25 Great Sources of Blog Ideas & Inspiration

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?  You know that feeling where you just can’t seem to come up with any good ideas to write about at your blog.

Today I’m providing you with 25 fantastic sources to help inspire you and provide you with the ideas you need to drive your blog upward and onward.

My goal today is to teach you how to draw inspiration from every area of your life.  Whether you are at home, at the mall, at work or anywhere else you should be able to continually be developing new ideas and new notes for future blog posts.

1. Fellow Bloggers: If you’re actively reading other blogs then be sure to jot down topics that you see being discussed throughout the internet.  If they are interesting to you then they might just be interesting to your readers.
2. An Idea Map: Idea maps, or mind maps, are a terrific way to graph out ideas for your blog.  For more information about them check out this article I posted about it: Accelerate Your Blog With Idea Mapping.
3. Good Books: Leaders are readers.  If you want to keep growing your skills then you need to keep reading good books.  As you do that, be sure to take notes of any ideas or quotes that you might be able to use.
4. Your Competition: This is a great one.  Check out what others in your niche are blogging about and determine to write up articles about the same topics that are even better than their posts.
5. Daily Conversations: Do you ever chat with people about the topics that you blog about?  If you do then take notes of the questions and answers that arise.  These make perfect topics for articles.
6. News Headlines: News headlines are designed to grab people’s attention and they can provide us with terrific inspiration for writing headlines for our own articles.
7. Comics: I’ve written two or three articles at Site Sketch 101 based on things I’ve read on the Dilbert comic strip.  These are terrific because they help you to infuse humor into your writing.
8. Problems You’ve Faced: If you face a problem at your blog, research a solution and then share the answer that you found with your readers so that they won’t have to struggle with the same issues.
9. Reader’s Feedback: Who knows what your readers are interested in more than your readers?  When they leave feedback in the comments section, be sure to hone in on it and provide them with more articles answering their questions and comments.
10. Television Commercials: Commercials are great because they teach us how to grab people’s attentions and get our messages across.  Pay attention to your favorite commercials and emulate them on your blog.
11. Movies: Have you read my article “4 Blogging Tips from The Dark Knight” It’s a perfect example of drawing inspiration from a movie.  Check it out and then do it yourself.
12. The Classroom: If you are in school, you take notes all through class and then after the exam you never use them again.  How about using some of the concepts from class to help with your blog?
13. The Mall: The mall is a terrific place to check out the popular trends that are taking place.  Take a walk through the mall and check out what’s attracting people.
14. Emails: Anytime you correspond with someone you should consider if you can use any of it in a post.
15. Your Work: Conversations at work, problem solving, tasks you deal with…all of these can be terrific ideas for posts.  I’m a U.S. Soldier and I use my experiences in the army to shape my blog in many ways.
16. Children & Family: My family is a great source of inspiration to me.  The games that we play and the conversations that we have provide great insight into what interests the people around us.
17. Holidays: It’s always a good idea to post something related to the holidays.  You can post something related to Christmas, Thanksgiving, Veteran’s Day, etc.
18. Complaints: Do you have a complaint about the way you see something being done?  Or has someone complained to you about something?  Write about it.
19. Pictures: I love the Flickr explore page.  Every time you refresh it, you’re presented with another set of new random images.  Check it out at Flickr’s Last 7 Days Interesting
20. Quotes: If you hear something witty or powerful on TV or in a book, write it down right away and use it at your blog.
21. Church: Check out the church bulletin.  Write down catchy phrases that your pastor mentioned.  Even Scriptures can be used as great quotes to help build your points.
22. Family Events: Go out and do something fun with the family.  Try playing some mini-golf or going roller skating.  Think about what makes you and your family really happy.  Think about what’s really fun about it.
23. Vacation: Remember the last time you went to a theme park or to a camping resort?  What did you see there that really appealed to you?  Learn from it and practice it yourself.
24. Restaurants: Restaurants are a fun place to learn from.  Check out their banners.  Check out the specials and deals.  Check out the customer service.  And then put what you learn to work at your site.
25. Brochures & Pamphlets: These are great because they can provide you with great color schemes, font ideas, catchy phrases and much more.

I hope that after 25 ideas you get the main idea that I’m promoting here.  You can learn from everything around you.  Just as a Zen master might teach you a lessen in enlightenment from a leaf gently drifting toward the ground so we can learn and find inspiration in every aspect of the world around us.