Next Level Blogger » Motivation

A Trick to Getting Started Blogging – Listen More Than You Talk

Christian Russell — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:01:36 +0000

Yeah, it's time to starting your business blog already! If you're on the fence, this article has a couple tips for you

A lot of you are on the fence, no? Perhaps some or all of these have transpired:

You’ve heard me and others talk about the high value of blogging
You want to get in better touch with your customers
You want to reach out to more customers and broaden your base
You are seeing a significant increase in costs associated with traditional marketing and want to find more cost effective ways to engage your audience
You WANT to start a blog…it just looks like fun (it is, you know!)

So what’s the hang up? After talking with many of you for the last several months, I’ve discerned there are three big reasons many of you remain on the fence. You want to start blogging, but these concerns must be addressed first.

It’s kind of techy…you might not be sure how to install your own blog software, etc.
You can’t imagine always having something new to say…coming up with new posts consistently over time seems quite daunting.
Writing to an audience of zero seems like a drag; you want to be confident you can build a good readership

I will be offering a series of video tutorials on dvd showing you how to research, install and operate a business blog. For those of you concerned with any of these three concerns, this video coaching series will answer these concerns in detail.

I’m doing this for one simple reason: these are the most common things I go over with clients for my consulting rate via web conferencing, so it makes sense to me to create a product which offers the exact same content but costs only a fraction of what one-on-one consulting costs. Does that make sense? So any of you on the fence but who cannot pay for consulting, this will give you everything you need for a very affordable price.

That said, I want to sell you on the power of listening. Listening is the key to building a successful blog marketing campaign. It may sound intuitive to pay attention to your audience, but when you look around, not nearly enough (in my opinion) of it is actually going down.

We worry about SEO, what to write about, what to tweet about, how to make our sites look cool…this is all talking. Granted, you need to open your mouth on occasion if you want anyone to know you’re there, but it’s essential to understand that unless your product or service is grandly original…one of a kind, never-existed-before-on-the-face-of-the-planet-original, there is already a vast amount of conversation already going on around what you’re doing. Tap into it, and funnel a portion of it back to your site. How? By listening.

Why Listening is Key

Struggling to come up with content for your blog? Strugging to get enough traffic? Shut up and listen for a bit! There is HUGE traffic and conversation going all already. All you have to do is tap into it.

There is a simple reason why listening will do you more good than talking. Here it is…if all you do is talk, then all you’ll be capable of saying is drivel. That will do you no good at all. You can only create valuable content in direct proportion to how much you listen. And listening must come first of course. You know those bloggers who post every single day, and the content they put out is actually good stuff? They are dramatically tuned into their audience. They follow a lot of people on Twitter and actually pay attention to what people are saying. They incessantly read good content online, and respond to it. They listen intently. They listen first, then they respond.

Blogging is a conversation. When you go to a party or a conference, do you stress out about what you’re going to say? No. You go and meet people; hang out and have fun getting to know new people. This is how it’s done in person. This is ALSO how it’s done online.

Listening Takes Care of Everything

Have a problem with getting traffic to your blog? Then you’re spending too much time on YOUR blog and not enough time on OTHER people’s blogs. When you’re on your own blog, you can’t listen (unless you already have a strong traffic stream and lots of comments). Spend time reading what’s going on in other places instead. Read other blogs, and when you have something to say…leave a comment. Pay attention, because a lot of your comments will spark quick and easy inspiration for a blog post. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. I leave a comment on a post somewhere, and I find I actually have more to say about it…thus a blog post is born. You don’t have to grind it out…it happens automatically. It happens naturally.

And there is even more value than that…because the post is in direct response to an ongoing conversation. You see? There is already confirmed interest in the topic; this makes your post relevant. Instead of having to constantly tap into your own genius, you spend time listening. Tap into the genius of others.

And when you spend time on other blogs, forums, etc…occasionally leaving comments and interacting with other people, guess what’s happening? You’re networking. You’re engaging people on their home turf, in a place where they’re comfortable and at ease. And when they find they like you…when they find you’re genuine and actually have good stuff to say, what do you think will happen? They will visit your site. They will naturally want to know more about you.

See, it’s not about finding the magic keyword. It’s not about creating the ultimate blog design. It’s not about how often you post or how long (or short) your posts are. It’s not about posting links to your articles on Twitter. It’s about simply finding your audience where they already are…and listening to them. When you spend time doing that first, your content takes care of itself. Your traffic takes care of itself.

