Last Updated: Nov 03, 2018
Sometimes we stuck, our brain can not produce more ideas. This is normal, we are humans, not robots (yet). Creating content for a blog can be a really daunting task, especially if you want to do that frequently. I found myself hit a brick wall often in the past.
That is why I invented to carry on a small notebook with me and keep notes of things and ideas while I was away from the computer. I could use my phone but the screen is not helping me type fast.I write on paper with ease and I enjoy it since I was a kid. But the web is full of applications and resources to make the life of a blogger convenient.
Free Tools To Help You Generate Ideas For Content
Topsy
UPDATE Dec 17, 2015: Unfortunately Apple discontinued this product
Social search, analytics, and trends. The social search function helps you find content ideas. You enter your word (s) into the line and it presents headlines and latest tweets relevant to your terms. The analytics section offers data on the terms you are searching.
The social trends department can be filtered by TOP 100 – 1000 – 5000 – 20000. You can filter by tweets, links, photos, videos, and influencers for in-depth analysis. A free tool that has a pro membership option.Search, monitoring and analyzing twitter topics. It can be used along with the Twitter platform.
Hashtag Analytics by Hashtags.org
Here you can find an ocean of topics for inspiration. Popular and trending hashtags divided into categories. Hashtags definitions in order to know what you are writing about. The application immediately provides the results without even to push any button. You can expand upon the clickable hashtags and find topics and conversations that took place.
We all know that people are looking for information and they ask questions using hashtags. You can stay one step in front of the competition and deliver answers in a timely manner. The tool only provides a small amount of content in the free version.
You can upgrade to receive more features and unlimited results but I would suggest that you pick up the popular and trending hashtags and then use the Twitter official website to continue your search. Twitter can help you stay updated and understand what people are looking for.
There are a ton of other websites and applications devoted to hashtags. This is the tool I prefer because it is easy to use.
Portent’s Content Idea Generator
A funny and very friendly application which generates headlines on terms you are searching. Even if you enter only one word it gives you brilliant ideas for headlines and of course for topics to write about. You can press the arrow button multiple times and note down the titles.
Of course, some of the ideas won’t exactly fit your purpose, you can change the words that need to be excluded or replace them with yours. But this is a brilliant tool because it gives you “Compelling” words and phrases used from bloggers and influencers. You need headlines that could stand the competition and increase your click-through rates.
Example – I searched for “Affiliate Marketing”
Some of the results I got
“11 ways affiliate marketing can make you rich” (Awesome)”
“10 reasons affiliate marketing is sweeter than Christmas morning” (not so brilliant). I need to replace “sweeter” and “Christmas morning” unless I can find a way to connect them. But you don’t want to lose time in changing words. Besides you use this tool to save time. So you can just press “enter” again to get a new headline.
Ubersuggest
Update July 2018: Neil Patel acquired the tool and upgraded it
Is a keyword suggesting tool? One of my favorites because it is fast, simple and you can generate unlimited topic ideas. All the results are based on real user queries. You can filter your search by language or source (web, images, news, shopping, video, recipes). It adds words to your initial search term and divides the results by alphabet letter. Simple but very effective. It does not give results for One-Word queries.
BuzzSumo
Their main slogan is “Analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor”...A very unique tool for generating ideas and to analyze data on topics. Furthermore, it integrates many other features that are not relevant to this article.
You search for a topic and the tool provides content of previously published articles that had been shared the most. Filter your searches by date, language, country and content type (article, infographics, guest posts, giveaways, interviews, videos). The free version shows 10 results for each search. The pro shows everything.
The “Trending Now” section defines what is hot online and can be narrowed by using the appropriate category. Tons of ideas to work on and to stay updated with the online trends.
If you are not a member you can perform up to 3 searches daily, still very valuable because you are getting 30 results of awesome content topics that had worked well in the past.
