How to Get Ideas for Articles
Lesson 16 from You Can Make Money Writing
Need ideas for articles? Hopefully you have a website about
something that you have a passion for. It is much easier to have
ideas for articles when you have a deep interest in a subject.
With or without that interest, though, there will be times when
you think, "what can I write about now?" Here are some
ways to start cranking out those articles again.
Make Your Pages Into Articles
When first writing articles to promote my websites, I started
from scratch, coming up with ideas as I went along. Then one
day it occurred to me that I had hundreds of pages on my sites
that could be made into articles. A quick rewrite and they were
ready to go. That made article writing efficient! To do this
properly though, be sure to read Lesson 17. It covers rewriting
in detail.
There is some argument in the world of optimization experts
about targeting the same keywords in your articles as on your
pages. Many think that it doesn't make sense to be "competing
against yourself," and that you're better off trying for
traffic from a different keyword you haven't yet targeted. I
don't agree. It makes sense that you probably shouldn't do two
articles for the same keywords. If you have the opportunity to
target new searchers with new keywords (and you always do), why
not take it?
On the other hand, targeting the same keyword for an article
that you have already used for a page is a different matter.
First, there are times when you can't compete very effectively
on a given keyword on your own website. In those cases where
your page isn't showing up in the first page or two of search
engine results, there is no worry about competing against yourself,
right? But a decent article directory might get your article
targeting the same keyword into those top search results, so
why not try?
Of course, if you get no natural traffic for a given page,
you also are benefiting from the readers who are browsing a directory
with your article of similar content. You might even link to
that page, especially if you have a "list article"
and half of the list isn't included in the article. This then,
gives you a way to compete.
Also, competing against yourself isn't that bad. For example,
I just searched the keyword "dirtbagging" (rough camping).
The first of the ten results in Google was my page on the subject.
Four of the rest were my article, which has been used on various
websites. Searchers can come straight to the my website, or might
read the article on another site and then click through to mine.
In any case, half of the first ten results give me an opportunity
to get a visit - that's not so bad.
By the way, the best keywords belong on your website. By best,
I mean those that you are most likely to be able to compete on
and that have decent search traffic. If you use them for both
pages and articles, that's fine, but if you use a great keyword
for only one or the other - make it a page. Direct search traffic
is always preferable to hoping they click through to your site
after reading your article somewhere else.
Look at Related Keywords
Suppose you have a website on cats, and you need ideas for
articles. Using the Wordtracker keyword tool you type in "cat"
and get 100 related terms. Scanning the list, you see that 21,200
people searched for "cat names" last month. Maybe it's
time an article on how to choose a name?
Type "cat names" into the box (with wordtracker
you can just click on the keyword), and you see more keywords,
including "popular cat names." It had 700 searches
last month, and it's an easy keyword to compete for. An introduction,
two sub-headings for "male cat names" and "female
cat names," and a list of popular names - an article!
Try as many related words as you can think of. A search of
"pets" just now showed that 11,650 people searched
for "pet training" last month. If you have a personal
story about training your cat, you have an article. Look at those
keywords, while asking yourself, "What can I say about this?"
Mine Your Own Articles for Ideas
I used to write a lot of "10 Ways" types of articles.
They are fast articles to write, but they often are too abbreviated.
For example, I have an article titled, "Ten Easy Problem
Solving Techniques." I was looking at it one day, and realized
that several of the techniques warranted their own articles.
The bit on how to solve problems by changing one's perspective,
for example, would be more useful with a fuller explanation than
with the three sentences it got in the original. That became
a new article of its own.
Mine your old articles and web pages for ideas. Maybe you
mention something in passing in an article, and that can be expanded
into its own article. Look at pages on your site that explain
things, and ask yourself, "What more is there to say about
this?" Whatever it is, say it in an article.
Look at your articles and ask, "What other related topics
could I write about?" I wrote several articles and pages
on survival techniques for my backpacking website before it occurred
to me that I didn't yet have one about what to include in a survival
kit. Then that lead me to the idea for an article about a hiker's
"mental survival kit." As I recall, I targeted "wilderness
survival kit" with the first, and "survival kit"
with the second.
Continues with more ideas for articles here... Topics
for Articles
Note: This is part of the book, You Can Make Money
Writing. There are links to all the all the lessons/chapters
on the home page.
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