So am I full of it? Or am I onto something? Instead of worrying about how to use Twitter and pondering what magical tweets you can send out to get that golden traffic stream, maybe you can seek out and follow people you want to reach out and pay attention to what they’re talking about. By paying attention and actually caring about about your audience, everything else in a very real way, takes care of itself.

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3 Ninja Secrets for Those Struggling to Take Their Blog to the Next Level

Christian Russell — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 04:35:11 +0000

I’m writing today directly to a segment of my readers who are frustrated and/or worried about how their blog is doing. A lot of you are struggling to get the result you’re looking for with your blog. I hear you. First of all, I want to be very clear. If you’re one of the readers here who has expressed frustration to me in the last few months since I’ve been doing this blog, I want you to know a very important (#1) ninja secret…your blog is doing a lot more than you think it is…seriously.

Your Blog is Not a Short Term Engagement

It's true...this is your year, and the benefits to starting your blog are significant! But don't think of your blog in the same way as your other marketing. A blog is a long term endeavor. If you go into it expecting immediate results, you're not in it for the right reasons.

A blog is not a short term endeavor. It’s not like placing an ad and then watching for the results immediately. Please don’t put that pressure on yourself. It’s just not realistic. A blog is a long term project that you will ideally maintain for a long time. The principle is quite simple actually…it takes a while to build a significant audience in most cases. Are there exceptions? Of course, and you could end up being one of them. But in most cases, it just takes a while to build a large readership, especially if you’re just doing it part-time and not spending a significant budget on marketing.

Building the result is a long term project that gradually builds up momentum. Before you know it, your blog will have momentum and it will eventually become a force to be reckoned with, but don’t expect that to happen in month one. If you approach blogging as a magic bullet, you’ll be disappointed. But if you approach it for what it is…a long term marketing and community-building endeavor, you’ll see the true value of what you’re doing in the short term.

For all you bloggers out there that have only 50 subscribers…guess what, 5 of those subscribers will likely end up buying something from you and tell their friends about you. Those first 5 advocates are where it all starts. If you write them off as insignificant, you’ll miss all the benefits to come. Yes, it starts small, but your first subscribers aren’t “insignificant” or “small”…they’re the most important subscribers you’ll EVER have.

Bottom line: your blog isn’t nearly as small as you think it is, and you’re doing a lot more right than you think you are!

Everyone Struggles…Struggling Rocks!

Here’s another (#2) ninja secret: I struggle also. No matter how awesome and strikingly fantastic you think I am (joking), I have a million things to learn about sales and marketing, and yes…blogging. 10 years in, and I’m just getting started. I’m a total noobe.

Here’s another (#3) ninja secret: Even A-listers struggle. Yes, even the guys and gals who you think have all the answers and have all their ducks in a row (seriously, who says that? I’m bringin it back!) look at their analytics sometimes and say “what the hell is THAT?” Everyone struggles to get the result. Everyone gets thrown for a loop sometimes. The problem is not the struggle…the struggle is the GOOD stuff. The problem is in thinking you’re the only one. The problem is in thinking you’re struggling alone and somehow not smart enough, lucky enough or talented enough to succeed. Please believe me for god’s sake, if I can make money and build a business around a blog, you can too.

Here’s a fourth and final secret for today: That’s how you get the result…struggling. Believe it or not, that’s the key. Struggling and doing the work, that’s your ticket out of this crummy joint and to the good life you hope to achieve after building your thriving blog community. It will be a beautiful thing, and it will be worth the work you put into it and then some. You will be glad you did it. You will look back and say “Wow, I’m really glad I stuck it out.”

But how do you know you’re on the WRONG path?

When you feel like you have all the answers.
When you call yourself a guru.
When you have an “automated solution” or a “maintenance-free” blog. Haha. Yeah, right. Sucker.
When you are NOT struggling.

The Key to Getting Results…

The key to success in blogging is a lot simpler than most gurus would have you believe

Is there such a thing as a beautiful place in business? Can you make it to easy street? Believe me, you can. But you cannot get there by worrying or doubting yourself, and here’s what you cannot achieve: You cannot get to a place where you’re finished. You’ll never be complete. You’ll never be perfect, so therefore there will always be work to do. There will always be something to focus on and improve, and that is a struggle. It requires digging in. It requires work. So dig in…struggle, and do it with confidence.