The Blog Post Ideas Generator
Created by Build your own blog. Their humorous slogan is “Ready to serve when your brain is out of service” and along with the relaxed design you feel immediately “Like Home”...What the tool does is to generate half finished headlines and you have to complete the rest of the phrase. But these are the titles that catch an eye’s attention. Very helpful , easy to use and funny.
If you use Google Chrome then you can add it as an app to your browser.
HubSpot’s Blog Topics Generator
The tool is very handy. There are 3 fields where they suggest you to enter terms preferably “Nouns”. Of course, their algorithm is not perfect and they mention it. But the tool provides extremely sophisticated ideas that could help you unstuck in cases you need it.
Their banner highlights…”Don’t know what to blog about? Let us think of ideas for you.
Additionally, I would consider in subscribing on their email list. Their blog is publishing new material on a daily basis discussing all the latest marketing trends, so you can further be inspired from their topics.
Social Mention
A social media platform that searches and analyses generated content across the web. You can track what people are talking about your brand, a product or a topic. According to their information, they are directly monitoring over 100 social media properties including all the most popular like: Twitter, Facebook, Google, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg.
You can perform advanced searches and change your preferences. It provides statistical data on strength, sentiment, passion, and reach of the searched term. It shows Top Keywords, Top Users, Top Hashtags and Sources.
Another tool you can add to your arsenal.
Google Family
Instant Search Function
The famous search engine is one of the most powerful tools. When you enter characters in the search line then automatically some terms are being shown up. These are the most used queries and you should definitely use them to target keywords for your blog posts.
Although these terms are the ones with the higher competition that does not mean you can’t create your content around them. If you are a new blogger such competitive keyword posts won’t get ranked soon but these are the posts that could increase your authority. And when a websites authority is rising then your rankings are climbing the way to the top.
The google results can be used for inspiration as well. Don’t just take a look at the first page only like visitors and amateurs do. Keep onto the following pages to get awesome ideas for your next topics.
Trends
Another clever application by Google.A resource for hot topics and statistical data. Browsing is available by category and language. When you search for a query the tool is showing you the search term volume over the past years and predicts approximately the term’s volume for the future. Furthermore, it illustrates the popularity of this term filtering the location , extremely useful for local marketing and geotargeting purposes.
The tool does not stop there. The following results show similar terms filtering , once again , this time by Top and Upcoming Popular topics. Next to the upcoming popular terms, the tool sometimes show a percentage of these terms growth. These statistics are being used by influencers and key marketers that manipulate these data to bring fresh content that can’t be outranked easily.
Alerts
Monitoring the web for new interesting content. You can create alerts for the terms you want and stay informed about the competition , the trending topics and not only. The most important function of this tool is to drive you to find awesome resources you would never know existed.
That is how I am following authoritative and well established websites. Additionally, you can set a specific time of the day that you want these results delivered to your inbox. Inside these results often you will discover tweets on the alerted terms.
With the Alerts funtion and only that you won’t ever run out of ideas.
More Awesome Tools
Inbound Now – Blog Title Idea Generator.
Another application to come up with ideas and “Kill your writer’s block”.It uses an algorithm to offer you fancy titles that can surround your keywords. You just press the generator button and the tool starts to roll. It can be proved valuable for your blog titles in combination with the social media shares as well. It can increase the number of clicks.
Content Ideator
Update Nov 03, 2018: The tool discontinued
A blog topic, title and ideas generator. They say “Running out of content ideas?…enter a keyword you want to target and we’ll give you a list of existing titles , which you can use an an inspiration”.I find this tool extremely useful and you can test it on your own. It gives results really fast which are very impressive. Additionally, these results seem to be endless. The pro version unlocks features such as filtering , access to social media shares and more.
I think this one is very promising
Storify
Update May 16, 2018: The tool is no longer available
A tool to search for stories being told. Gives results of tweets, images, videos, and links. In addition, you can browse stories filtered by featured users and users you follow. Another resource for inspiration and can be used as a curation tool to embed content on your site, it’s worth to check it out.
