What’s the hardest thing about blogging? Coming up with fresh, new content! And you have to publish new posts frequently – twice a week at the very least – to keep readers interested and earn search engine love.

If you’re feeling stuck, here is a list of 50 blogging ideas that are sure to inspire you to come up with new content for your blog. Most of the ideas can be used more than once, so you won’t run out of blog posts for months to come.

And by the way, if you want to make more money from your blog, Blogger’s Paycheck shows you how to make passive income from your blog without spending all day at it.

1. Special events – Relate your blog topic to a special event, national day of, or holiday.

2. News – Subscribe to Google news alert on your keywords and write about the latest news in your niche.

3. Book review.

4. Respond to a post on another blog in a niche similar or related to yours.

5. Blog milestone – Write about your blogging milestones, such as publishing your 100th post, getting your 1000th comment….

6. Niche heroes -Blog about a person who made a positive contribution in your niche.

7. Blog memes – Join in blog memes such as “Wordless Wednesday”. There’s at least one for every day of the week!

8. Product review – An excellent way to work in some affiliate links.

9. FAQs in your niche – Write a short Q & A based on FAQs about your niche.

10. Blog comment response – Write a long and expanded response to a comment on your blog.

11. Predict trends – What do you see happening in your niche in a year? 5 years?

12. Historical view – What was your niche in the past? Or what past event influenced your niche?

13. Top tips on any topic of interest to your readers.

14. Best of… – A good year ender, make a list of your best posts for the year.

15. Contests – Organize a contest for your blog readers, or make a list of contests your readers can join.

16. What I learned from… a current event, a person you met, or an experience you had.

17. Definitions – Define terms that are commonly used in your niche but a beginner may not understand

18. New products – Not a review but simply an announcement of a new product relevant to your niche. This is another good opportunity to drop in some affiliate links.

19. Biggest problem – Ask your readers what their biggest problem is about your blog topic or niche. They post their answers in the comments section.

20. Biggest problem follow up – Summarize the comments from #19 in another post.

21. Biggest problem follow up series – Write a separate blog post tackling each question from #19.

22. Interview somebody knowledgeable in your niche, or has succeeded in it, or is otherwise interesting to your readers.

23. Big list – Compile a big list of various resources, just like this one. The bigger the better!

24. Reader Survey – Put up a brief survey online and blog about the results.

25. Be provocative. Challenge a common belief or widely accepted idea in your niche.

26. New idea – What new idea about your blog topic or niche have you come across lately?

27. YouTube – Embed a funny, moving or insightful video on YouTube. You can even have a “video day” once a week.

28. YouTube version 2 – Make YOUR own YouTube video. Publish it on YouTube then embed on your blog. This way, you can attract traffic from YouTube to your blog.

29. Freebie – Scour the ‘net for freebies that your readers will love. Or create a freebie of your own, such as a checklist or special report.

30. Personal story – Use a personal story to illustrate an important concept or principle in your niche.

31. Free to publish articles – Check out relevant articles in article directories such as Ezine Articles… but don’t publish them entirely on your blog. Instead, use an article or a group of articles as your take-off point for a blog post, or several.

32. Link love – This is a post with links to other blogs. Some bloggers set aside one day a week to publish a list of the best blog posts on their topic.

33. Photo – A picture is worth thousand words, right? Search Flickr for creative commons pictures that your readers will like.

34. Hot topics – Look at Digg for hot topics in your niche

35. Pros and cons – Examine what’s good and bad about something related to your blog topic

36. Respond to relevant questions you find in Ask.com

37. Guest post – Invite another blogger to write a guest post for your blog

38. Reader’s post – Invite blog subscribers to submit an article or post to be published on the blog

39. Inspirational post – Write a motivational post for your readers.

40. Update an old post with fresh ideas, new learnings and current research findings.

41. Beginner’s guide – What do beginners in your niche struggle with? Write a post to guide them through it.

Best list – Patterned after “best dressed lists” make a list of the best ___ in your niche.

43. Worst list – Make your version of the “worst dressed list” for your niche.

44. New uses for – Think of new ways your readers can use gadgets and other stuff.

45. Write about a live event that you attended and what you learned from it.

46. Bribe post – Bribe your readers with a freebie in exchange for subscribing to your newsletter or RSS feed.

47. Around the world – Compare how people in different countries do something related to your niche.

48. Seasonal – Relate the month or season to your blog topic.

49. Blog carnival – Join or host a blog carnival, where several publish posts about the same topic on the same day.

50. Host a virtual “conference” on your blog – Invite “speakers” to publish their post on a specified date and time. Q&A happens in the comments section.

