There are a number of strategies that can be used for keeping fresh content flowing on your blog and as I adopt those methods are as following:
•Mind Mapping: My favorite technique for coming up with new topics is using mind maps. I outline my mind mapping technique here but in short the technique is that you take one post idea (one from your archives perhaps) and then brainstorm ways that that topic can be expanded upon into numerous new topics. You then take some of those new ideas and think about ways that they too can be expanded upon into new posts. This technique can literally help you identify hundreds of new topics to write about. Whether you use Mind mapping or some other kind of brainstorming technique the key is to set time aside to do it. I try to do this at the start of each week and find that if I do that the writing task for the week ahead is a lot smoother – sometimes just coming up with the ideas is as hard as the writing of posts.
•Involving Readers: One of the resources that a blog who has an established readership has (remember we’re writing this series for these types of blogs) is that it has a knowledge based within it’s readership that can be drawn upon in a variety of creative ways to help create content for your blog by Guest posts, reader questions and community written posts.
•Creating an editorial calendar: One technique that can help a blog grow beyond its infancy is to begin to think longer term about the content that you produce. I personally find that when I only think a day ahead about the content for my blog that it can be difficult to build momentum in the content that I’m writing. It’s also difficult to keep coming up with topics. A way to help overcome this is to set aside time either on a weekly or even a monthly basis to map out the direction for your content in the period ahead. This enables you to do some brainstorming/mindmapping (see point #1 above) and set the course for your blog. Doing this takes some discipline and can feel like a chore when you sit down to do it but the result is that it gives you a lot of freedom and can take the burden of having to come up with topics from your shoulders. I find that the months I set out a plan for the content on my blogs are much better than the months that I do not. I usually find on these months that I end up writing a series of posts and that readers really respond well to the momentum that I build. Another spin on the idea of an editorial calendar that I know some bloggers have a lot of success with is to set different ’styles’ of posts for each day of the week. For example:
* Monday might be ‘tips’ day where you write a ‘how to’ or ‘tip’ related post
* Tuesday might be ‘review’ day where you review a product related to your topic
* Wednesday might be ‘news’ day where you summarize the latest news in your niche
* Thursday might be ‘link’ day where you link up to another blog in your niche
* Friday might be ‘opinion’ day where you express your opinion on a topic
Source: ProBlogger.net