Don’t fret–We all are at some time or another.

No matter how long you’ve been writing there are always times when the creative well is just bone dry, and you need a little jump start.

Well, here it comes:

I’ve assembled 25 of my favourite and most effective article topic ideas and article topic idea stimulators. I hope these are helpful to you!

Let’s get started…

1) Use one of our free article writing templates (that’s actually several article topic ideas right there!)

2) Adapt content from your blog to create articles.

3) Write for newbies and more advanced readers–you can cover the same topic in two different articles geared towards groups with different knowledge levels.

4) Use customer frequently asked questions as the basis for an article.

5) Use a keyword suggestion tool, such as WordTracker, to see what keywords your target readers are typing into search engines. Then write articles to satisfy those searches.

6) Look a the search stats for your website–what search terms are people typing into Google to reach your site? Create content to satisfy those searches.

7) Get inspiration from magazines covers. Which titles jump out at you and make you say, “That looks like it would be a good article–I want to read that!”? Many times you can bounce an article off of a title you see on a magazine cover. Can you convert that title to apply to something in your specific niche? Remember just use the title, rather than the entire article. Your content needs to be your own, so might be a good idea not to read the article.

8 ) Use template titles and fill in the blanks. Here are some of mine:

* 10 Great Reasons Why ____
* How To ____ in 7 Easy Steps
* 3 Secret Tricks For _____
* 9 Surefire Ways To ____
* How To Conquer ______
* The Top 10 Mistakes People Make When ____
* Reader Question: “[insert question here]”

9) Have an open classroom–teach, teach, teach!

10) Look at forums, blogs, newsletters in your niche for insight into hot topics that your target readers would serve your target readers.

11) Google Alerts- set one up for each of your keywords, then scan the titles to see what are popular topics in that niche. Again, the idea is to glean article ideas, so look at the article titles rather than the entire article or post.

12) Ask yourself: “If I was a member of my target market but wasn’t really sure what was up from down with the very basics, what sorts of questions might be floating through my brain?”

13) Ask yourself: “What information can I provide that would build the skill of someone with an intermediate knowledge level?”

14) Write a “what are the benefits?” article. For example, you have a niche that you would like people to be more interested in, so it is helpful to readers to tell them right out front what the benefits are–why should they be interested in your niche? If your niche is Article Marketing, you would do an article called “Is Article Marketing For You?” or “5 Top Reasons Why People Do Article Marketing”.

15) Solicit questions from your readers/subscribers. If you have a blog associated with your website, then I encourage you to routinely ask your readers what they want to be seeing on your blog. Because your blog is on the same topic as your website, any suggestions can be used as both article and blog post topics. This works the same for anyone who has a newsletter list–ask your subscribers what types of content they’d like to receive, and then write articles to satisfy those requests.

16) Read blogs in your niche, and look for posts that have tons of comments. That is a great way to identify a hot topic with your target market.

17) Dig deeper: Look at your previous 5 articles, and figure out a way to explore each of those topics on a deeper level.

For example, I wrote this post (later turned into an article) called How To Get Out Of A Writing Slump and realized that several of the topics included in that post/article were worthy of articles of their own. I ended up making 4 additional articles off of that one original post (here, here, here, and here). I also have some more article ideas from that one post that I haven’t written yet.

The good news: It is not always necessary to come up with brand new article ideas–sometimes you can use the same topics, but just go deeper.

18) Go wider: as an expert in your niche you can cover your topic from many angles. When you go deeper you cover a smaller topic more in depth–by going wider, you would have an article that covered a wider spectrum of information (but was less in depth). With your articles, you can dig deeper, go wider, or hang out some where in between.

19) Setting out to write a particular type of article, such as a ‘How To’ or a list article can really help stimulate ideas.

20) Get article ideas from your own website.

21) Have you written an e-book on your topic? Use the table of contents as an article ideas list.

22) Look through your newsletter messages that you’ve sent out to your list. You must be sending your readers something–you can re-use that content by adapting it to be an article.