Now that you’ve got a steady flow of fresh content, how do you actually make money from your blog? Visit Blogger’s Paycheck for a step-by-step guide on blogging for profit.

Your business website is essentially your storefront, business card and most significant marketing piece all rolled into one.  How it affects your visitors and customers is then essential to your success.  Provide a memorable experience and customers are sure to return time and time again.  Let’s take a look at five keys to creating a website that sells.

Key #1  Make your website interactive.

As the internet continues to grow and evolve it’s becoming more important to create a community around your business. To accomplish this you want to engage your visitors and customers.

This can be accomplished a number of ways.  You can:

• Provide a forum
• Post surveys or polls
• Enable visitors and customers to review or rank items.  For example a “How valuable was this article?” question and a scale of 1 to 5 stars or a ranking from 1-10.
• Offer a blog and inspire comments and feedback
• Host contests and sweepstakes
• Publish video and audio content as well as written content.  This gives users another way to access you and your personality.

Key #2  Make sure your website provides value.

People go online for a number of reasons.  They go online to research a potential purchase, to seek solutions for a problem they’re having and to be entertained.  If your website provides all three; products, information, and entertainment then you’re in tip top shape.  The good news is your content can provide both the information and the entertainment and when written well, can also inspire purchases.

Here are a few ideas to provide value for your customers and prospects:

• How to articles, videos, and audio
• Tips articles, videos, and audio
• Case studies
• Workbooks and reports
• Interviews with experts
• Product reviews

Key #3  Make sure your website is easy to navigate.

It takes a visitor about 20 seconds to make a decision about whether they’re going to stay on your website or click away. If your site is laid out nicely, with products and services, information, prices, FAQs, and content easy to find then people are more likely to hang out – the longer they stay on your site the more likely they are to make a purchase or to return again.

To make your site easy to navigate consider:

• Keeping your site simple.
• Keep your pages uniform with the same options and appearance.
• If you have a lot of content, great!  Use drop down menus and organize your content by topic for easier access.
• Offer a search function where users can search for products, services, or content topics quickly and easily.
• Provide a way for users to easily go back to previous pages.  A back key is an option however if every page has the same options and drop down menus, including the ability to quickly return to the home page, a visitor will always be able to find what they need.
• Test your website’s appearance on different browsers to make sure every visitor has a good experience.

Key #4  Make your website easy on the eyes.

Ever visit a website and the text was so small or the colors so incompatible that you couldn’t read a word?

Readability is critical to a selling website.  Make sure:

• Your colors are easy on the eyes,
• Your graphics aren’t distracting
• And keep formatting like underlining, bold and italics to a minimum.
• Spacing between sentences and paragraphs is adequate
• Font size is large enough for people to read and font is easy to read

Key #5  Give them a soft sell.

People expect to be sold to and they’re looking for it – they’re wary.  Instead of hitting website visitors with a hard sell, provide information, solve their problems and show them the benefits of your products or services.  They’ll be much more receptive and appreciative.

Creating a website that sells requires a structured approach and a desire to create the best experience possible for your visitors.  Once you’ve created your website, consider testing it and asking associates, friends and family for their opinion.

The current trend is towards more home-based businesses. They require lower overhead and startup money making them easier for entrepreneurs with limited fund. If you are thinking about starting a home-based service business, here are a few tips for getting started on the right foot.

What is a service business?

Service businesses are those that provide help to others. This can be anything from mowing the lawn to managing business accounts. The basis of a successful service business is one that supplies a need. In your area, it may take some research to discover the top service needs and then figure out which one you can provide.

Benefits of a home-based service business

There are several benefits to running a home-based service business. First of all, you can run the business from your home. Since you already pay a mortgage, utilities and car payments, the only thing you need spend money on now is the equipment for your business. And, running a service that began as a hobby means you already own most of the needed equipment.

Secondly, a home-based service business requires low overhead and startup costs. We alluded to the startup costs above and the low overhead means no employees but you. The key to keeping the overhead low is taking on only as many projects as you can safely and efficiently handle by yourself.

