What Can I Post About?
No Post Ideas? Mind Gone Blank?
We've all been there - done a few posts, learned a few tricks, got the bug. And then, the first flurry of ideas is used up and we stare at the screen helplessly. What to do next, what can you post about?
Well, sooner or later you'll go shopping. You'll look at a few things, perhaps compare a couple of different brands, buy one of them. Go home, stare blankly at screen again, make another coffee ...
WOAH! Rewind, you've just done a comparative review of two products. Something made you buy one over the other. You have a product and can use it - there's your next post, and you can give it the personal touch that sells, make your own pictures, use the kids as testers ...
Intro image: By Roger469 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Writers' Block
Have you ever suffered it? How did you get past it?
Personal Review
Things You Own
What do you own that's useful, easy to use, makes you glad you bought it? What do you own that's a pain in the backside and you wish you'd bought the brand your neighbour has?
Okay, your iron is better than the last one you bought - why? Lighter, doesn't leak when the water gets low, cord is long enough to not need extension leads? Or your iron is great but next door bought a similar model for half the price. Bummer.
Do some online searching for reviews and comparisons of similar irons. Talk to friends and neighbours. Write it all down and get onto that keyboard. You'll soon have a review of popular irons with personal recommendations on price and features.
Image: By TakingITGlobal (http://www.sproutecourse.org/) [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons
Things Related To The Things You Own
Page on irons up and running, back to staring blankly at screen? No, What's that table-like thing you put clothes on to iron them? What's the cloth-like thing it's sometimes covered with? Where do you store laundry before it's washed? Before it's ironed? Hangers? Wardrobe and drawer fresheners?
How about a page on ironing board covers? Better, how about a page on ten great ironing board covers to match a variety of decors? Theme it to make it nichier (sorry about that word - ooh, how about a psot on words that don't exist but should?). Better still, several sets of ten.
But aren't ironing board covers unsexy? Not necessarily, and anyway everybody needs them. Glam it up with flowered covers, coloured covers, anything you like. Grab that niche and hammer it,.
And After All That Ironing
You deserve a rest. Lock the kids in their bedrooms and send hubbie out with the dog. There's a new programme on TV you want to watch, with two of your favourite actors, and it'll look good on your new flat screen television.
Right, if you know where we're going next, you're getting it already. Page on televisions? Not quite, write about that particular television - use the product name and code as the title: People will search for Panasupersonic LED SZ-987765 and you're in that niche market now. Televisions is too large a subject to write a reasonable length page about and you're not an expert on the subject. You are an expert on the product you have in front of you.
Ideas written down (always write them down), back to the programme. You remember when the lead was in .... Lightbulb moment - write about him? Again, not quite. How about a page on "Fred Smith: the early years" . Your mum loves him as well? She's not your mum, she's a source of information (well, she's probably older than you and will remember when Fred Smith was in an embarassingly bad kids show). Write it down.
Kids pick the lock on the bedroom door and charge down to watch purple space monsters and large-busted cartoon women fighting. Turn off brain for the duration. Wrong!!! There's a birthday coming up and you suspect you'll have to buy one of those purple monsters immortalised in plastic. Or kit out a bedroom in purple stars. Or theme a party with purple cake and jelly .... Start writing down these ideas.
I Need A New Iron, Now You Mention It - Context-relevant ads but what's missing?
As the title says, what's missing? Put a description of your own here - good for search engines and especially good to show readers that you know what you're talking about.
Thank God That's Over
Space monsters all killed in a variety of ways, kids bathed and in their pyjamas... REWIND! KIds bathed using that new foam that they love because it smells nice and doesn't sting their eyes. Bath was fun because of the game of battleships with the plastic ducks. That new shampoo is good. Is it - why? Dry your hands and write it down.
Pyjamas - who bought them? You did - why? What made you choose those? Price, a brand you trust? Long lasting? Non-iron? Purple space monsters? Anyone up for a lens on ten great Donald Duck Pyjamas? And some ads on related subjects like bedding, wallpaper, lamps ...
