Under My Helmet

Great posts are hard to do consistently on a day-to-day basis. Probloggers really have to work at it. I thought about all the different ways and angles a blogger can approach choosing posting topics. Here are 101 different ideas that I think are great to stimulate your mind and jumpstart your blogging.

[UPDATE: Make a Great Post from a category below and I'll link back to your post! See rules here.]

• Brainstorm by matching up your readers wants and needs using the Visitor Grid method of brainstorming.
• Write a post by examining the pros and cons of an issue.
• Write a tutorial.
• Do an interview with key people in your niche.
• Create a mock head-to-head competition like what Daniel did.
• Do a case study like what Read/Write Web did with the hot topics on Technorati 100.
• Take an alternate position.
• Write a long comment.
• Pick a topic by reading business book titles.
• Research a topic by doing research on Amazon.com.
• Drill down on a topic using Ask.com's search feature.
• Do a post that answers your readers' questions.
• Create a comprehensive list.
• Create flagship content.
• Interview controversial people in your niche.
• Post about current events in your niche.
• Invite your readers to submit articles.
• Instead of exchanging links, get together with other bloggers and review each others' blogs.
• Connect with bloggers around your same level and share ideas.
• Do a "speedlinking" post.

• Post about posts made by others in your My Blog Log community.
• Be opinionated in your post.
• Turn off the nofollow attribute to encourage comments.
• Do a "tag" post and have other bloggers who are tagged add to a list.
• Do an "IM" PPC campaign and then post about the results.
• Be a guest blogger and share ideas with new readers.
• Review your statistics to see what keywords referred your visitors to your site and post about those.
• Answer your readers' questions with more questions (i.e., have you thought about…?).
• Contrast two or more positions in a post.
• Make a post that solves a problem.
• Make a post that is inspirational.
• Make a satirical post.
• Write a series of posts.
• Post your research findings.
• Post an "advantages/disadvantages" post.
• Update an old post for new ideas/findings.
• Link ideas from different genres in your posts (e.g., Celebrities and the gadgets they own).
• Debunk a myth in your post.
• Make a post for beginners.
• Make a post for advanced readers.
• Invite experts to comment on your post.
• Ask your readers to Digg your best posts.
• Change up your posting style (e.g., tutorial, reviews, etc.).
• Write a funny post.
• Create a huge list of your best posts.
• Add to a list started by another blogger.
• Create a mission statement for your blog.
• Make a post simplifying a complex problem for your readers.
• Create a guide for your niche.
• Make a post turning a negative into a positive through humor ( e.g., tell a joke: "My parents tell me I'm autistic. I tell them they have an attitude problem.").
• Browse through a thesaurus and see if synonyms help spark ideas for your posts.
• Respond to criticism in a post (e.g., respond to the Wall Street Journal's criticism of bloggers).
• Write a post like you are telling a story.
• Spruce up your posts with pictures.
• Post about frequently asked questions in your niche.
• Pose a rhetorical question in your post.
• Post about what's popular and why it's beneficial ( e.g., "Twitter" for tech blogs).
• Pose a hypothesis and conclusion in your post.
• Support your post with related post links.
• Make a [blank] for dummies post.
• Post a picture that speaks a thousand words.
• Buy a how-to book from a bookstore and use some of the ideas from that book to generate ideas for posting (e.g., a book about Photoshop).
• Look at the archives of your niche competitors and see if any of their old posts can be expanded in an "update" post on your blog.
• Post with a personality (e.g., John Chow is evil).
• Write about how to do something more efficiently in your niche.
• Write about generally unknown secrets in your niche.
• Write about how to use a product in an unconventional way.
• Do a post transcribing live events (e.g., Macworld conference).
• Dissect an argument in a post.
• Make a post summarizing someone else's post.
• Make a post about how things have changed from the past.
• Make a post that expands on someone else's post.
• Create a post that incorporates the words, "desperate" and "futile".
• Make a post alleging a conspiracy (e.g., Is there a Digg Bury Brigade?).
• Make a post that encourages visitors to subscribe by offering a reward.
• Make a post that involves New York City, London, San Francisco or Sydney.
• Make a post that incorporates in the title the word "crossover".
• Create a post that utilizes a bar chart or pie chart.
• Create a post that has a cliff hanger to be answered in a later post.
• Make a post about pitfalls in your niche.
• Participate in a reciprocal guest blogging scheme where you blog on someone else's blog and that other person blogs on your blog.
• Do a paid posting targeted to your readers.
• Profile the competition in your niche.
• Post linkbait.
• Make a post about your fellow bloggers' top posts.
• Make a post about your most popular posts.
• Read some sports (or other genre) magazines and incorporate some of the writing styles in your posts.
• Write a post that pinpoints similarities and differences.
• Write a post giving a free recommendation.
• Write a post about something that is merely "good" but not "great".
• Write a post about a hack for your niche.
• Make a post that constructively criticizes someone else's post.
• Run a poll and post the results of that poll.
• Ask your loyal readers to email you links to their best resources and make a post about what you found.
• Write only about a particular theme for a week.
• Designate each day of the week as a theme day where you will always post about a particular topic on that day.
• Review your blog's (weekly, monthly, yearly) performance and post the results.
• Write an "attack" post by setting up an argument and then shooting it down.
• Combine some of your best posts from your archives into a new series.
• Hold a conference via blog posts.
• Make a "101 ideas" post.