23) Have you done any audio interviews? You can use the questions and answers from that interview to create one or more articles.

24) Got any elaborate customer support replies? Sometimes you’ll get a customer question that is a perfect opportunity to teach an important technique, principle, or skill. You can use your reply as the basis for an article.

25) Have you created any detailed forum replies or blog comments? I’ve sometimes created blog comments that I thought, “Hey, that’s pretty good–that might be worthy of a post on my own blog or an article.” You can use your blog comments and forum responses to come up with article ideas.

Does that help any? I hope so!

Do you have any article topic ideas to add?

Photo by Leo Reynolds

You have more article ideas than you realize.

The most common question any Article Marketer asks is this:

“What should I write about?”

I think folks sometimes get stumped for topics because the expansive sea of possibilities is just mind boggling.

I have a theory though:

You have more article topics at your fingertips than you realize.

You may even have ready-made content just waiting to be tweaked and submitted as articles.

Look at your own website.

Now, if your website is a blog, then you already have a storeroom of article topics at your disposal, but in this post I’m specifically talking to people who have traditional websites.

If your website is like most people’s websites you have on your very own site ideas for several articles just waiting to be written.

Example:

Let’s say you’re a Virtual Assistant– it’s likely that you have a page on your site that answers the question “What is a Virtual Assistant?” or “How A Virtual Assistant Can Save You Time”, or some other content that you’ve written to help persuade an interested party into being interested in working with a Virtual Assistant.

That info is a prime candidate for an article or two or more.

Audio Content From Your Website

Have you done any podcasts or audio interviews on your topic?

These can be great sources for article ideas.

Example:

Recently Mark Bowden, an internet marketing specialist from the UK,  interviewed me on various aspects of article marketing for his own clients. It was about a 45 minute interview with lots of good questions asked by Mark, and I had linked to the interview from my site and encouraged readers to listen to it.

But then I thought–”Hey, that’s good content. I can use this!”.

I just re-listened to the interview and took notes on major topics, then broke those topics into articles.

More Article Topic Sources On Your Site and In Your Business

E-Books

Have you written an e-book on your topic?

Pull chapters from your e-book and adapt them to be articles. You might have to do some slight rephrasing on the intro and concluding paragraphs, and also whittle the chapters down to article length (no more than 1500 words), but depending on the length of your book, you probably already have the makings of several dozen articles.

Your List Messages

If you have a list of email subscribers, what are you sending out to your readers?

Do you offer an e-course (you know, lessons sent out automatically to people who sign up)?

Or perhaps a newsletter?

If you have a list, you must be sending information to them.

Look through your email messages and see if there is anything that you can morph into an educational article. Remember, you’re looking for educational, teaching content to turn into articles.

For messages going out via email, you do not have to rework them like you would if the content was on your own site. It is fine to use verbatim content that is going out to your email list in an article.

Your Customer Support Replies

Many times I’ve used my customer support replies as the basis for articles. You can sort of tell when you have an ‘article worthy’ customer support reply:

• You find yourself explaining a very important concept that is essential to the person’s success.
• You notice yourself teaching –you’re providing background info, explaining things in depth, and giving examples.
• You’ve noticed this same question coming up before, and you know that if a handful of people are asking it then likely many others are wondering the same thing.

My attitude is this: As long as I’ve taken the time to write a really thorough reply to a great question from a customer, why not use that content in an article?

Much of the work is already done, and my mind is on the topic anyway. Makes the most use of the time and brainpower I’ve invested.

How To Re-Work Website Content

Here are some pointers for transforming content on your website into articles:

1) Rework your appropriate website content and submit it as an article. Do not submit the same content verbatim–it is in your own best interest to keep the content on your own site unique.

*Exceptions to this would be if you were using audio content, email message content, or content you’ve sent as a customer support reply. For those, you do not need to change the content to be sure the original is unique.

Only content you’re using from your own website needs to be re-worked.

