Where to Find Ideas for Your Posts

Technical Blogging, Second Edition — Pragmatic Programmers (46 / 148)

👈 Develop Your Own Voice | TOC | Get Readers to Discover More of Your Content 👉

Before writing a post, you should ask yourself if your idea for an article satisfies any of the following criteria:

If the answer is no to most of these points, you shouldn’t write that post. Instead, search for a topic that qualifies with a resounding yes to one or more of the questions above.

Finding ideas for your posts is not too difficult when you expose your brain to other people’s writing. I highly recommend you use a feed reader such as Feedly to subscribe to blogs you find useful, inspiring, and entertaining. Spending as little as thirty minutes a day reading other blogs will fill your mind with new ideas.

Personally, I use an iPad and an app called Reeder for my casual blog reading at night. It’s given me a workflow that separates work (actual productivity-related tasks on my laptop) and play (casual reading at night). You don’t need an iPad just for this, of course, but if you own a similar device, you may consider taking the same approach.

The easiest way to figure out what your readers want is to ask them. Don’t be shy in your posts. Feel free to ask your readers how you’re doing (in regard to your site) and what they’d like to see next.

You can also run a survey once in a while to learn more about how regular readers see your blog and what they think can be improved upon. Don’t take everything at face value; instead, consider the overall feedback you receive.

To run surveys for free, you can use Google Forms. Alternatively, you can avail yourself of more sophisticated premium solutions…

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