Now It's Really Over
KIds asleep, hubbie found his way home from the pub and didn't lose the dog - it took a while to settle in as it came from a shelter and had been badly treated as a puppy. You love it and sometimes help at the shelter or raise money for them .... Yep, ideas galore, and all with pics of cute dogs and a sad tale with a happy ending. Get local with some of the ideas - Google is starting to love really locally-based pages, so a post on the shelter at Lower Fall, Wichita, not on dog shelters in general.
Buit it's only a mongrel, not like the pedigree poodles my friend breeds ... Phone her, she's to be awaiting you tomorrow when you arrive with your camera and notepad. Breeding them, feeding them, caring for them, common problems with the breed, winners at Crufts. Never mind Crufts, ask the expert about local dog shows. She mentions a friend who paints portraits of pets from photographs .... Write it down!
Do Anything Else Today?
Come on, you're a mother - you work hours that are illegal in civilised countries! You made a beef stew, your grandmother's recipe, the kids love it. Or just a quick meal of baked potatoes with your patented tuna and sweetcorn topping. Except for little Billy who hates fish and ....
Okay, how many posts in that opening paragraph? By now you won't say one on family cooking, you'll have one on grannie's recipes, one on baked potatoes, one on fussy eating in children, one on .... And we haven't even mentioned the cooker you're looking at buying, or the waffle iron, or the knife set ...
But I Can't Write About Me
Wrong, in most good posts you're there anyway - it's your words, your opinions, your experiences.
Take it a step further: so there's nothing special about you, you just married, are raising a family, balancing a budget, dealing with life's little problems, diagnosing illnesses, treating them sometimes, sitting worried while doctors do things. You're a consumer, a product reviewer, a nurse, a psychologist, You talk to people like you every day. You laugh together about the toddler who put the plastic soldier up his nose and the peanut butter sandwich in the DVD player. You spend a lot of time alone with husband at work and kids at school. You have a computer and an internet connection ....
Produce Posts Related To The Posts You've Produced
Grab that niche
You've now written several pages about the things in your home and the cat is refusing to do any more interviews - what next?
It's time to get serious and to get pages supporting each other. Someone once said produce pages about the things you own, I said produce pages related to the things you own, now it's produce pages related to the pages you've produced. In the jargon, develop your niche. Judge from traffic and from keyword research what other aspects of an area you can work on, and now get more specific. Say you've done a post on a brand of make up - now you can look at lipstick.. Even better, one post per colour range - one on reds, one on greens and so on. You'll pick up people who search for "Paul's Lipstick", plus "red lipstick" and "Paul's Red Lipstick" - all those nice specific searches which mean more chance of sales.
Note: when planning the post on reds you'll realise that the same structure will do for every other colour - you've invented a template - and so production of the lenses will be faster and easier. Plus if something isn't working after publication it's easier to make similar quick changes across similar lenses.
Use whatever linking tools to get the posts in your niche linking to each other - a bit of search engine juice and you're offering good alternatives when people visit any one of the set,
It's Not That Easy Is It?
Yes and no is the answer here. Yes, it is that easy to shift the way you think - from "what can I write about?" to "how can I make a jub/blog/whatever about that?". It's comparatively easy to learn decent structures for your posts, to get a feel for what modules work and how different presentations go. The hard part though is getting the traffic, and that's where many come unstuck and even drop out of the game.
To do well, you need traffic. To get traffic people have to come from links or search results. Your next mission, should you care to accept it, is to learn about keyword research and SEO. How to do all that is way beyond the scope of this page but I'm not going to leave you completely in the lurch - there is a good forum at Squid∩ Community and there's excellent resources via the Hubpages forums.
There Are Places I Remember
Places you know and love.
Any ideas come up reading this page? - Please share them with everyone else
My kid's toys and games are an excellent source of topic ideas. Otherwise I check what bring traffic to my pages and sometimes pick a few ideas from that
Oh boy, but I haven't ironed in years -- I remember growing up and having to iron my dad's work clothes and then the sheets and pillow cases. I'm all tuckered out on ironing -- but I still do have an iron and ironing board -- you gave me an idea -- what to do with an ironing board?
- AUTHOR
@MaggiePowell: Good :)
I never have to worry about topics -- I just need to find more time to write!
I never have to worry about topics -- I just need to find more time to write!