Link Bait Generator
Brought to you by Content Row. Another tool to get ideas and inspiration. It follows a simple outlook, focusing on the ease of use. With every click, you get 30 topics ideas in no time. Functionality is the tool’s main advantage over the competition.
Answer The Public
The founders say “We’re all searching for something. The auto-suggest results provided by Google & Bing are a goldmine of insight for today’s marketers. As you type you are presented with an aggregated view of the questions & therefore a hint of the motivations & emotions of the people behind each search query. It’s perhaps one of the best but most underutilized sources of research for content ideas”.
They continue “Consumer insight for PR in the age of Google. This is search insight that could and should be used by any marketing team. Creative, PR, Content, SEO. So we built simple visualizations of the data. A one-pager that could be shared to prompt a conversation on how you could start answering you’re public better. By creating content that’s useful, funny or inspiring. This insight is there for anybody to use. You just need to know how to extract it. To learn more about using autocomplete data for content ideas we’ve created a short free email course”
You can enter any keyword and the tool suggests content ideas in seconds. The answers are being categorized (questions, prepositions, comparisons, alphabetical, related) and there are 2 options for viewing them (visualization and data).
You can additionally save the visualization images using a handy button on-page.
All the keywords (answers) are clickable and redirect to Google for further information. Another very handy function.
Conclusion
These are only a handful of tools I use everyday to come up with ideas and stay motivated and alerted.Additionally you can consider as Content Creation tools every social media platform (Facebook , Twitter , Pinterest , Google Plus , Digg , Stumble Upon , LinkedIn , Delicious , Flickr…to name only a few).
Even article and question directories (Quora , Reddit , Street Articles , Yahoo Answers…).The catalogue can be extended to marketing networks.like (Wealthy Affiliate , Affilorama , Inbound….) or even marketplaces like (Ebay , Amazon…) and of course any search engine (Bing , Yahoo..) and Last But Not Least other blogs and websites that offer unique and useful content…(like this one)
Thank you for reading, I hope you find this article valuable and I welcome your comments and thoughts. Which favorite tool? Which tools should I add? Till next time…
Resources
- Top Rank Blog – 11 must have tools for blog & social content creation
- Affilorama – 23 content creation tools every affiliate marketer needs
- Word Stream – 8 Blog Topic Generators
- Web Market Support
Hello again,
Writing blog posts is starting to get a little easier for me, but finding the ideas to begin with is still a bit of a hassle. Every time, it’s a pain browsing through my notes and my keyword to come up with a good title for my next article.
Ubersuggest and BuzzSumo are my only friends, but I think now I’ll be inviting more to the party, LOL.
I’m really thankful for this.
Regards,
Imad
Great then Imad.You can add these tools to your arsenal.Every writer can be blocked , that is why we need resources.
Thank you for this visit and for discussing it with me.Good luck with your articles.
This helps so much!
The support you provide is huge.
I never knew these existed until you mentioned them and I might consider using some of these tools!
You’ve explained each of them well and it’s easy to understand and take in the information.
Great Site, Great Content!
Keep up the great work!
That is great to hear Stephen.These tools can give you a ton of ideas and can save you time.
Thank you for your kind words and support.All my best.
Hey Tasos,
Wonderful list you have here, I never knew most of them exist! No wonder I’ve been feeling like something is missing in my journey to blog.
Topsy sounds really cool, and BuzzSumo too. Finally found a good source to get trending blogging info, this will really help in giving me a better idea on what to write about. Thanks for sharing this and as always, keep up the good work. Cheers!
That is wonderful Riaz , those tools can give you a ton of ideas.We have to use as many sources as we can , sometimes we run out of ideas , we are not machines.
Thank you for another visit and for your participation.Good luck with your trending articles.All my best.
