Look Outside Your Niche For Inspiration: Go Off-Topic

Inspiration and creativity are tricky. Sometimes the ideas are flowing and you’re on fire, sometimes it feels like your well has temporarily dried up. That’s when it’s time to look outside your niche or domain for fresh content.

It can be extremely beneficial to look outside of your general topic area for ideas – to concentrate on making associations, to figuring out how some seemingly disparate ideas are linked.  Figuring out how to link widely varied topics or thoughts together in a coherent way is also an excellent mental workout (and hey, so is blogging), and you might as well boost your critical thinking skills along with your blog.

Now, I know you have a wide variety of interests outside of your blogging niche, so take a look at your favorite subjects and see if you can make any connections between them.  For instance, I’m a major football fan, so I occasionally use football metaphors and stories in my writing, especially in the fall.  Can you relate your favorite sport to your business/blog topic area somehow?  Are there any lessons to be learned on the field/court/ice/etc. that translate to the rest of the world?

What about hobbies?  Are you particularly crafty, or do you love to bake?  How are these skills related to your blog?  If you’re an aspiring gourmet and passionate about quality food, share your passion with your readers.  Can you use a cooking metaphor (e.g. spending hours slow cooking barbeque or Bolognese sauce that has to simmer all day – someone who actually loves to cook can probably come up with a better one) to tell a story about how careful, meticulous work is worth it in the end?  Or you could talk about how experimenting with a recipe turned out incredibly well, and compare that to trying out new marketing concepts for your business?

This could even apply to other individuals – is there anyone you admire in a different field than your own?  A look at why they are worthy of admiration could still be valuable advice for your readers even if they’re in a different niche.  A smart, talented individual might have insights and knowledge that prove useful to people in a whole variety of fields.  For instance, if you own a small business, is there another business owner in your community that you could interview (whether you are in the same niche or not)?  Whether or not they have a blog or website of their own, it’s excellent way to participate in the community and add some inspiring content to your site.

You could also write about a favorite author, a family pet, or a beloved spot in your hometown.  Really, the possibilities are endless once you remove any self-imposed limits to going off-topic.   Just be sure to tie it in to your main topic(s) somehow, and be sure to get some of your keywords in there as well.   After all, going temporarily off-topic is one thing, but don’t derail your blog completely.

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