2) Be sure that your article is not promotional–you cannot talk about yourself or your business or services in the article body. Save that for the resource box. The info you provide in your article needs to be objective and educational, so content on your website that is all about you and more of a sales pitch for your business would not be appropriate material.

3) Set a word count goal–Your article should be at least 400 words long, but it can be  longer than that. A good goal to aim for is 400-800 words.

4) Use the website content as an outline for writing your article. That will help you write the article faster. I use outlines for all my articles, and they help me stay on track.

5) Write for different sections of your target market. For example, you may write an article on one topic 2 different ways–One for newbies and the other for experts.

Have You Found Hidden Article Ideas?

When you find a source of article ideas on your own site or in your own business, it’s like discovering a hidden treasure.

I found one of these recently–I looked at an e-book I’d written and noticed that I could use the table of contents as an “article idea list”. That is a 70 page e-book, so I will be set for article ideas for a while!

I hope this post has helped– have you found any hidden article ideas?

Photo by Cayusa

100 articles is your marathon.

I got some great feedback from you guys on the post about aiming for 100 articles, and I’d like to offer a plan for making this grand achievement more doable.

I know that when a huge goal looms ahead of you it can be daunting (especially when you’re just starting out!), but anything is doable when you break it into steps.

Why Aim For 100 Articles?

Do you know where most people go wrong with article marketing?

A lack of CONSISTENCY.

That’s right–the most common reason why an article marketing campaign “fails” is not because of a lack of technical knowledge but rather for something as simple as not submitting enough articles on a regular basis.

I keep this quote from Benjamin Disraeli beside my desk:

“The secret to success is constancy of purpose.”

Doing anything consistently month after month after month will make an impact.

What does “consistency” look like?

Submit articles each month. Do it for the lifetime of your website.

Having a goal like 100 articles is a great motivator for building consistency into your article marketing routine.

It’s like when you decide to take up jogging, you might set yourself a goal of running in a marathon.

At the time you decide to do the race, you can’t run that far, but the goal is what motivates you to keep on progressing to that distance in a certain time frame.

Think of the 100 articles goal as your marathon.

The Time Frame: Why A Year?

I must say that the idea is not to submit 100 articles in a short period of time–if you submit articles at the rate that I recommend, this will take a year or so to accumulate 100 articles.

Doing things faster is not necessarily a bonus–it’s better SEO wise to gradually build up the links over a year’s time.

Quality and Quantity Count

Remember, we are not just shooting for a particular quantity, but for articles that have quality as well.

Every article you write needs to be a quality article that is useful to your readers, but a HUGE component of article marketing is also consistency.

You can write 100 articles using this plan and this time frame (a year or more) and still write quality articles.

Writing 25 articles or so is a great start, but you will see your best SEO results with an ongoing article marketing campaign that goes on for months and years. Article marketing is all about momentum and compounded results.

Aim for 100 quality articles (and it will take about a year to reach that goal) and you will have a built-in consistency that will payoff.

Simple Strategies

Submit 2 articles a week, or 8 a month

Set a goal for yourself–try 8 articles a month. That’s 2 a week.

Then just plug along consistently and before you know it the year will be over and you will be rapidly closing in on 100 articles.

To accomplish this goal you can take a few approaches:

=> Schedule 2 writing days a week, and write an article on each day.

OR

=> Write several articles at one writing session, and schedule one or two writing sessions a month. You may be able to accomplish all of your writing within a few days if you batch process your article writing.

Write In Bursts

Or here’s another idea–I have a friend who prefers to write in bursts.

She sets the goal for herself to write 5 articles a week for 5 weeks, then she takes a break for a few months.

So, imagine it–if you write 5 articles a week for 5 weeks, you have 25 articles. If you’re submitting 8 articles a month, then that will keep you going for a little over 3 months.

So, you can write 5 articles a week for 5 weeks, and then take 2 months off, then start back up again after your break.