So when you’re struggling, how do you know what to do? You are already doing it. You read, and you ask around. You execute, make mistakes, learn from your mistakes are make corrections…and then go execute again. Here’s the problem: a lot of you are trying to “figure it out”, and it doesn’t work that way. A lot of you are looking for a blog post or a consultant or a book to instill some bit of knowledge in you that is going to make everything make sense. Ain’t gonna happen. Research is essential, but at the end of the day you have to DIVE IN. You solve one problem at a time. Then you move on to the next problem, and solve that. Then you move on to the next problem. That’s success…as mundane as it sounds, that’s how you do it.

It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You’re thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. -Thomas Watson Sr.

Many of you feel bad because you’re at the beginning and not sure how to get big results from your blog. I just wanted to encourage you today, because you see…you’re doing it. You’re already doing it. You read this blog and others. You ask questions, and you apply that information to your business one piece at a time. That’s how it’s done. Is building a successful blog really this simple? Yes, it is. Keep going!

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Please Join Me for My Execution

Christian Russell — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:00:25 +0000

This year (2010) is a unique one for me, because I’m switching gears. This isn’t necessarily a situation where I’m offering some kind of advice and saying you should do this too, but it’s where I’m at, and I wanted to share it with you.

I plan on kickin some ass this year. Here's what I'm doing to gain focus. Will you join me?

I’m using 2010 as a detox period. Low information diet (as Tim Ferriss calls it), focus and implementation. In other words, I’m executing this year. Here’s what I’m changing:

I’m reading very little. I have about a dozen books, and I have most of them on audio.
I’ve cut out about half of my RSS reader.
I’ve canceled all magazine subscriptions.
I’ve written a short plan for the year. Instead of my usual 40-50 page plan, my plan for
2010 is 2 pages long. Some travel, a couple vacations, a couple conferences, a couple product launches. That’s it.
I’ve deleted most of my email subscriptions.
I plan to focus less on consulting and more on product creation. It’s simply more leveraged and offers a tremendous value to my clients.

This is the deal. 2010 is about doing less. And I expect it will, at the same time, see a significant amount of growth for my business. I expect to increase sales, because I won’t be doing anything but dollar-productive activities when it comes to business. I want to spend my time writing, networking and creating new solutions for my clients that offer better value than ever.

I don’t want to underestimate the value of reading, education and hard work. I also don’t want to give the impression I’m planning on kicking back this year. This isn’t the case. There’s much work to be done. I’m just cutting out all the B.S. and focusing on getting results. For one year, I want to do nothing but kick ass.

What do you think? 2010 is a year of execution for me. Will you join me?

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How to Find Your Passion

Christian Russell — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:00:45 +0000

We talk a lot about passion in this business. What is your passion? It’s not any specific thing. There’s not just one thing you can be passionate about. It’s not about fate or birthrights or the alignment of the stars. What is your passion? I’ll tell you right now what your passion is. It’s whatever you want it to be.

Subject matter doesn’t matter. At the core of every industry, no matter how exciting or innocuous and boring that industry might be, are people making things and people buying things. What is the core of any business? People. That’s it.

You don’t need to be passionate about the product. You have to be passionate about the people who are passionate about the product.

At the core or every human need and want, no matter how mundane the subject matter, is a human being. Believe it or not, people buy sexy products like Stratocasters (best rock n roll guitar EVAR, don’t argue with me on this!) and vacations to the Bahamas for the SAME REASONS they buy life insurance or a higher grade fertilizer for their crops. People buy out of love, fear, greed, envy…the classic human triggers.

It doesn’t matter what your industry is, if you’re a passionate person, any industry can be your passion. If you’re not, you’ll never find your passion, because passion doesn’t come from out there, it comes from you.

Pick a business, any business, and make it yours.

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Are You Running Your Business into the Ground?

Christian Russell — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:08:23 +0000

If you’re not able to view this video in a feed, click here. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Blogging is Not for Quitters

Christian Russell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:18:41 +0000

These are my blogging tips for the day…quitting too soon is one of the most common tragedies in business today. Whatever stage you’re at, there are frustrations. Here’s a secret: when you get to the next level, there will be MORE frustrations, not fewer frustrations. Your frustrations will be bigger, not smaller. Success has a cost. When you’re small, revel in it. Enjoy where you’re at. You have more than you think! Keep at it, and don’t discredit yourself for not yet being where you think you’re “supposed” to be. Where you’re at, right now, rocks. Don’t quit! Keep at it…live your mission.

If you’re having trouble viewing the video in a feed reader, click here.

