Writing blog articles is a great way to gain exposure and practise your writing skills. If you produce interesting content, you will engage with people and create new opportunities. Marianne Orchard explained how to structure a blog article and make it easy to read in her post published on the SENSE blog earlier this month. Now you know how to write a blog post, you may be wondering what you can write about. Believe it or not, inspiration is everywhere. In this post, I explain how to find enough blog ideas to keep you writing for months.
Problem solving
Good blog articles solve a problem. Think about your target audience – as a language professional your target audience is most likely to be your clients or your peers. What problems do they have? Do you have a solution? If you do, then your reader has a good reason to read your blog.
I write my blog for my clients, who are non-native English-speaking scientists. Many of my ideas come from problems with my clients’ writing. These issues are common among ESL authors – poor paragraph structure, no clear metastructure, redundant information disrupting the flow... and so on. These challenges and their solutions have all made useful blog articles for my clients.
Answer your clients’ questions in a blog post. For example, a client of mine was not sure whether her manuscript needed copyediting or substantive editing. This inspired me to write a post that explained how authors with no real knowledge of editing can determine the appropriate language service for their manuscript.
If you are writing for your fellow language professionals (editors, translators, interpreters, teachers), think about want they want to know. Chances are you know of a problem or two they may be having that you can solve. Maybe you have a few tips on how to handle difficult clients, or how to survive the highs and lows of freelancing? Perhaps you are a computer whizz and can explain how to get the most out of editing software. Share your knowledge and experience.
What’s new?
There is always something to write about. There are new ideas and new developments in every field – you just have to find out what they are. Read relevant publications and follow your colleagues and clients on social media to find out what topics are interesting to them at the moment. Or interview someone who is authoritative in your field about a pressing issue. Don’t get hung up on writing about something that others have already written about – if you have a different take on the subject, put it out there.
Did you try a new product or service recently? Think about writing a review. Maybe you finished an online training course. Tell your readers what you learnt. Don’t vent dissatisfaction in your post – aim for a balanced, honest review that informs the reader and draws clear conclusions.
Conversation can give you great ideas for a blog post. Think about the last time you got into a debate with a colleague or client. Would others find your discussion interesting or useful? Then why not present a balanced argument and share your opinions in a blog post? I got into a discussion with a young researcher some weeks ago about using simple words instead of obscure ones when writing a research manuscript. He was adamant that longer, complicated words and sentence structures are better because they sound clever and are ‘more academic’ (sigh). I argued on behalf of his poor reader. This discussion inspired a blog post on writing for your reader.
Conferences are always a great source of blog material. What interesting things did you learn at the last conference you attended? Why not share your experiences in a blog post? The challenges facing academic editors was a popular topic at the SENSE 2018 conference in June and made me think of my clients and how insights from language editors can help them get their work published. Great blog material.
Get blogging!
Hopefully the tips outlined in this article have given you plenty of ideas for interesting blog articles. If you don’t want to start writing your own blog – maybe because you don’t want the pressure of publishing articles on a regular basis – then why not write for the SENSE blog? We are always looking for new contributors. Our articles are shared widely on social media so writing for us is a great way to increase exposure for your business.
Get in touch with the SENSE Content Manager if you would like to post your next article on the SENSE blog. We look forward to hearing from you. And please share any additional tips you may have on finding ideas for blog posts in the comments below!
Claire Bacon is an editor and writer for the SENSE blog and a research scientist turned editor who runs a business called Bacon Editing.