Thanks for the tips.... now I have TOO MUCH to write about...
Back for a second visit. Good refresher on how to get past the writer's block.
Very nice and helpful lens. I have suffered from time to time of writers block but as you say sometimes you need to stop trying so hard and just go with the flow using every day life as a topic for writing. Thanks
I don't think I have a niche, unless it's book reviews......which happens to be 90% of sales through my lenses (and sales are very rare for me)
I like your ideas. I do not, however, like lenses that are all about selling something and nothing personal in them. If more would read this lens and write about a product they know, that would be great.
I love this! Once I learned to look at everything from the point of view of lensmaking, I've had no trouble coming up with lens ideas. You've described the process absolutely perfectly. Excellent advice! (Paul's red lipstick? Hmmmm)
Good ideas, and for me it took a log while to sink down into a small niche and then to create a set of several lenses and link them together. My default mode was to try and cram way too much information on one page, which just made the entire process more difficult. Break a topic down into small pieces or subcategories and focus on them, then link with related pages. That in itself can make the challenge of what to write about much simpler.
Thanks for bringing up this topic because although we have so many things we can write about or get inspiration from sometimes it is a challenge to pinpoint what those topics should be, I blame it on information overload, we have so many choices it kind of drowns out our natural instincts.
- AUTHOR
@getmoreinfo: Good point. Perhaps I should try a "how to decide what to make a lens about" lens :)
Excellent ideas to generate ideas!! ** Angel Blessed! ** :)
Really nice article. I love the ideas you've given us. Well done.
Ideas flow easily, it's sitting down and actually doing it that is causing the problem right now.
Wonderful list of suggestions/ideas for lenses! I've recently developed a few in a couple 'niches' and discovered ONE, led to MANY! I could hardly type fast enough... my ideas were just 'coming and coming'. Plus, I still have a list of lens ideas I want to develop. Thanks for the 'reminders'. :)
Lenses related to other lenses...got a lot from just that one bit. Thanks!
Great lens suggestions here!
The Beatles were well before my time but this is by far one of my favourite tracks of all time. Like them, this lens is very inspiring. Thanks : )
Some great suggestions here!
I thought after I joined Squidoo that it would be hard to come up with ideas to write about, but if you like to promote your local area as just one example, you could write a lens on each of the towns and villages and other places of interest, places to stay, places to eat, daytrips, and that can be expanded to all the places that you have been to. That's a lorra lorra lenses...
I constantly think, "how can I make a lens about that" or "what do I have" or "what do I know that i can make a lens about?"
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll have to bookmark this so I can refer back when I hit a wall again.
Always idea rolling around in my head. Some I've even started taking pictures for...will I ever get to really making the lens? who knows!
Ack... my mind is teeming with more lens ideas after reading through your brainstorming tips. No, I won't be writing about ironing board covers.
One way to get good traffic is to search for solutions to a problem you have. Then organize the topic into a lens, as many other people are searching for a solution too. Some of my most popular lenses are these kinds of information hubs.
I love this video. One of my favorite songs. It would perfectly illustrate the lens I wrote this week about writing from personal experience, but I will let you keep it. ;-)
My idea is to bookmark this, and then "squid Angel bless" it.
I don't have any ideas yet--but you have really started me thinking!
I have a couple ideas floating in the back of my brain but they need a novel twist to them to make them unique. That seems to be my stumbling block as of late - creative thought. I'll keep searching for ideas and thank you for this interlude into possible ways to find lens ideas.
Gonna bookmark this one! Great suggestions for brainstorming lens ideas!
h,,, not right now - writer block!
Thanks for the pep talk. We all need them once in awhile.
Great lens to get the creative juices flowing! :)
Super page ideas for sure! This is a good page to review when my mind is empty of ideas - and wonderful for newbies, too!
Great lens ideas. I really do need to work on related lens to the ones I already have.
Lots of GREAT ideas here! Thanks! :)
It's always good to read inspiring tips like this. Should make us all better lensmasters. :)
I just need to buckle down and get to work on the ones I have in WIP
hee hee... I suffer from too many ideas...
hee hee... I suffer from too many ideas...
Yes, thank goodness :))
Been there!! this lens tickled me... thanks for sharing great info...
