How To Multiply Your Content Ideas To Last You An Entire Year (Takes Only 15 Minutes)

Here’s a common problem a lot of writers face. You open your writing program, look at the blank page, and have no idea what to do.

You might be stuck and unsure of what your audience needs. Maybe you’re even thinking there’s nothing else you could deliver on your topic. 

We’re here to dispel your cynicism. Even if you’ve already created hundreds of posts, there are plenty more ideas just waiting to be found. 

Use these methods and you should be overloaded with ideas. It won’t take long, either. A quick search on any of these platforms can spark ideas in fifteen minutes or less. 

Below is a list of our favorite content creation strategies – but first – all strategies need to begin with content calendar. 

Using your calendar, you’ll write down on specific dates what type of content you’re delivering. In the future, you can flip back to prior dates and analyze what’s working and what’s not. It’s an easy tool that you can use as a reference. Think of it as the top of your organizational tree when it comes to content marketing.

Content calendars help you determine how often you’ll deliver educational content and promotional content. Many marketers follow the 80/20 rule, which states that 80% of content should be educational, and 20% promotional. Without a calendar or a strategy for the future, you could lose track of what type of content you’re delivering.

A content calendar will be the foundation on which you’ll base your content marketing strategy. With a clear path on what you’re working on daily, you’ll be more organization and focused. 

Your audience will thank you too. Your content will be fresh and consistent. You’ll be able to test and optimize.

Get Started With Content Calendars

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of things, open the content calendar, print it out (we recommend doing this!), and lay it out in front of you. 

Take a good look at all the holidays, events, and anniversaries over the year; and then:

1. Write down dates that are important to your business – add on any anniversaries, industry-specific events, or even fun/funny celebrations (e.g. if your business is a vegan food restaurant, look up World Vegan Day… you get the idea)
2. Circle all the dates that are relevant to your business and audience

Then ask yourself:

1. Can I find themes in the calendar to tie-in my business to my audience in some shape or form?
2. Can I break down my demographics to create content for different segments of my audience?
3. Can I INVENT an opportunity to create a content series that will fill up my calendar like a machine?

Because THAT is the secret to creating automatic content to fill up an ENTIRE year – creating compounding content. 

We’ll show you exactly how to do this a little bit later. But first, when you’ve filled up your calendar to the brim, time to come up with topics.

Finding Topics in 15 Minutes!

Planning a whole year’s worth of content does not have to consume all of your time. With some tricks and free tools online (don’t you just love free tools?), we’ve come up with a way to gather unlimited content ideas in just 10 minutes of your time.

Let’s get started with…

Good Ol’ Google for keywords
Want to find out what’s hot in your topic? Google is your new best friend. You can come up with a few ideas in seconds using what’s readily available on search engines – even the best content marketers it the “search” button for quick ideas, because it’s fast, easy, free to use, and hey, they actually work! 

To illustrate how we use Google to come with ideas, we went on and searched for the topic “wedding” in Malaysia. 

Before you even finish typing, you’re already presented with a list of Google’s suggestions (a function aptly called “autocomplete”).

BAM, you’ve already got your first set of ideas! (are you mindblown yet?)

It sounds ridiculously easy (and yet it is!) but Google’s autocomplete feature doesn’t just deliver a bunch of random suggestions – these are actual popular keywords other people are typing into Google that are related to your search term – and they’re a fantastic place to start gathering ideas.

Okay, let’s keep going here.

Sometimes, when you scroll down the search page, Google will return something like this.

Again, these are actual questions people are asking online, and if you’re a wedding company or a bridal house, these are great questions to answer.

BAM, now you’ve got your second set of ideas.

Now, scroll down the page further and check out the suggested results at the bottom.

BAM, have your third set of ideas on a platter.

With just a quick search, you’ll have some nifty ideas on topics to write about. 

On a regular search day, you’ll probably get a handful of ideas that’ll last you at least a month. Well, that’s not going to cut it. You need ideas for the whole YEAR.

So in this next part, we’re going to show you to duplicate, multiply and create compounding ideas using ideas you already have, to fill up an entire year’s worth of content.

