I love finding story ideas. It is honestly one of my favorite parts of being a freelance writer. And I have been able to turn a number of gigs into long term clients because it makes an editor’s job so much easier if the writer comes to the table with ideas. Even if a client doesn’t require you to come up with topics, you can earn major brownie points (and more work) by helping fill up the editorial calendar.

Whenever I make this statement in the company of other writers, someone almost always makes a face and responds that they really struggle to find topics to write about, especially when writing multiple stories on the same topic. And interestingly, this seems to be a bigger issue with content marketing writing. With consumer magazine, writers usually generated their own story ideas, but it was usually on a topic of their choosing as well as on their own schedule. And since the stories were longer and higher paying for the most part, you didn’t have to come up with as many as you do know. With content marketing writing, clients often want writers to generate a higher volume blog and article ideas on topics related to their audience. And since the goal of content marketing is to help solve problems and build trust, it is essential that the topics are interesting, relevant and focused on the correct audience.

Here is a technique that I have used successfully for years to find ideas for content marketing writing gigs:

1. Think about your audience and what information they need to solve their problems. Take a few minutes to get into the mindset of the target demographic for the brand.
2. Go to Google News and search for a keyword related to the topic. For example, if you are writing a wellness blog for a hospital, search for words such as “stay healthy”, “fitness trends”, “wellness trends.” Experiment with different keywords to generate news stories on your topic.
3. Scan the list of topics on the first two pages and look for trends.
4. Read through the articles and think about how these topics impact your audience.
5. Notice any articles that are based on recent surveys or studies. You can often use studies as a basic for an informational article and they often give you insight into current trends or surprising information.
6. Jot down any ideas that come to you while reading that would be of interest to the audience. The idea is not to copy any already written articles or topics, but to use the stories that your read to spark ideas that you can then turn into topics to help your audience. For example, I was reading a story about wellness trends in 2015 and learned about body weight training. The story gave me the idea for a topic for a blog for business owners about how to use body weight training when stuck at the office or on the road.

How do you find ideas for content marketing writing gigs?