Well, this has been more than helpful. I need to make some notes. :)
I'm sure I'll come up with a few ideas once I stop laughing!
still waiting on baby goats
The song at the end brought back a lot of memories for me. Will I write a lens about it? Not sure. Something to think about. Lots of ideas here. Thanks, Paul!
I can't cook anything anymore without my camera. New ideas popup all the time and sort of just ferment until they find their way into a template. My husband rushes in all the time with ideas. Now if I could only get the boy to homeschool himself, the cats to sit on someone else and the dog to get her head off my lap, I could get some writing done.
Yikes, I wish I had the problem of know what to write about. I cannot go out without finding new ideas, cannot read the paper without finding new ideas, not even cook supper. Just what I don't need -- more ideas, LOL.
I agree about jotting your ideas on paper. I have a pen and paper by my bed at all times. I just jot down a word or two to remind me later. Writer's block happens to many people and yes, it does happen to me with the short stories I write on Smashwords. But it does not happen to me here on Squidoo which is such a flexible medium. If you have a vivid imagination and some intelligence (I think I quality for both) then writer's block is seldom, if ever a problem. If you are short of ideas - SURF THE NET ... surely something will stir you and get those creative juices flowing ...Can I come down off my Soap Box now ... thanks.
You have definitely got the mind racing with ideas with this well-written lens to to help generate lens ideas. Initially, after joining Squidoo, I did find it challenging on what to write about, but now, I have more idea and WIPs, than I have time to create lenses. Blessings!
You've come up with excellent suggestions and also great methods for getting us to think at a tangent when it comes to things we use and do regularly. We forget that these can be the basis of an interesting and popular page. Blessed.
I am slowly learning the ropes when it comes to effective lens writing. SEO research really does work if it is applied correctly, and it always helps discovering those precious sites or blogs which drive traffic to your lenses! :) I have plenty to write about, but I never have the time.
Writing pages on squidoo is like selling on eBay. On eBay I say: sell what you know, know what you sell. Squidoo is the same: write about what you know or like, and know/like the things you write about. I usually don't lack topics I can write about, it's time that is the problem.
Great lense, an excelent way to look at lense creation and spark new ideas. This will be very helpful.
I noticed that the lenses I wrote about things I own around the house or things that I have experienced do well. But it takes me a while to orgnaize my thoughts and begin writing.
I write about places that I have been, my home town, and a place can be the source of dozens of lenses - places to stay, famous people, entertainment and nightlife, local attractions, local restaurants etc... Nicely done Paul.
there is always a topic to write about...if you have a book or a film...
I have the advantage of the creek behind my house and the river 10 minutes away. I carry a little book in my pocket and jot down questions. What was that bird? Why is that flower orange? What is that man on the park bench reading? Is that woman waiting for her lover? I slip my imagination off the leash.
Spectacular!
Now i don`t know what idea to turn into a lens..too many Ouch my head HURTS :)
You made my day with this one Paul! Now I'll have to cope with too many ideas :)
- AUTHOR
@TeacherSerenia: And there's room here for teaching - or just talking - which I enjoy. However, through need or desire there's a market for marketers - and good luck to them.
ps Serenia's lenses are well worth visiting.
Lol, I love the i-need-a-new-iron part!
Fantastic! I usually get bored with "ideas" lenses (yet I'm the Lens Ideas Angel. lol). This was just great. And so many good ideas. It's totally blessed.
I dunno - for some reason - writing about the iron or the TV or the kids PJ's are really quite BORING ideas to me. I never came here to sell stuff. I hate being a sales person. I much prefer to be informative. I came here to TEACH!!!!
Nice idea for a lens, all very good tips - "Things Related to Things you Own" (I'll have to think about that one, good idea)
Barb
Wow. Lots of great ideas for lens. I think you just gave me a new way to generate lens ideas. Thanks:)
Wonderful ideas on writing lenses that you know something about Blessed :)
Great lens - You have given me even more ideas. It's a great idea to talk about things you have had personal experience with. Our washing machine died last week and a trip to the electrical store to buy a new one. What an experience - so many choices - it can be confusing. Might be a washing machine lens in the making!!
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