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Hustle, Make Mistakes, Abandon Perfectionism and Don’t Buy Get Rich Quick Crap

Christian Russell — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:51:13 +0000

Here’s a rant. First video ever. If you’re reading this in a feed that doesn’t support video, click here to view…

What do you think? Have you spent any time looking for the “right” business, or the “best” technique to grow your business, instead of just putting yourself out there? Are you afraid of making mistakes? Think I’m wrong about this? Let me know how you feel!

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Awesomeness is Not Required to Meet Your Potential

Christian Russell — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:00:18 +0000

Quick thought for the day: You don’t have to be the best in order to succeed…don’t let misgivings get to you. Look at all the big companies out there selling crappy junk products to the masses. This is proof you don’t have to be awesome to succeed in business.

I’m not saying to sell crap! I’m just saying success in business does not require you to be perfect. Oddly enough, when we’re just getting started in business, we often feel that we need to be perfect in some aspect in order to compete and truly make our mark, but as you become more successful you start to complain about how so many people expect perfection from you when it’s clearly not possible. That’s when you’ve come into your own.

Big companies win in their way. You’re not in that game (most likely anyway, if you’re reading this post), so don’t play by that set of rules. Small companies win via a completely different paradigm. You have to care, you have to love what you do, you have to be good (and getting better regularly), and you have to work hard every day. But don’t let the fact that you may or may not be the best in the world at something stop you from rocking it.

Besides, the best way to truly become the best is by putting yourself out there in a big way, every day. Get out there and work very hard, and you just MIGHT become the best. Sit back and doubt yourself if you want. But that’s a 100% GUARANTEE that you won’t meet your potential. Your choice

You dealing with any self-doubt lately? Any tips on how to “snap out of it”? Let me know what you think!

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How to Obtain World Domination in 5 Simple Steps

Christian Russell — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:00:04 +0000

If world domination is your goal, as it is mine, you need to be on track. You need to be a machine. You need to be a champion. Being a champion is a struggle for everyone, even champions! There is no easy victory when you’re at the top of the mount.

It’s a long way to the top, if you want to rock n roll. –Bon Scott

But is it worth it? Is success worth the effort and sacrifice? Most people decide that it is not.

If you decide not to decide, you still have made a choice. –Geddy Lee

I get points for gratuitous rock references, right?

A Word on What Success is, and What it is Not

Success is not a state, nor is it an achievement. It is not an acquisition. And it certainly is not a Ferrari or a Cribs house. It is a decision. This is what makes success deceptively simple, yet elusive. It is a decision made daily, hourly, by the minute. By the second. The perception of success, importantly, is relative.

The people we perceive to be successful are simply those people who have made the decision to succeed more often than most. We ALL have the power; some of us just choose to exercise that power more often.

A Word on Failure

Successful people fail as much or more often than anyone else. But they choose to blow right through their failures and not slow down. They succeed because they decide to do so, despite what happens. Decisions have the ability to do that. They give us focus. The decisions we make come about in an instant. And we have thousands of opportunities daily…to be a success.

Success and How it Relates to Achieving World Domination

When you make the decision to be successful…the world and any obstacle it can throw at you becomes nothing but a din…mere background noise. At that moment, everything in the world serves only to either advance your mission or your education. Every single thing that happens to you, fuels you onward. You no longer have to worry about success, because it is yours…the world works for you. In that moment, the world is officially your bitch.

That, my friends, is world domination!

A word of caution: do not mistake half-hearted wishes as decisions. If you say something like “Yeah, that would be pretty cool if I could make my blog successful” this is NOT a decision to succeed. It is merely a wish. A wish is not a decision. It is not even related. A wish is not even a distant cousin of the decision. A decision is when you say “I’m going to do this, period” End of sentence. That’s it. Notice how committed it is. There are no conditions. There are no ifs ands or buts. Say it with me now…“I’m going to do this, period.” There is power in there you cannot measure. The good news is that you don’t HAVE to measure it…all you need to do is ride the wave!

Failure is Not the Opposite of Success

Do you fear failure? You needn’t. Failure is merely a result. It is a static event. It is an outcome. Successful people are not concerned with any result or event or outcome that is not in alignment with their goals. That focus comes about as the result of a decision that is made over and over again. Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Success is decision. Remember when you said “I’m going to do this, period”? You can’t just say it once…you have to KEEP saying it. And you have to mean it. You have to stay on task. Failure and success are simply not related to each other.

How to Obtain World Domination in 5 Simple Steps

5 questions, when asked of yourself consistently throughout each day, can transform your business and enable you to grow to any level!

