6 FREE Resources for Generating Content & Blog Ideas

A few months ago my post “Help…I Need More Content!” suggested browsing lists of awareness events to stir up some content ideas. Here are some other resources that I absolutely love, especially because they are FREE! They never fail to inspire me in one way or another.

FREE Blog & Story Idea Resources

• Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley
  • This book is always at hand in my office. If I’m really stuck, I flip through random pages until one of her incredibly well written rules sparks an idea.
  • One of my biggest AHA! moments in my career as a marketer was simply the title of Chapter 2, “Writing Is a Habit, Not an Art“
  • She also publishes a really fun newsletter called “Total Annarchy” every two weeks.
  • Yes, it’s not technically free but you can borrow it from a friend or the library!
• The Periodic Table of Storytelling by James Harris
  • I recently attended a webinar about using Hollywood techniques for marketing and discovered this absolutely fabulous piece of art that is so much more!
  • It is truly the ultimate list of film and TV tropes, plot devices, heroes, villains, et al.
  • Bonus…each square is clickable!!!
• Content and Blog Idea Generators: There are several idea generator tools online. You input a couple of words and they spit something back out. Some of the things that they come up with are just plain silly, and therefore hilarious. If nothing else, they might provide some stress relief in the form of laughter. Here are the links for some popular tools and examples of what they give back when I enter the words brand, style, and guide.
  • Portent’s Content Idea Generator suggests titles of blogs you could write. Click the ‘See Another Title’ button to see more. I love # 2 below!
    • Examples: 1-Why Brand Style Guides Are More Painful Than Stepping on a Lego | 2-How Brand Style Guides are the New Hotness
  •  HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator will take up to 5 nouns and provide 5 suggestions, a week’s worth of content. You can unlock 250 more suggestions if you don’t mind giving them your email and contact info. Note that their algorithm may or may not produce grammatically correct titles…see # 3 title below.
    • Examples: 1–Brand: Expectations vs. Reality | 2–Will Style Ever Rule the World? | 3–The Next Big Thing in Guide | 4–Brand Explained in Less Than 140 Characters | 5–This Week’s Top Stories About Style
  • Content Row’s Headline Generator takes your keywords and suggests several titles. The twist with this tool is that you can choose a headline style. Your options are: clickbait, evergreen, seasonal, and topical. As with the HubSpot tool, their algorithm may or may not produce grammatically correct titles. (They also have an Headline Analyzer and a Trending Topics page.)
    • Clickbait: 15 Ways Marketers Are Making You Addicted to Brand Style Guide
    • Evergreen: How to Have a Healthier Relationship With Brand Style Guide
    • Seasonal: 12 Holiday Gifts for People Who Love Brand Style Guide
    • Topical: 14 Global Trends That Will Affect Brand Style Guide in 2022
  • SEOPressor’s Blog Title Generator asks you for a keyword like the others but there is also a drop-down menu that gives the tool some context for the keyword. Some of the options are an event, a product/brand, an industry, and more.
    • Keyword is a Product/Brand: 7 Reasons You Should Fall In Love With Brand Style Guide.
    • Keyword is an Event: The Ten Secrets About Brand Style Guide Only A Handful Of People Know.

Another place to look for inspiration are forums on Reddit and other platforms related to your area of expertise. Answer the Public is another cool place to check out and some of their tools are accessible with a Free account.

There are other subscription tools ($) that are more advanced that can help you with content ideas as well as research which topics are hot and trending. For pure ideation, these resources do the trick for me!

Do you have a favourite free blog idea resource that I didn’t include here? Please put the link in the Comments below!

Unlike wild bears, feeding the content creator is encouraged! 🙂

© 2021-2022 Tracey Copeland, Rolling Sands Consulting.