New Topics to Blog About - at the Click of a Mouse

Now I'm not the most frequent of bloggers - as any readers of this blog will know.  I write when I've got something to write about.  But other people, I know, like to write regularly, producing a post once a week or more.

And while that may be easy if you're working in the thick of an industry where things are constantly happening and changing, it may be difficult if you're working on your own or in a field where changes occur less frequently.  Finding new topics to write about is not always easy.

But now help is at hand with Hubspot's new Blog Topic Generator.  You put in up to three words, click the button and it instantly comes up with five suggestions.  Obviously, it's been produced with social media and internet marketing blogs in mind, so I thought I'd try it out with something a bit different.  I put in the word 'antiques' and got:

1. 15 best blogs to follow about antiques
2. 10 Signs You Should Invest in antiques
3. Why We Love antiques (And You Should, Too!)
4. 10 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About antiques
5. What Will antiques Be Like in 100 Years?

I was surprised to find that, of the five, only one (the fourth) was inappropriate, being too biased towards marketing.  But the first three would be perfectly useable and the last one could result in an interesting essay about which of today's artefacts are likely to have survived and to still be valued in a hundred years' time.

Encouraged by this, I put in something a little more arcane - the word 'tarot'.  And I was given:

1. The history of tarot
2. 20 Myths About tarot
3. 14 Common Misconceptions About tarot
4. 5 Tools Everyone in the tarot Industry Should Be Using
5. 10 Signs You Should Invest in tarot

Even here there were some useable titles.  The first three could yield interesting articles.  The fourth, of course, is not appropriate.  But the last one, even though it's finance and marketing based could be tweaked to produce something useful, since many tarot decks that have gone out of print in recent years have appreciated enormously in value and have proved a good investment for those collectors who bought them at the time.

Underneath the list of five suggestions (where you could miss it if you didn't know it was there) is a form you can fill in to receive a year's worth of ideas on your topic.  Of course, they're not all going to be appropriate to your field, but it's free - and it certainly beats sitting in front of a blank computer screen wondering what on earth to write about.