Home-based service business options

As we mentioned, you can usually run these service businesses out of your home. Establishing a website for selling your services lowers the overhead even more and maximizes your profit. With the Internet as your potential customer base, the opportunities are endless for marketing and finding clients. Here are some home-based service options.

Virtual assisting has taken off in a big way in the last ten years. Using a computer, fax machine, telephone, and Internet access, you can perform various administrative duties for large and small companies. You are paid for the work that you do so there is no extra charge for the company. Virtual assisting skills run from transcription to accounting to managing email and company websites.

Transcription by itself can be a profitable venture. Medical offices and businesspeople are always in need of someone to transcribe their audio or video files. It is far easier and less time consuming to record an interview or dictate a medical procedure. Your job will be to turn that file into a document for patient charts and online use by various businesses.

Ghostwriting is the process of writing articles, novels, eBooks and more for an individual or a company. Using your writing talent, you can make a lot of money creating literary works (print and electronic) for others who need them.

Getting started tips

There are considerations before beginning any type of business even a home-based one.

1. Check out the local laws for registering and zoning a home business. Most home businesses require no zoning issues unless you will be meeting clients in your home and posting signs in the yard.
2. Small business tax laws. Now that you are a business, you are subject to different tax exemptions, deductions and payments. Sites like www.irs.gov can give you the information you need.
3. Set up a separate work space at home. This could be as simple as using a spare bedroom or den with a door to keep your work separate. If you rely on the telephone a separate phone line can be added. When a workshop is needed, consider using a garage or purchasing a large outbuilding.
4. Use on and offline marketing methods to find clients. This includes: viral marketing, newspaper and Yellow Pages ads, flyers and direct mailings, email marketing, article marketing, setting up a website and etcetera.
5. Create a schedule to divide time between work and family. Balancing both is hard. Scheduling time and sticking to it means more gets done and no one is slighted.

A home-based service business is an alternative for people who want to know entrepreneurship without spending a lot in upfront costs. If you have a talent and can meet a need, consider a home-based business.

This is the question that many people ask every day, especially after seeing the tons of blogs out there on the internet that are successful, interesting, rank highly on the search engines and that are making a ton of money from doing it. Blogging started out as a way to speak out, to express yourself and was simply a tool to use for personal benefits. It is almost like a diary for many people. There are also those people that have taken blogging to the next level and actually use their personal stories, ideas, passions and writing skills to make money for themselves.

So how can you do the same?

Here are 3 simplest ways any one can start blogging, even if he has no blog at all.

1. Credibility - Well, you should get a guide written by a successful blogger. In short, you should learn from those who walk the talk. The ebook by these successful bloggers will gives you accurate information about how to start blogging and how to set up your blog successfully, and it will also list step by step instructions for everything you need to do to make it work for you and make a lot of money from it. Because a successful blogger, being successful, will know the amount of help a newbie blogger will need to start blogging.

2. Simplicity – The blogging guide will need to be realistic and useful with no complicated wording or difficult to understand jargon and technicalities. It has to be straight forward and very easy to follow and all of this will help you to make money in a very short space of time. So many people scour the internet for various money making schemes and quick fix options, when you can just make money from writing a blog about something you love. It can even be about you and as long as you market it correctly and as long as you keep it interesting and fresh, you will soon attract a large database of people who will therefore attract advertisers to your website.

3. Accessibility - This is only the start of it and as you can imagine there are hundreds of models and options that you can use to get people to access and advertise on your website, as well as being able to be found on various other people’s websites through links. Now, instead of just telling you what I have just told you, a good blogging guide author should go into detail about each aspect and tell you the exact websites you will need to go to for the maximum advantage. I feel a sensitive author will spend all the time finding the best ones and weeding out the bad ones to give you a couple of the top websites that will work for you when you start blogging.

So if you are still asking, “how do I start blogging” then you know that the best thing to do is to get a credible and simple blogging guide and you can get started right away without ever worrying about it not working. If you follow the methods as explained it will definitely answer your question on “how do I start blogging”.

John Yeo is the author of Blogger’s Paycheck. He is a pro-wedding blogger and social worker who generates $2000 each month of passive income just from his one wedding blog.

P.S. Need Some Help Getting Started with Blogging?

If you’re thinking about getting started with blogging, but need some help getting started. Here’s a useful article that will show you how to get that assistance you need. [Read more...]