Finding Article Topics

Writing 100 articles in a year does not take a Herculean writing effort–rather, it takes consistency.

Do not imagine that you will need to be spending all of your time writing. You can accomplish this goal by writing 2 articles a week, and that is entirely reasonable.

The hardest thing about submitting articles consistently is coming up with writing topics–I think if we all had someone telling us exactly what to write about for each article, there would be much less procrastination and more enthusiasm for sitting down at the writing desk!

So, let’s talk about finding article topics:

1) Use these article templates to jump start your writing. Each one of these templates can be used over and over again.

2) Multi-task your content creation: Bounce articles off of your blog posts (if you have a blog)

3) Consult this resource I created about how to find great article topics– there you’ll find resources for stimulating new article topics, writing strategies, and organizational methods.

The Impact

I submitted just 8 articles a month last year (submitting through SubmitYOURArticle.com) and saw a dramatic increase in my search engine ranking for some new keyword terms that I was targeting.

One of them jumped from #88 to #1 in the results listings. Now that’s a dramatic difference!

Submitting 100 articles over a year’s time can have a huge impact on the health of your site.

Your Homework

Don’t think you can accomplish this feat? Well, you can, and you can do it without killing yourself. All you need is a plan.

1) Step one is the biggie: Commit to submitting 100 articles in about a year’s time (will likely take a little over a year).

2) Create a plan for yourself:

Are you the sort who wants to get all of your writing completed in one or two days a month?

Or do you like to be slow and steady, writing 2 articles a week on different days?

Are you an all or nothing type of person who would enjoy the challenge of writing 5 articles a week to create a storehouse of articles to submit over a period of 3 months?

Or come up with your own plan!

Will you at least try to run this writing marathon? Let me know in the comments.

Photo by OskarN

Update: SubmitYOURArticle.com allows unlimited article submissions, but we still recommend for an optimum campaign submitting up to 8 articles per month/per site, although there’s no actual restriction.

Top Mistakes articles are attention grabbing.

Have you noticed any common misconceptions about your niche, or common mistakes that people in your field make?

If so, you have a prime teaching opportunity.

Sometimes the best way to learn is to see what NOT to do.

Top mistakes articles also tend to catch readers’ attention because they run counter to the popular ‘Top Tips’ articles.

If you’re looking for a new writing template to help kickstart your next article, give this one a go:

1. Are there any mistakes that folks in your target market typically make?

These could be misconceptions or actual behavioral mistakes. Don’t think of this as harping on the negative–many times people don’t realize they’re making a mistake until someone points it out!

Also, anyone who reads your article can avoid making the mistakes listed, so this type of article is like a preventative treatment to common mistakes made in your niche. Sometimes we’re not so hot on learning new things, but we are definitely motivated to avoid disasters.

2. Write an intro.

Tell why these are such common mistakes and why the reader needs to avoid them. What do they have to gain by avoiding these mistakes? What do they have to lose by committing these mistakes?

3. List each mistake/misconception.

4. Offer corrections for the mistakes.

This is where the value is–you are offering solutions to common problems.

5. Be encouraging.

This is more of an attitude than anything else, but remember that the purpose of the article is to help people rather than to make them feel bad for making a mistake.

6. Consider using a number in your title.

This “Top Mistakes” list can also be a “Top 7″ or “Top 5″ or whatever number you come up with.

7. How urgent do you want to be in your title?

If you want to be urgent, then you can use an exclamation point at the end of your title (just one exclamation point please–no need to make it double or triple!)

Take this article, for example: 7 Pregnancy Exercise Mistakes You MUST Avoid!

‘Top Mistakes’ Articles: Examples

Look at these for some ideas for different types of titles and see how these authors structured their articles:

Top 5 Body Language Mistakes in Dating

Wedding Reception Mistakes To Avoid

Top 7 Mistakes Beginner Bass Players Make

5 Common Mistakes New eBay Sellers Make

10 Misconceptions the Self-Employed Deal With Daily (this one is actually a blog post, but it’s the same idea)

And from my own article library:

5 Popular Reasons Why Articles Are Declined (And How To Fix Them!)

What do you think–will you try this article template?

