download, just pop your email into this form and it’ll hit your inbox! <3
That’ll give you a worksheet to use for your prompts. But, here’s the list, and the process I use when I’m a bit… stuck.
Now, that being said, I can usually start with one prompt, and I’ll end up with 20-30 topics easy. However, I suggest starting with 5. Set your mind up to create 5 titles from each of these prompts, and you’ll very quickly be able to make more each time you sit down, and eventually you might end up at the 20-30 title range, like me!
- List 5 questions your clients ask you. Starting with questions your clients ask gives you a brilliant jumping off point for content creation. It means you get to speak directly to the things your clients need. So think about your sessions – what do your clients want to know? Introduce those topics in a blog post, creating a baseline for working with you.
- List 5 things you wish your clients knew before working with you. This is a big one, and it applies to nearly every industry. Each of the 5 that you write would be brilliant blog topics, and this has the benefit of building that information bank for future clients. If you have the info out there for them to read before they work with you… then two birds one stone, your clients suddenly have the opportunity to learn the things that you want them to know before hiring you!
- List 5 things in your industry you could talk about without any preparation. This prompt is great because it usually leads to free-thought written posts, which feel more natural than extensively planned ones. And, these kinds of posts work to establish you as an expert, like we talked about here!
- List 5 results your clients experience from working with you. There are some industries that this won’t work as well for, but in most industries it works fine! This gives you the opportunity to explain the transformation your clients will experience, and allows them to imagine themselves as the clients who are having those results. And, it lets you present bits and pieces of your process, which again, helps to establish you as an expert.
- List 5 experiences you’ve had that have impacted the way you think about your business/that impacted the way you do what you do. Personal stories are great, because they allow you to really personally connect with your future clients. Let them in your head. You’re a human. Depending on your industry, you might have clients who put you on a pedestal – break that down. Step off it, and show them that you’re HUMAN. You can see an example of me telling a personal (and truly vulnerable) story here, where I write about my experiences of burn out, and talk about how those experiences helped me learn how to better manage my time.
- List 5 things that will make your future clients’ lives easier when it comes to using your services. For me, in branding, an example of this might be presenting my clients with my ideal client worksheet. If my clients have worked through my ideal client worksheet, they’re going to have it a LOT easier when it comes to my first questionnaire in 1:1 services, because it lays the groundwork for their time with me.
So – let’s count for a moment. Assuming you only listed 5 things for each of these prompts…. you just created 30 post topics. And you may be able to look at those critically and split them into even more. But – even if you only wrote 3. Just three topics for each of those 6 prompts. You STILL have 18 writing topics. That’s 4.5 months of posts if you post once a week.
That’s BANGIN.
And there you have it! 6 prompts for writing when you don’t know what to write. Now… time to translate those topics into titles – which we’re talking about in the next post of the series!
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