Getting ideas for content in a really small niche

[stymiee]

As much as I dislike blogging I would do it more frequently if I could think of topics to write about more often. My problem is my niche is very narrow which makes it hard to constantly pump out new information. What's the best way to keep my blog rich with new content without losing the focus of my blog?

[Jeremy]

search though Yahoo Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/) to see what people are asking about in your niche. If people are asking there, you can bet others are searching for answers as well. So use your expertise to create answers to those types of questions on your blog.

[Jelena]

Very good advice Jeremy. I feel ashamed I haven't thought about that myself :p

[ses5909]

Oh yes. John is a regular there and I think he has quite a high percentage for best answer.

I go there also, but I answer topics on very different subjects.

I also use google alerts, but am having less luck with them.

[stymiee]

Google Laerts helps once in a blue moon. Yahoo Yanswers isn't bad but because of the specific niche, and my thoroughness in covering my topic, a new idea comes along rarely. :(

[shyflower]

You can also subscribe to pr web news feeds about your topics either through e-mail or rss feed. Just be careful to keep your topic subscriptions narrow or you'll get tons of reading and weeding, but you will keep up to date with the current spin on things!

[stymiee]

Where would I find such subscriptions?

[shyflower]

http://www.prweb.com/rss.php

[stymiee]

My goodness, what monster page. I see a few categories worth watching. I'll subscribe and see if anything comes up that I can work with.

Thanks, Linda. :)

[Oliver]

Maybe you could expand and build on posts you've made before. For example, if your blog is about dog shampoo you could talk about how cheap each shampoo is and then in another post compare the cheapness to the quality.

[3plus3]

I like that Oliver, it is like having a main topic then tweeking it or breaking it apart into many subtopics right?

[Cedric]

Sometimes you can use your old post to start a new one, who cares anyway? It's your blog and your job is to be creative to be breakthrough! :D Sometimes read a lot of books do help in getting ideas too. :)

[aussietico]

Identify what people want from your blog and work your way up the keyword food chain.

Go through whatever stats package you use, find the keywords people are already using to get to your blog, tie in some basic keyword research and identify more popular variations and then write posts that target the more popular combinations.

Don't aim for the most sought-after keywords, work your way up using consistently better words that build your authority and blog so that eventually you can target the 'big' words.

For instance if you did a blog post on a girl who fell out of an aeroplane that got a bit of traffic from technorati, google and wherever else, you'd go through your logs and probably see junk like:
x visitors came here searching for aeroplane accidents
y visitors came here searching for the make of the aeroplane
z visitors came here searching for girls falling out of stuff

A quick search over at the overture inventory search (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/) for "aeroplanes" and "accidents" reveals a whole lot of topics you could blog about - paper aeroplanes would be easy enough to gather a little info on.

So you whip together a blog post that points out she wouldn't be dead if she fell out of a paper aeroplane, and whatever other junk you can think of.

Then at a later date you do another post about model aeroplanes, and then whatever the hell "blue aeroplanes" are (it's high on their list) and eventually you've got a foundation you can build on to start just targeting "aeroplanes", a highly sought after keyword.

Alternatively you could have followed up on the "accidents" side and discussed legal/compensatory avenues her family might follow, life as a head in a jar futurama style, and whatever else.

The main idea is to expand on what people are already using to find you so that you're covering all areas of the topic that people are actually searching for and you're building an intricate network of links between your posts that focus on and strengthen keywords that people are using to find your site.

[aquariancore]

Do searches on your niche and accumulate feeds.

[bnsullivan]

I find Google Alerts to be very helpful.

Another good trick is to do a news search on the name of a company or product or topic.

Bobbie

[armchaircritic]

Why not go-around your topic when new content is dry? Let's say your topic is SEO (for no particular reason, of course you'd die if you did blog about it wouldn't you ;) ) then you might talk around the subject, offering a viewpoint of current information, rather than just providing info/tips per se. You could diverge into news that could be related to your topic also.

[pbradish]

search though Yahoo Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/) to see what people are asking about in your niche. If people are asking there, you can bet others are searching for answers as well. So use your expertise to create answers to those types of questions on your blog.

That's excellent advice. Did they ever end up closing down Yahoo Answers? I remember Yahoo was/is going through somewhat of a transitional phase right now and focusing on new projects.