If you’ve been running your blog for a while, you may notice that you’re creating a lot of similar content. The people that follow you will probably start to notice if you keep things the same for too long, which is why it’s important to refresh your content every once in a while. If you’re looking for some new ideas, here are a few ways to refresh your content and give things a new twist.
Try Shooting at a New Location
If you create your own images for your blog or social media, one easy way to refresh your content is to find a new location to shoot your photos. If you’re a fashion blogger, for example, you can walk around a nice neighborhood and find pretty homes to take photos in front of. An estimated 23% of new single-family homes built in the last year have brick as their exterior material, which can be a great backdrop to outfit of the day photos.
Research SEO and How To Use It
Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is the key to growing your blog. Almost 61% of marketers have said that improving their SEO is their top inbound marketing priority, which makes sense considering how much SEO helps with organic traffic. Essentially what SEO does is make it so that your pages rank higher on Google by targeting certain keywords that are associated with your blog. That way when someone googles, for example, “new ways to workout,” your fitness blog will come up with a post you wrote about that topic. When you start seeing what kind of content is getting views, you can use it to help you decide what you want to continue making and what content people aren’t as interested in.
Check Out Similar Creators
There are likely some similar creators in your circle, some of which you may even be friends with, that are making great content. When you see the kind of content that similar bloggers or content creators are making, you’ll be able to be inspired by their ideas. You don’t want to make the exact same content as the other creator, and in fact, that’s probably a bad idea, but you can take the concept of their content and make it your own. For example, if you’re a book blogger and someone is doing a spotlight on POC authors, you could also do one and include different books and authors. Giving credit to the original creator that you were inspired by is also a good idea if you want to make sure no one accuses you of “stealing” someone else’s ideas.
Think Seasonally
If you’re running out of content ideas, think about what is going on because of the time of year it is. For example, around the start of the year, you can create content about New Year’s Resolutions or goal setting for the upcoming year. In the spring, you can make content about spring cleaning or getting ready for summer. There’s no shortage of seasonal topics no matter what your blog is about, so make sure to think about what you can create.
Get the Facts
One way to mix up your content is to do more research than usual for your posts. For example, if you’re making a seasonal post about getting beach ready, you could include the fact that you’ll need to do two to three waxes before your hair growth is properly removed. Adding in more factual content will have you doing more research for your posts, which will help to further inspire you to create more different and interesting content than you were making.
Crack Down on Your Niche
The best way to create any sort of brand — whether that means a business or a blog — is to find a niche that you fit into. There are millions of fashion bloggers out there, so what makes your blog different than the others? Are you set in a certain popular city, like New York or LA? Do you have an especially unique way of talking about clothes or putting outfits together? Whatever your niche is, you should make sure that you think deeply about it and really dive into what it’s all about.
Ask What People Want to See
One of the best ways to get ideas that you know your readers and followers will want to see is if you just ask them. If you have an Instagram account associated with your blog, you can use the question feature on your stories to ask what they’d like to see and save your favorite responses by screenshotting them. If you primarily work on a blog, you can make a post asking for your readers to comment their ideas for blog posts. It’s a great way to find out more about what your followers actually want to see, which can not only inspire your new content but also make it so that your followers feel more engaged.
Make Content Relevant To Current Events
There is a lot happening in the world at any given time. The news cycle is constantly moving, and because of that, it can be a great source of inspiration. If you’re inspired by more intense news stories, make sure that you’re fully doing your research and looking into all of the background information necessary to make educated content. On the other hand, you can also just focus on the more fun and heartwarming news stories and relate your content to those events. For example, if you’re a blogger talking about how to start investing, you could talk about any big events in the world of the stock market and what kind of impact they have on the investors.
It’s natural to go through points in time where you don’t feel inspired to make content for your blog. These ideas can help you get unstuck from your rut and move on a little bit from the spot that you’re stuck in.
What do you do when you’re stuck with your content? Where do you find your inspiration? Let us know in the comments below.
“Devin is a writer and an avid reader. When she isn’t lost in a book or writing, she’s busy in the kitchen trying to perfect her slow cooker recipes. You can find her poetry published in The Adirondack Review and Cartridge Lit.”
