(dr) molly tov

bombs in bottles

how to find blog post topics, non-trending edition

A question from the MelonLand forums this morning (and one I've seen in a lot of other small Web communities): How do you choose what to blog about? How do you find topics/ideas?

My second day job is generating corporate Web content. In that world, I've answered this question a million times. That answer typically involves references to tools like ahrefs, BuzzSumo, and/or Google Analytics - on the theory that we humans can't possibly know what will interest other humans, but The Algorithm(TM) can reveal this wisdom unto us.

On the human-being Web, however, you couldn't pay me to utter the words "trending topics" as an answer to "how do you decide what to blog about?" Ew. No. My day job stays at my day job.

Here's how stuff comes out of my brain and into this blog:

Idea Generation

In response to the MelonLand post, I listed the following "sources" for my blog post "ideas":

• projects I'm currently working on, at work or home
• messed-up stories from my past that something made me remember
• some decision I recently made and why I made it
• some website, tool, or other thing I found helpful (or not) and why it helped (or didn't)
• my response to some news article, meme, or trending idea
• summary/report of how my life is going right now
• link to something cool I found or read online

Examples:

a fun work project from my first day job
an extremely messed up story from my past
why I decided to use smol.pub
tools I've found helpful in ditching Oligarch Tech
my response to a thread on a professional listserv
how my life was going on March 12, 2025
two blog posts I think everyone should read (reading mine is optional)

Sometimes two or more of these appear in the same post:

a project makes me remember a funny work story

Rarely do I blog about blogging, but the meta-blog post is a time-honored tradition. I suppose this post is an exception.

self-referential link

I suppose one could use ahrefs or BuzzSumo or Google Analytics to find topics for personal blog posts, especially if one wanted to talk about a particular news or work item. I just think there are far more fun ways to find ideas on the small Web. Like:

Wiby: search static pages
Marginalia: search non-commercial Web sites
biiig repository of text files

Or:

• find a forum post and respond to it (hello!)
• write about why you started a website/blog
• write about something you want to do on your website/blog but haven't figured out how to yet
• list your favorite bad jokes, your favorite foods, your favorite things about your favorite person, etc.
• answer "if I was a ___, I would be a ____ because____." (If I was a season, I'd be late winter/early spring, when the ice is breaking up but before anything is green yet, because there's a ton going on under the surface but it's tough to see unless you really know what you're looking for.)
• review a book/album/movie/TV show you encountered recently
• talk about your first pet/first day of school/first best friend/first car/etc.
• ask yourself "why do I find it hard to decide what to blog about?" and then answer that question in the form of a blog post

Most writers find that once they've written for a while, the problem isn't how to find ideas but how to slow down their arrival. I keep a notebook list of potential blog post ideas. I only write the ones that nag me.

I recommend keeping the list because ideas tend to breed. Even if nothing on the list interests you today, seeing the ideas together like that may generate one that you do want to write about.

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