Writing a website is more than just writing the HTML, you need to have content that people want to see. And most site owners want to have customers coming back regularly, so they need content that continually changes and adjusts to give their customers more to read and do on the website. So coming up with ideas to write about is important for most websites. And if you’re like most writers, writer’s block is a problem.
Google Instant Can Help Give You Ideas
Google Instant is a new feature of the Google search page that helps you refine your search and help you search faster. But another thing it does is shows you what other people are searching for when they use similar terms. You can use this to help you think of things to write about.
Here are four ways you can use Google Instant to help you brainstorm content ideas. All you need to do is go to www.google.com and make sure Google Instant is turned on (in your search settings).
1. Pick a Letter, Any Letter
While it may be tempting to start with an entire word, Google instant starts adjusting your search results the moment you start typing. So just typing one or two letters can get you started.
I started by typing the letter “d”. Google gave me the results: dictionary, dell, dol.wa.gov, and droid x. Since I write about web design, I moved down to “droid x” and added “web” to the end. In the past, I would have been thinking “droid x web design” and would have just typed that in, but with Google Instant, I saw that “droid x web cam” was more popular. That immediately took me to the idea of writing an article on how to use Droid X to hook up a webcam to your website.
2. Type a Word and Then a Letter
Another way to brainstorm with Google instant is to look at keywords for your site. My site has a keyword “HTML” and I’m not ranking as well as I would like for that keyword. But when I look at the Google Instant results, I see that HTML 5, HTML colors, HTML color codes, and HTML table are all popular choices as well.
But where the ideas started flowing for me was when I added to my search. After “html” I added just one letter (a, b, c, etc.) to see what was suggested. When I typed “html j” one of the suggestions was “html japanese” and I realized that while I have a lot of articles on localizing web pages I don’t have any on how to add Japanese and other double-byte languages to web pages.
3. Use Your Competitors
Type in the name of your competitor’s site into Google Instant. Google Instant will then show you a list of things people are searching for in relation to that competitor. For instance, a competitor of Symantec is McAfee. When I type “mcafee” into Google Instant, it gives me the suggestions “mcafee removal tool”, “mcafee stinger”, “mcafee login”, “mcafee support”. If I’m writing for Symantec, I would want to make sure that I have articles that are about removing Symantec products, logging in and so on.
Note, I’m not suggesting here that you should try to co-opt those search results for your own site. This is just a brainstorming exercise to find things to write about on your own site.
4. Use Your Own Site
Like using your competitors, doing a Google Instant search on your own name can help you find out what people are searching for in relation to yourself. But unlike your competitors, this is a chance for you to also see where your site is falling down. If there is a popular search result related to your business name where your site does not come up first, you should be working on an article or two in that area as well as focusing on SEO of any articles you do have.
Remember that content is king and coming up with new content is important for any site that wants regular visitors. And with the new Google Instant feature on Google searches, you have one more way to find things to write about.
