Easy Article Idea Generation
Do you ever find yourself staring at a blank screen agonizing over what to write today? Maybe you simply skip over that excrutiating habit and move straight into full out procrastination. Web surfing is a great way to procrastinate. Here’s the good news: you can surf and solve your dilemma at the same time!
The Bad News First
Well it’s not so bad. This part is fun and easy, and it takes only 10-15 minutes. First walk away from or hibernate your computer. Here’s what you do. Write down all the problems/questions you want answers to right now. Here are some examples:
- What should I write today?
- How can I meet a guy/girl to date?
- How can I get my blog categories to show up as a cloud?
- How can I ensure that I teach my child the values that I think are important?
- How can I grow a tomato plant?
- Why does being in love make a person feel so good?
Now once you get started thinking of your problems/questions you want answered you’ll probably find that it is very easy to generate a lot of these. Once you warm up with your own problems/questions, then ask yourself which ones your readers would also find interesting. Each one can be the topic of an article or blog post.
Here’s Where You Get to Surf
Oh joy! Time to research the answer to your question. But don’t get too carried away. Gather some preliminary information and then get started with the outline for your article. You can surf more if you need more information later.
Let’s Do a Funnel
An outline funnel that is. Take your question and identify how you will write your article. A good way to do this is to start broad and then focus in on the conclusion. Here is an example of a generic outline you can use.
- Generic Article Outline
-
- Question or Problem Topic you will discuss.
- Possible Solution(s) and their description(s).
- Best Solution/Answer (if applicable).
- Conclusion/Summary/Call to Action to Get Started.
- Example Article Outline
- 1. How Can I Grow My Own Tomato Plants?
- 2. Things You need to do.
a. Get Seeds - explain different methods.
b. Plant Seeds - explain different methods.
c. Transplant - explain method.
d. Care of Plants - explain watering, fertilizer, how much sun, etc.
e. When to Harvest
f. Troubleshooting - things that can go wrong & solutions.
- 3. Conclusion - How to get started Today!
Begin Countdown
Give yourself a time goal to get your first draft written. I like to use this as a way to keep myself from getting distracted during the process. Once the article is written then go back and edit it to polish it. Add a good title and lead in that will hook your reader with something interesting or useful to them.
Voila! You’re done!
This is just one way to skin this cat. I hope you have fun with this! Please let me know your thoughts and any ideas you’d like to add!
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Artie | Sep 28, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for the article writing ideas agentsully! Now I need to get writing, mmmm easier said than done lol.
Regards Art.
Amie Stilo | Jan 10, 2008 | Reply
These are some great tips for getting out of the writers block which I sometimes get. It is very exciting when everything just flows but sadly it is not always like that, these tips really do help
tekstil | Jan 18, 2008 | Reply
Do you ever find yourself staring at a blank screen agonizing over what to write today?
yes i have a blog so almost everyday i live this.
Thanks for the usefull information.