How To Find Hidden Article Ideas

Are you ever stumped on what to write about?

When you're doing article marketing to drive traffic to your website, you need to be submitting articles consistently month in and month out. That means that you need to have a steady stream of article ideas, and that can be a challenge sometimes!

I've got some good news for you though: You have more article ideas than you realize. Most likely, you have several article ideas right under your nose on your own website or in your business.

Here are some tips for finding hidden article ideas:

1) Look on your own website. You probably have content that would be perfect for one or more articles. For example, if you are a business coach, you might have a page on your website called "Why use a business coach?". That sort of topic can be turned into an article.

2) Your old newsletters. What messages have you been sending your list? If you have a list you've probably been in steady communication with your subscribers. You send them helpful tips, observations, anything that will provide value to them. If you have any teaching topics from old newsletters you've sent, you can use them as an article. You may have to rework things a little to meet word count requirements and make the newsletter content article worthy, but you've got a great head start on the writing process.

3) Written any e-books? An e-book is a great source of article ideas because you already have the content broken into chapters. When using content from an e-book, you can extract whatever material you would like to use, and then add an intro and concluding paragraph to form an article.

4) Your blog. If you have a well-tended blog, you have a continuous source of article ideas at your fingertips. Look for posts that teach: how to's or list posts are readily adapted to be articles.

5) Audio interviews that you've done. Listen to old interviews you've done and write down the questions you were asked and a synopsis of your answers. You may be able to get several articles out of one interview.

6) Your replies to questions from your customers. Sometimes you'll get a great question on a general topic from a customer that necessitates a more involved reply. As long as you've taken the time to explain things, why not use your reply as the foundation of an article that answers the same question?

Here's what to do when you've found hidden content that you can morph into articles:

*Rework the content if it is appearing on your own site. It is beneficial that the content on your own website be original, so you wouldn't want to submit anything verbatim from your website. This is not necessary if the original content was in a newsletter, audio interview, or a customer support answer. Only content from your own website needs to be reworked to be unique.

*Remove all promotional references from the content--that may be appropriate on your own website or in a newsletter, but trying to make a sales pitch in an article is not appropriate. Save that for the resource box.

*The website content should be used as a general guide for your article. Don't try to reword the content line by line--it's too easy to copy the original content. Instead, look at your original work as an outline for your article and write the article fresh.

*Write for newbies and for more advanced audiences. You can cover the same topic writing on different levels.

Did you find any article ideas that were hiding right under your nose? It's a great feeling when you do. Remember, when you feel like "there's nothing to right about", look at your website and your business from a fresh perspective, and you'll be surprised at the article ideas you find.

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