Photo by nixArt

Sneeze pages show off your previously published content.

Have you wondered how you can get the most bang for your buck with the articles you’ve submitted?

Have you ever wished that you could somehow make something extra out of your articles, something that you could offer to the visitors of your website?

Have you ever wished for a way to direct readers to your other articles, knowing that you had much more information that would be valuable to them?

Have you ever thought, “I have written soooo many articles, I can’t even keep track of what topics I’ve covered and which I haven’t!”

Are you new to Article Marketing and just getting in the swing of things, and longing for a way to categorically organize and build your arsenal of online content?

If any of these scenarios applies to you (and my hand is up for pretty much all of them), then a sneeze page might be exactly what you need.

What’s a sneeze page?

I have to thank Darren Rowse at Problogger for enlightening me as to what a sneeze page was.

The idea of a sneeze page is simple–it’s basically a way to show off your previously published content.

A key element of a sneeze page is that it’s organized–each sneeze page is on a specific topic or for a specific readership.

Examples:

Here are some examples of ones I’ve created:

Article Writing: How To Find Great Topics

SEO Resources For Article Marketers

How To Create A Resource Box: The Ultimate Guide

I’ve created these sneeze pages for my blog, but you can do the same thing for your articles.

What Is The Purpose Of This?

• Your online content is easily accessible to readers.

• You get optimum use from your articles–you’re not just submitting them and forgetting about it. After you submit them, your articles then work on your website/blog as a catalog of content for your readers.

• You drive readers further and further into your content.

• You may notice holes in your content–topics that you need to cover but haven’t yet or topics that you need to cover more thoroughly.

• Your sneeze pages can be great resource box lures–if you’re submitting another article on that topic, you can link to the sneeze page where the reader can continue reading your other articles on the same topic.

• Sneeze pages are SEO friendly–linking to your articles can help grow their search engine ranking.

Creating Your Own Sneeze Pages:

Look at your list of articles–you have been (hopefully) writing on the topic of your website, and under that general topic you will notice sub-topics emerging. In the examples above, I have a lot of resources on Resource Boxes and also on how to find great article topics and tons of info on SEO as it relates to article submissions.

Previously, all this information was scattered all over the place and not available anywhere as a cohesive collection neatly organized into topics and sub-topics.

Even within these sub-topics under the larger topic of Article Marketing, I was able to break it down into more defined topics. For example, on the sneeze page called “Article Writing: How To Find Great Topics”, I have these sections:

• Getting started (section for beginngers)
• SEO & Article Topics
• Article Writing Formulas
• Using Blogs, E-Books, and other Online Content To Generate Article Ideas

Under each sub-heading, I included a list of links and a brief description of what the resource covers.

Try this with your own articles–if you’re like me you’ll be amazed at how much content you’ve written on some very niche specific topics. I love the feeling of gathering it all in one place, like a reference page for all of my content. It’s a very satisfying feeling!

Publicizing Your Sneeze Page:

Here are some ideas for how to use your sneeze pages:

Step 1: Publish on your blog or website. If you have a traditional website, you could have a Training Page or a Resources Page or a My Articles page–make it so that this page is readily visible from your menu. If you have a blog, you can publish the sneeze page on your blog, then link to the sneeze pages from one page on your website.

Step 2: If you have a blog, you can add a section in the side bar entitled “The Best Of [Your Blog]“, under which you would link to your sneeze pages. If you have a traditional website, you can have a link from your menu going to the page on your website that houses the links to the sneeze pages.

Step 3: If you’re feeling gung-ho, you can also morph each sneeze page into an individual Squidoo lens. I have one Squidoo lens called The Ultimate Guide To Article Marketing, and have had a lot of success with it. It took a while to put it together with all the photos and stuff, but it was worth it. It’s a great way to bring further attention to your articles.