Take your business, your blog, your sales, your income to the next level by asking yourself these 5 simple questions. Introspection, brutal honesty and follow through are required! Obviously, you cannot just ask the questions. You need to answer them and work aggressively to improve.

Running through these questions will keep you on task. Remember, success is a decision you make moment by moment. And you do not just want one moment of success! You want an uninterrupted succession of them! You want to stay on the wave. Most people have ridden the wave for a moment or two before, but they allowed themselves to get distracted, and they wiped out. They let their power get away from them. This doesn’t mean they weren’t successful. They were. They simply got off the wave…and failed to get back on.

In the moment you decide to succeed, success is yours…wholly and completely. But if in 5 minutes you steer in a different direction, you get off course. Use these questions to stay on course.

What am I doing right now?
If I do what I am doing right now repeatedly, daily, with intensity, for 5 years, what will be the net result?
Is the net result in alignment with my goals?
What can I do instead that will create a better or larger net result?
Who can do this better than me?

The Fantastically Simple Principles of Achieving World Domination

There are fantastically simple principles hidden here. The first is that in order to start accomplishing things on a larger scale, you need to make larger decisions. Base fewer of your decisions on immediate concerns and more of your decisions on long term results.

Instead of asking yourself “How can I get through this day?” or “How can I get this problem off my plate right now?” (these are decisions that get you off course), put things in a long term framework. “How is this consequential to my long term plan?” You’ll be amazed at how much time we spend on things that literally have little or no long term consequence at all!

If we spend our lives tending to details that don’t ultimately matter, what do you think the net result will be? World domination? I don’t think so!

The second principle is simple. Letting go of the details empowers you to take things to the next level. #5 speaks to this directly. As business owners, we often try to do everything because we think no one can do it as well as us. The fact is that there are likely a LOT of people who can do things as well as you, and there are likely a few people who can do things BETTER than you. An ego check is essential now and then. Letting go of the need to do everything is mandatory if you hope to be able to focus on anything of consequence.

When you tend to every single detail yourself, there is no time to step back and focus. Staying on task, staying focused is impossible, and that is when success takes a back seat to the minutia of the day. That’s when you lose your power.

Step back, focus, let go, and take over the world!

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How to Never Run Out of Blog Post Ideas

Christian Russell — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:00:15 +0000

To make a blog successful, it’s important to write regularly. I’m not one of the people who will tell you that you have to write every day in order to make your blog successful. I write everyday, but I don’t post to Next Level Blogger every day. Tim Ferriss is a big advocate of not working too much, and he posts only once a week or so. Many bloggers don’t post every day, but it’s important to post regularly. At least once or twice a week is really a good standard to keep.

One of the recent commentators on my guest post over at Remarkablogger expressed some concern about running out of ideas to write about. This is a common concern. Everyone runs into a struggle now and then regarding how to keep the content coming.

I suppose there are those of us out there who are comfortable running on inspiration only. I’m not like that. I use systems. Especially when it comes to business, I want something in place to ensure I’m getting results.

There is a very simple system I use to ensure that I always have content to publish, and I hope you can use it, adapt it to your personal situation and benefit from it.

A Couple Important Points

Before I describe the content system I use, I want to preface this with a couple important points. You really have to be running a blog about a subject you love. You need to have a strong intrinsic interest in what you’re doing. You can apply this very simply content system to any subject, but if you don’t love what you’re doing, it’s still going to be plain drudgery, and that is going to show up in your writing. You can’t sell something you’re not sold on yourself.

With as simple and quick as it can be to get a new business fired up online these days, you really shouldn’t ever think of yourself as locked into something. If you hate what you’re doing, just do something else, or take your current project in a new direction. Seriously.

Second, it’s essential to have faith in yourself. As silly as that may sound, it really is important. Experts in any field routinely underestimate what they know. They think everyone knows what they know.

Why would anyone be interested in reading something that you consider to be very remedial? Because they’re not the expert! YOU are the expert. The reason you consider some things to be very simple and boring is because this is what you do; this is what you work on every day, so of course YOU think it’s simple! Your readers want more of that expertise. Share it with them.

You know more than you think you do. You have a lot more to share than you think. When you have faith in yourself, and you’re confident in your expertise, the more you share, the more you’ll want to share. 5 years from now, you’ll have published hundreds of posts, and you will still have only just begun.

The idea that there really is only so much to say about a subject is just plain wrong.

