Getting Ideas for Writing Articles
Article ideas can be found almost eveywhere. Of course the first source is article ideas are your very own thoughts. Your very own thinking. What are you thinking about? Can these thoughts be turned into ideas for articles. Some people have article ideas all the time. Others must search for them. Jot down your thoughts. How can these be turned into ideas for articles?
Ideas can be theme-oriented. For example, what are you hobbies? These can be the source of good ideas. For example, if you’re an amateur astronomer or a coin collector, and you’re somewhat of an expert, then your ideas can certain around these hobbies. Jot them down whenever you have them. When you’re working on your hobby or hobbies, jot down whatever ideas you have. You can jot them down in the form of a sentence, a descriptive paragraph, or in the form of an article title. If writing for the internet, such as web content, make sure the title has the type of keywords that readers look for in a search engine. If writing for print magazines, make sure it’s the type of article that would attract the readers of print magazines. Study the differences. For example, an article in the print magazine Selling Power on Donald Trump is entitled “The Shy Guy.” For an internet article, this would have no meaning. What does this say about Donald Trump? In fact, people don’t think about Donald Trump as a “shy guy.” Or maybe the “shy guy” doesn’t refer to Donald Trump at all. You must read the article to find out. Therefore, for an internet search engine you’d have to include the name. For example, you might say “The Selling Power of Donald Trump.” This might be the subhead of a print journal, but not the main title for a web content article.
Ideas can also be gotten from article categories. Most article databases have categories. You can jot these down. For example, a list of categories might have “Business, Marketing, Hobbies, Sports,” etc. Keep going over this list and jotting down whatever ideas you think about in this category. For example Sports. You can think of writing about types of sports, and instructions for sports enthuasiasts, such as tips for playing golf or tennis, or you can write about the various sports figures, contemporary like a Tiger Woods or historical like a Jim Thorpe. Many freelance writers are generalists and can often write about many different subjects. And with the internet, these can be easily researched online for the most current factual information, new polls and new surveys. Therefore, you can make use of maintaining a subject database, frequently going down the list and jotting your ideas, again in the form of a sentence, a descriptive paragraph, a title or just a phrase.
Ideas can also come from newspapers and news magazines. There are also internet news sources and newsfeeds in many different subject areas. Try the free newsfeeds, such as FreshContent which give many suggestions in many different catagories. If you also have a website, you can include these free newsfeeds on your website. Reviewing these can also give you new up-to-date ideas for articles. There are newsfeeds in many different areas like Travel, Sports, Politics, Hollywood, Business, for example.
TV is good for ideas. Products you might want to rate. Book reviews. Studying websites can suggest ideas. Online polls. Online forums. Just keywords. Other articles that you’ve written can suggest new articles. Articles others have written can suggest articles that you might write. What do you have to say differently?
Ideas can come from e-mails. Although nobody like spam, there are often marketing ideas that can come from spam emails. Maybe a spam offers you a prepaid Visa card. Then maybe you decide to do an article or a review on prepaid Visa cards.
You can also rate the ideas when you get them – from good ideas to great ideas. Often you can rate an idea before writing an ideas. And good ideas with the right slant can be transformed into great ideas.
