Get Article Ideas From Your Own Website

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

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