How do you come up with article ideas for your writer?

My question to you is, if you cannot come up with more topics, do you really need more?

I rather see a website with 15 well written articles rather than a website with 50 articles that are half-assed.

Just my two cents here!

Open up a few books on your topic. Having a browse through the contents page of a few books will likely get some ideas flowing.

As a tip, you can normally view the contents page of a book on Amazon's website.

You can browse forums like this one and see what common problems the members have then you can write articles to address such problems and provide solutions to these problems.

You probably won't need to come up with any more just yet. Fifteen articles should be enough to launch your site, but even before that, if you ask to see each article as it's written, the chances are you'll find more inspiration within them to spark other article ideas.

A good article will tend to prompt supplementary questions leading to connected topics (or subtopics), or it might suggest different angles on the subject you hadn't thought about at the outset.

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These are all very good suggestions guys and the niche is WordPress (mainly for beginners).
Please....stop, I can already hear people saying "Your niche is WordPress and you can't think of more than 15 articles??", let me explain.
I have got a ton of tutorials (text and image) and I have thought of 15 decent post Ideas (mainly reviews and comparisons, things I think will get a decent amount of searches).
The main problem is, most of the sites I am looking at for inspiration seem to be old and rely on authority more than quality articles. WPBeginner seems to be a prime example of that.
This is why I think my site has a chance! :p (plus I have a site in the same niche already that is doing well, this one is just different approach).

Once again, anything you suggest will be GREATLY appreciated!

Martie"

The best advice I can give you is that you are on the right track and to just get started. She has 15 articles to write, yeah? It'll take her some time to finish them all.

But in the meantime, you'll have a few that you can start to do things with. 15 is great. You'll come up with more ideas as time goes on, like people said, by reading other articles and books on the topic.

Anytime something strikes you, pencil it down before you forget.

Also you can Google things like 'wordpress problems' and... site:www.FORUM-NAME.com "wordpress" + "problems". There are endless ideas for content right in your backyard.

Thanks,
Marc

Brainstorm them first using words as the topic of what you want to write about.
Then develop a list of blog post titles that are original.
Then use someone to write it to get qiality content on sites like fiverr, freelancer etc..
or do it yourself

You should use Google Alerts / Google Trends. This is your key to sucess if you use these tools wisely.

Have your articles revolve around the Who? What? Where? Why? How? principle. Since you mentioned you are involving Wordpress, the Who would be talking about the inception of the concept. The What would cover what it entails to use Wordpress. The Where is any place it can be used, like blogs, for example. The Why would address how easy Wordpress is to use for users. And the How would cover things like plugins that make it run smoothly.

Look at magazines in your niche.

Go to your local magazine stand and browse or go some place like magazines.com and look at articles they are producing.

Magazines spend a lot of money researching what their readers want and the headlines and article topics on magazine covers are designed to grab attention and get people to pick up and buy the magazine.

From looking at Men's Fitness category of magazines.com:

Big muscle secrets
Daring Sex - How and where she wants it
Massive arms
Do you need more testosterone?
Flat abs fast
Perfect supplements for you
Transgender body builder
Off road running guide
Banish knee pain
Magic bullet workout
Get lean and ripped in 30 days
Anti-aging bomb foods
Big arms fast

And that's just from looking at the cover blurbs.

Also look at the topics. Across multiple mens magazines and multiple covers the most frequent article topics were "big arms" and "flat abs".

When my mind goes blank when it comes to article ideas for my website, I usually come here to the forum and look at new topics. Then from that point, new article ideas come to me and I go from there. That is what I do if I have no ideas to work with.

GO back to basics, why are you writing the articles? Most likely because you want people to read them so you can create value and sell them. Marketing 101, sell to people who know they have a problem so you can provide the solution. Don't waste your time trying to sell to people that don't even realise they have the problem you can solve for them and have to educate them through the entire process. So, waffle finish, what I am saying in short is create articles on topics people are actively searching for. Two ways:

1. Keyword Research - To me the single most important component of any online marketing strategy, without it you are wasting your time. Find search terms that have buyer intent (not generic research based terms) and look for the ones with high search volume. A lot of people will type specific questions into Google and you would be surprised how many people are typing the same questions into Google. Chances are competition won't be too fierce with a question based search term so a well written and optimised article will rank well in Google.

2. Google Trends - Obviously you want whatever you are writing to perform for some time so try to target areas where search and user need is growing over time not shrinking so you get some longevity out of your content.

Typically the larger the niche, the more topics there are to write about. If you're in a small niche and you're looking to hire a writer to create content for you.... then you need to put it in your request to tell them that they need to do the background research on the matter. And it needs to be 100% original. And don't rely on spinner software. If you're in a tight niche and the main issue(s) can be fixed easily... you might be able to create all the content yourself since you obviously know *a little bit* about the niche.

I have 2 writers I go between that I discovered through Fiverr (found in a non IM related section in Fiverr)

I provide guidelines based on a few different ideas...

1. Provide bullet points of what I'm looking for. ie. tone, length, sub topics etc)

2. Find a really good and similar article and have one of my writers follow the exact same format, adding in their own creativity, style, etc) The article can be written by a competitor, a fellow affiliate or whomever. Many different targeting strategies will work here.

Good luck Martie!

If you want to come up with ideas, consider using Google Keyword Planner tool to get visitor-driven ideas for your articles.

What can I say... read popular blogs and forums, follow the trends, try to catch new ideas and remember that rewritten article with a new conclusion is a new research

I skipped to the end for my suggestion.
I am a writer myself.
I am often asked for ideas to write about...and can easily come up with ideas as long as it's in a niche I have some knowledge in.

The question is how much you pay per article?

I am paid for work. I never pay others to do work. Regardless of that, everyone will charge different prices.

Stick a gun to your writer's head an' give 'em 15 seconds.

You can find lots of ideas for your articles in forums and from my experience writing articles around questions asked from forums gets more traction. But then is completely up to you and the niche that you are involved in.