2. Break down your demographics

Here’s a fine example of a great compounding content for different segments of your demographics:

The good folks at CopyHackers debuted a little thing called Freelance Writer Month in November. Over the entire month, they published a series of content specifically targeted to freelance writers – anywhere from a blog post on finding your niche, to revealing survey results on how much copywriters earn.

Here’s the thing: Freelance Writer Month is not even a real thing. But it’s a great move that allows them to generate an incredible amount of content ideas, in much less time than it would be to plan single ideas over the year.

You get the drift… spend some time studying your calendar and fleshing it out. Don’t worry if there are some empty gaps at the end – you can fill those dates out later with filler content that don’t fit anywhere else. 

For the “wedding” search above, the target audience are newlyweds, so we thought it’d be useful to dedicate an entire month to content that specifically discusses topics that don’t get talked about very often – how can you make weddings more enjoyable for the groom?

Things like…

• How is he going to choose a ring?
• Where will he get proposal ideas?
• How to plan a great stag party?
• What about the honeymoon?

Paying attention to different segments of your demographic gives everyone a chance for tender loving attention. 

We already showed you how to build a “demographic tree” in our Headline post, and it applies the same principle. Pick one fruit out of the tree and dedicate a quiet month in the calendar to one (or several) often overlooked segment of your audience. 

Trust us, your readers will appreciate you for it.

3. Google Trends for what’s popular

Another tactic to use is what is called “news jacking.” It involves finding a breaking story and weaving it into your topic, riding the trend.

You want to make sure that it’s relevant to your business in some way. You don’t want to compare apples and oranges. 

Google Trends is a wonderful tool to craft fresh, original content you might’ve never come up with through conventional means.

Readers are becoming hyper-sensitive to rehashed content. They’re bored with the same re-spun articles. No one likes to read the same content twice.

That’s why it’s important to mix it up and deliver content that’s fresh and topical. Surprise your audience by bringing up a topic that’s on everyone’s minds, one they usually don’t see mentioned in their industry. 

Plug a keyword into Google Trends, and tell a story around popular celebrities, business news, award shows, or even tech announcements, that will surprise your audience and keep them engaged.

4. BuzzSumo for what your competitors are publishing

BuzzSumo is a powerful tool to analyze viral content and top influencers in your industry. At a glance, you can see social media shares by article, broken down by platform.

Working between Southeast Asia and the US? It also has an advanced search where you can search by location, making it no problem to search what is trending in your specific area.

It’s also a great way to learn more about the top influencers in your niche. You can search by domain and receive backlinks pointing to each article. By studying the pros in your industry, it’ll help you understand what’s working and what’s not for those on top.

Also, BuzzSumo can work like Google Trends and give you info on what’s hot in the last 24 hours. Or you can search as far back as the past year.

It’s developed with content creation in mind with its intuitive interface, with extra tools like setting alerts for specific keywords and domains.

BuzzSumo is a powerhouse when it comes to developing content ideas. 

If you’re ever at a loss for ideas, dig around on BuzzSumo for a few minutes, and you’ll instantly begin to brainstorm new ways to reach your audience. 

Once you get the hang of it, you could easily get a spark of inspiration for new topics in less than five minutes.

5. Quora for questions that need your answers

Quora is where your audience goes when they can’t find an answer to their question. It’s a great place to understand your customer’s problems, and then deliver a satisfying answer on your website. 

Searching through Quora for topics should take under ten minutes, to get some basic ideas on what your audience is looking for.

Using Quora is easy. Just visit their site, sign up, and then search for your industry. There you’ll find a list of questions asked by insiders and outsiders in your topic.

For example, someone in the content marketing section asked “What is inception marketing?” That might be a good blog post to create. 

Or it might not be, depending on how many people are asking. You don’t want to create a piece of content answering a question that only one person has asked.

To check if there are more people asking, enter your keyword into Google’s Keyword Tool or even do a standard Google search. 

Is there more than one person asking the question? Has it already been covered in detail by someone else? Did they give a satisfactory answer?