I have meant to make more Squidoo lenses, but I just hadn’t gotten to it. Then, as I was looking at my sneeze pages, I thought “The sneeze page is basically an outline for a Squidoo lens! It would be so easy to make one after I’ve already taken the time to organize the content.”

As Simple As You Want To Be:

If this appeals to you, then just start out by creating a “sneeze page” on your website or blog, and make it so that the link to the sneeze page is easily visible to readers visiting your website/blog. Then, if you want to go the extra mile, create more and more sneeze pages based on your topics and the unique needs of your different sets of readers.

You can be as simple or complicated as you want to be.

What I like about this approach is that it helps keep me focused–my goal is to blanket a niche topic with my articles, and the sneeze pages help me see what topics I need to cover more thoroughly.

What do you think–will you try this?

Photo by vanherdehaage

Brainstorming Article Ideas

What Should I Write About?

This is probably the most common question I receive, and one that I sometimes find myself wondering for my own article marketing campaigns!

Even if you’re an experienced writer, I think we all run dry on ideas sometimes, and it helps to have some tricks for stimulating those creative juices and getting the ideas flowing.

I’ve written many resources on the topic of ‘how to find an article topic’, and the links below are to some of the key posts on this topic.  I hope you’ll find this to be a useful reference.

Getting Started:

The Fastest, Easiest Way To Write Your First Article…Starting From Square One – a step-by-step guide for writing an article, starting with coming up with a topic and ending and going through writing and submitting your article.

How To Never Run Out Of Topics To Write About – 5 methods for creating new article topic ideas.

7 Common Fears Of New Article Writers – a list of list of 7 of the top concerns new article writers have and some re-assurance for each one.

How To Create An Article Idea List – 3 key idea-stimulating questions to ask yourself when brainstorming an article idea list.

How To Write Articles For A Product Based Website – probably the most popular article on this site. This is a resource that teaches people with product based websites (sales oriented websites) how to choose effective article topics.

How To Create A Monthly Article Writing Schedule – guide for creating a writing schedule, which makes it much easier to get your momentum going and stay ‘in the groove’. Also covers how I personally brainstorm topics for my articles.

SEO & Article Topics:

How To Find Great Article Topics – a tutorial for creating article topic ideas that are also SEO friendly (they’ll help your target market find your articles when they do Google searches). Also covers how to use the free WordTracker keyword suggestion tool.

How To Use Keywords To Find Article Topics – a 2-step process for effectively using your keywords to grab the attention of readers and also appeal to Google. Teaches about targeting long-tail keyphrases, among other things.

How Do You Know What Topics Strike A Nerve With Your Target Market? – covers 5 ways to determine what types of topics your target readers are interested in.

Article Writing Formats:

5 Steps To Writing A Killer ‘How To’ Article – explains why ‘How To’ articles are so attractive to readers and outlines 7 steps for creating a ‘How To’ article, starting with your article topic.

How To Write A Great List Article – list articles are some of the easiest articles to write. This post goes step-by-step over how to create a list article, starting with brainstorming article topic ideas that would work well in a list form.

Using Blogs, E-Books and Other Content To Generate Article Ideas:

Blog

How To Use Your Blog To Generate Articles – Getting double duty out of your marketing content is a great way to save time and have a steady stream of writing topics. This is my method for using my blog to come up with article ideas and outlines.

How To Turn A Blog Post Into A Free Reprint Article – a guide for bouncing an article off of a blog post.

E-Book

Promote An E-book With Article Marketing – Coming up with article ideas is easy if you’ve got an e-book that you’d like to promote–just use your book as your idea source! This post covers how to write articles to promote your e-book and also other key steps for getting more attention to your book.

Tricks For Bouncing Articles Off Of Other Articles

How To Get 5 (or more!) Articles Out Of 1 List Article

Examples On Our Article Directory:

It also might help to take a look at our article directory for some examples of articles by other authors.