GNT #018: Mental block? 5 tools to kickstart ideas

Read time: 3.5 minutes

I was chatting with a client recently, and we were going through a list of 12 article ideas I had created for them.

They asked me, "how do you possibly came up with all those ideas?"

(Especially in an industry I wasn't that familiar with.)

I told them that most of my ideas come from an inquiry, or curiosity.

"What would I want to know about this topic?"

AND, I use a couple tools that kickstart that process.

If you're facing a mental block right now, know that you don't have to find the solution in a vacuum.

Use one of these 5 free and easy tools to break through your mental block and kickstart your idea.

#1: HubSpot's Blog Ideas Generator (free, upgrades available)

HubSpot's Blog Ideas Generator helps me come up with engaging blog titles and LinkedIn hooks.

But I also find it helpful when I'm feeling "blah" about a topic and need some passion around the idea.

1. Visit HubSpot's Blog Ideas Generator page. You'll see a simple form where you can enter up to five nouns that relate to your topic.
2.  Enter your nouns. Think about the keywords that are relevant to your industry, product, or service. Enter up to five of these nouns in the form on the page. For example, if you run a fitness blog, you might enter "workouts," "nutrition," and "wellness."
3. Click "Give me blog ideas." The tool will then generate a list of blog post titles based on your keywords. You can click the "Try Again" button to generate additional titles.
4. Evaluate the results. Do any stand out? How can you tailor the titles to your own voice and audience. You can also use the titles as inspiration to brainstorm other topics and re-enter new nouns.

#2: Feedly (free and upgraded options)

I use Feedly to come up with inspiration on trending topics.

Unlike HubSpot's Blog Ideas Generator you DO need to create an account.

When you set up your account you can follow websites, blogs, and topics you're interested in.

All of the feeds can be sorted into categories.

I’ll typically add 30 or so feeds per category (many of them have a slow publishing schedule).

My goal is to get a good read of what's happening in an industry or niche so I can pick up on trends quickly without a monumental effort.

Look for blogs that update often and get lots of shares to social media.

If you're facing a block related to an industry or niche, review that category and see where it takes you.

Use the “Read Later” or “Save to Board” options so you can keep those ideas for later.

Anything that's not a good fit or more promotional focused use the “Mark as Read and Hide” option, which removes them from the feed.

#3: Ubersuggest (free with upgrade options)

A different approach on this one, but still a great source of inspiration or even leverage your competitors to save yourself some work.

Enter a keyword into Ubersuggest or put in the domain name of one of your competitors.

Once the report comes up, click on Keywords under Traffic Analyzer.

Take a look at the top keywords that your competitors rank for.

These could be some words to start using as you speak to your customer pain points, creating content for your website, or to rank higher for those search terms.

#4: Quora (free with upgrade options)

Another great source of inspiration is Quora.

I'll use Quora to search topics in any niche and specifically look at the questions that people are asking in that topic.

Ex: For example, if you’re a wellness coach, you may want to look up “wellness coaching” or "wellness" as a category.

One you search for a topic, look at the top questions people are posting and which questions have a lot of engagement and answers.

#5: Chat GPT (free with upgrade options)

By now I'm sure you've played around with ChatGPT enough to see it's value as a structure-builder, first concept-builder vs. a tool that's going to solve all our problems. ;)

If you're facing a mental block, use one of the following prompts to kick start your idea flow.

"Can you suggest some blog posts related to [your topic]?"

"What are some unique angles or perspectives I can take on [your topic]?"

"Can you suggest some interesting statistics or research related to [your topic]?"

"What are some common myths or misconceptions related to [your topic]?"

"Can you suggest some trending topics related to [your topic]?"

Takeaways

Try using one of these easy, free tools to break through that mental block.

1. HubSpot's Blog Ideas Generator

2. Feedly

3. Ubersuggest

4. Quora

5. Chat GPT

You might be surprised where it takes you!

I hope this was helpful.

See you again next week.



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