If someone went through the trouble of going to Quora for their question, they’re desperate for an answer. Listen to what people are asking repeatedly. Or even better, find questions that are asked frequently that never get a response. 

Think of Quora as an easy way to find forums on just about any topic. The primary focus of Quora is to ask questions, and one of your primary goals should be to answer questions for your audience. That’s why you need to be on Quora, listening to what your audience needs.

Time taken: 15 minutes

6. Go forth and multiply your ideas with a content calendar

Per the Content Marketing Institute, top marketers document their content marketing strategy. But only 37% have a documented strategy. That huge discrepancy shows huge room for improvement for content creators. 

Using your calendar, you’ll write down on specific dates what type of content you’re delivering. In the future, you can flip back to prior dates and analyze what’s working and what’s not. It’s an easy tool that you can use as a reference. Think of it as the top of your organizational tree when it comes to content marketing.

Content calendars help you determine how often you’ll deliver educational content and promotional content. Many marketers follow the 80/20 rule, which states that 80% of content should be educational, and 20% promotional. Without a calendar, or a strategy for the future, you could lose track of what type of content you’re delivering.

Using the tools above, list down your chosen keywords and ideas. For this example, we’re going to take our favorite ideas from our “wedding” search above.

Example keywords/topics:

• “wedding dresses”
• “wedding planner”
• “wedding rings”
• “wedding invitation”

Once you have your keywords, this is where you stop and figure out: How can I create a series of blog posts throughout the year with each keyword?

The secret here is to look for any recurring themes, special events, weekly or monthly “specials” that you can ride on, and start planning out from there.

Instead of producing individual pieces of content every day for these ideas, find an opportunity to create a compounding, ‘series’ type of content you can schedule at strategic times of the year.

This is where our calendar is going to come in handy. A quick look through the calendar gave us a number of ideas we can work with:

• Keyword/topic: “wedding dress” 
Idea: Monthly blog post on our favorite wedding dress ideas, which we can later combine into a “Best of [Year]” blog post 
Total: 12 + 1 blog posts
• Keyword/topic: “wedding planner” 
Idea: “How to Plan Your Dream Wedding in 7 Days” – includes guides, seating templates, bridesmaid checklists, list of contractors, etc – which you’ll roll out over 7 days. 
Total: 7 blog posts
• Keyword/topic: “wedding rings” 
Idea: Monthly blog post on gorgeous wedding rings for each horoscope. 
Total: 12 blog posts
• Keyword/topic: “wedding invitation” 
Idea: Wedding invitation ideas for seasonal weddings – spring, summer, fall, and winter. 
Total: 4 blog posts

See where we’re getting at here?

And this is just the START - there are SO MANY ways you could do this. Let your creative juices flow – there is absolutely no end to how you can expand your topics into organized themes and events. 

Here, check out these extra ideas you can take away from our content calendars:

Ramadan (the fasting month) runs for 30 days every year – if you run a health food business, try publishing 30 healthy recipes daily that your Muslim followers can whip up every day for the breaking of fast.
Total: 30 blog posts
Christmas is great time of the year to give – if you sell products online, try a “12 Days of Christmas”-inspired series of promotional content to produce for 12 days leading up to Christmas.
Total: 12 blog posts

Time taken: 15 minutes

Wait! Before you start searching for ideas, read this…

Do you have a content calendar? There’s a good chance you don’t, since most content creators never create one. 

You might’ve been too busy to create one. Or you might’ve never heard of it until this post.

We’re here to help. We’ve created a free content calendar, specifically for Southeast Asia. If you’re still unsure whether you need one or not, here are the massive benefits to having a documented content plan.

• Forces you to plan ahead and keep on schedule.
• Keeps your content fresh, per rules like the 80/20 rule.
• Organizes your ideas and promotes brainstorming.
• Allows you to analyze the effectiveness of prior content and optimize.
• Create a consistent schedule that resonates with your audience.
• Reduces stress by having a clear plan, so you won’t be overwhelmed.
• As many content marketers have already found out, having a content calendar is the difference between wildly flailing about in search of ideas, and having a structured, successful plan that your audience will love.

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

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