This is an excellent article. You have gathered together a very nice set of useful resources for any online writer or business person. Some of these venues I had not heard of and will check them out. I have used some of them and agree with you that Google itself is a great idea generator for blog content. I have bookmarked this for further use.
Welcome Mike , you are very kind.I am so glad you found these resources helpful.Indeed , Google offers so many tools alone that could give us many ideas to implement.
Thank you for dropping by my blog and for your participation in the comments.Good luck.
Hi there Tasos. This is a great article my friend thank you for creating it! It was really interesting and helpful to read through and get a ton of ideas!
As a person who’s trying to get their own website-based business up and running, I’m constantly having to think about writing new posts and it can be really hard to think of a some decent/fresh topics.
That’s where these 15 different tools can help me so much. I’m very grateful to have found you and found out about the help that is out there.
Jamie.
Welcome Jamie , I am really glad I could help with this article.I know it is very hard to write consistently and I have had tough times myself.
Thank you for visiting my blog , your kind words and support.Good luck with your business.
Very well written website. It contains lots of information for anyone looking into making money online.
Great comparison between the different ways and programs of online marketing and money making, from affiliate marketing to MLM, or how to avoid scams.
Great idea to providing websites with royalty free images. I think that is one of the biggest challenges with people not knowing where to access these images.
Thank you af881 for dropping by and for your feedback , you investigated the whole structure of my blog.You are very kind and your awesome compliments will keep me rolling for long.
Great post Tasos! I didn’t have an idea of the existence of so many different resources that can help generate plenty of great ideas for creating quality content for your website. I think with all these resources it’s simply impossible to run out of the ideas and you can always create awesome posts that can attract visitors and turn them into your loyal readers. Content is the most important aspect of any online business and if you can create content on consistent basis that means you will be successful. Tasos, have you been able to create some great posts thanks to using these resources and feel the importance of using them? I think you can create a post about it and help people understand the importance of using these tools.
Welcome back Rufat , great points.Consistency in content creation is one key component to help a website climb up the rankings and shine.Besides , why someone will want to visit repeatedly a site empty of content , just to watch ads and get bombarded with sales?
Yes , I am using these tools but not every time.For example when I write a review I usually do not use them.But for inofrmational posts are very handy.You can create awesome headlines , catchy and increase your click through rates a little bit.
That is a fabulous idea to create a post on that subject.I already noted down to my future agenda.
Thank you for another visit and for participating with your excellent mentions.
Wow this is so cool.I have always wondered what I was going to next once I run out of ideas for my blog post writings
Is there a way to create email alerts on these sites so you get notified on what topics are trending at the moment?
These free tools will be a great resource to check out. Thanks for sharing this info.
Hello there Fidel , some of these sites offer subscriptions in their email list.Some of them like Hub Spot run blogs and you can subscribe your email.They always blog regarding the latest trends.I don’t think you could set alerts for trending topics through their webpages but you can try.
But definitely you can set up these alerts through the “Google Alerts” tool.
I am glad you found that article valuable.Thank you for visiting my blog and for participating in the comments.
Wow. This is a great resource for all the website owners! We know that content is king in getting traffic to our sites. However, at times it can be very difficult to come up with relevant and engaging content. Using your list of resources I now have a ton of different websites to help out with content creation! Thanks so much.
Hello Eric , content is king , we have to publish material continuously but we are not machines.We stuck , we can not come up with brilliant ideas all the time.
I am glad you found this article helpful.I would love to hear your feedback if you use any of these tools.Thank you for visiting my blog and participating in the comments.
This is such a helpful site for people like me who are just starting to blog. Thank you for sharing the resources.This is going to help me greatly. You not only list and point us to these resources, you provide a description for each of them. I am definitely going to look up the social mention site. Thank you for sharing.
Hello there Rodney , I am glad I can help you with your projects.I have been stuck in the past so this is why I wanted to share some of the resources I am using.
Thank you for visiting my blog and for stating your comments here.Good luck for the future.