There is No Limit to How Much Content You Can Produce

Think about nearly any subject that exists, and there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of people writing about it for generations. And if it’s a brand new subject, then the ball is just getting started.
For example there have been innumerable reports written about the digestive processes in fruit flies, and right now as we speak…there is surely a scientist busy writing the next one… and he absolutely cannot wait to release it, because it’s going to ROCK! Point: you can go as deep as you want into any subject, there is no limit to how much content that can be produced!

The more you dive into a subject, the more you learn. And the more you learn, the more there is to learn. Not enough to write about? Seriously, you’re just not looking hard enough. I don’t mean this to criticize you if you’re having trouble writing right now; I mean it to empower you. Trust me, you have plenty to share. The challenge is not that there isn’t enough to write about. The challenge is that there just simply is not enough time to share everything you have to share. Once you learn to tap into your expertise and have faith in yourself, you will be unstoppable.

My Blog Content System

Here’s what I do to ensure I always have a large amount of content and ideas to write about.

Step one:

In the morning, when I’m most creative and uninhibited, I sit down and brainstorm article ideas. I do this by just writing titles. I don’t expand on them at all; I just write titles. Not all of them are great of course, but my goal is to simply take a few minutes and write 20-30 titles or so. In a short amount of time, this has produced a very sizeable list of article ideas.

This may sound intimidating up front, but it’s really a lot easier than you might think. Coming up with titles is fun, creative and simple, because you don’t have to concern yourself with research, what exactly you’re going to say or anything. Just write titles that you’d like to read yourself. Don’t worry about whether it’s good or not. Just crank em out.

After you have this list, it’s easy to revisit it, and after just a few seconds of scanning, you will get more ideas for new posts. Write them down. Again, don’t write anything but titles.

Step two:

When it’s time to get a post together, simply visit your list. There’s something magical about a good title. When you have a title, the post often writes itself. Getting inspired is often the trouble, and this way you have a tool to stimulate that inspiration any time you need it.

That’s why it’s been so beneficial to me to separate the thought process from the writing process.

When I sit down with your list of hundreds of article ideas, all I have to do is scan that sucker and look for something that excites me. Many, many ideas may not be doing anything for me at the moment, but then I’ll see a title that grabs me, and bam…20 minutes later I have an article to post.

Results

Admittedly this is a very simple system, but if you’ve had trouble coming up with content, I encourage you to try it out. There really is no magic out there, but simple systems in my experience are the ones you can understand and implement immediately, and that’s why they work. Just doing something with a little structure can free up your mind to produce good content whenever you need.

It’s very intimidating to look at a blank page with the need to produce an article. But when you have pages of ideas to look through, it’s easy to simply scan it and look for something that’s interesting. It’s a great way to get the ball rolling and the writing process started.

After doing content this way for a few weeks, I found that I have more ideas than I can reasonably produce for Next Level Blogger. So what’s happened is that the ideas have spilled out into other products. I created Professional Blogging Roadmap that way. A free ebook you can download here. It’s essentially a collection of about 30-40 different article ideas that I put together and organized into an ebook. I have another ebook coming up that was produced this way as well, and a paid information product I hope to release near the end of the year or early in 2010. And Next Level Blogger has only been up for a couple months or so. The way I see it, if it’s produced this type of results for me, it’s worth sharing, and I bet it can help you as well

Other Sources for Ideas

• You’re subscribed to all the top blogs in your space, correct? If not, you definitely should be. Writers read. And bloggers…read blogs. If you’ve not yet developed a strong voice and an ability to crank out quality content at will, make sure you’re reading other writers in your niche. Being regularly exposed to quality ideas is a great way to develop your senses for great article ideas. Just scanning your rss reader can be a great way to get inspired as well.
• Ask your readers! I did this recently with my email subscribers…I really like to converse with my subscribers as much as possible. I simply said “Hey I’m writing an ebook…” And I described the topic I’m covering, and I asked, “…anything you want to see covered?” I got a ton of great ideas in response. I really appreciate that feedback! A lot of that feedback is going to end up being in the new ebook, and a lot of it will turn into future posts on Next Level Blogger. Don’t overlook your subscribers; believe me, they’ll tell you what they think if you just ask!

Not only is the prospect of continuously producing new content an occasion hurdle for bloggers, but it’s also something that intimidates would-be bloggers. It can keep some people from getting started blogging, when in fact, setting up a new blog just might be the most powerful and smart thing they can do to promote their business. Hopefully this post can show how simple it can be to crank out an unbelievable amount of quality content for your readers. There really are no limits beyond your personal energy.