Coming up with new content ideas for your website can start to get tough after a while. Once you’ve ticked off the obvious topics in your industry, you may find it a bit of a struggle to come up with new ideas.

It doesn’t seem to get any easier either. The more you write, the less there is to write about.

The upside is that this creative chasm can challenge you to come up with more engaging content that isn’t on every other website in your industry. The downside is that coming up with ideas takes a little more work.

Below are a few exercises and routines we follow to keep ourselves inspired. To lessen the work of idea creation.

Whenever we make a piece of content, we also make an image afterward. Whether it’s a blog post or a social media update, once the copy is done, we move on to the picture.

But who says the copy has to come first?

Sitting down to create an image without any copy to restrict you is a great way to find some inspiration. Once the image is done, you can allow that to inspire your copy.

Ask yourself, “What type of article would this image be good for?”

A good writer is also a good reader.

We write about marketing, so we also read a lot about marketing. News articles, emails, blogs, social media posts, and books. Reading the views of others in our industry keeps us in the conversation and aware of current trends.

But we also dip outside of marketing too. Marketing, like many other industries, is something that can be relevant to many other things.

Whenever we find out about a new idea or a new trend, we wonder, “Can this be applied to marketing?” This can often lead to inspiration for content.

Could the last book you read apply to your industry in some way? Does a trend in the news also point to something in your own industry?

If the answer is yes, you’ve got something to write about.

Inspiration is the strangest thing. The more you try to grasp it, the further it seems to be.

One exercise we often do on team building days is we ask our Go! Agents to come up with an interesting fact about themselves.

Most of the time nobody can think of anything. They’re stumped. But all of our staff are creative and interesting people, so why is it so hard for them to come up with something?

The issue is, nobody likes to be put on the spot. When you force yourself to come up with an idea that’s exactly what you’re doing. The hardest way to come up with an idea is to think, “Idea, idea, idea!”

Our best ideas happen when we’re not trying to come up with them at all. When we’re driving home, taking a shower or just before we go to bed.

It’s good practice to carry a notepad with you so you can collect ideas. Even when your deadline is weeks away.

As counter-productive as it seems, not thinking about coming up with an idea makes ideas appear on their own.

After my last tip, I’ve either got you nodding your head, or I’ve completely lost you. You might be frantically screaming at your monitor, “I NEED AN IDEA RIGHT NOW!”

Maybe you have a deadline in 2 hours and you haven’t even started your piece yet. Worst of all you can’t seem to find any idea at all.When this happens to us, we always find it’s good to revisit our old content. Often this helps to remind us of old ideas.

But at the same time, creating content that is a direct response or follow-up to old content can be a winner.

One thing we like to do is find our most popular older content and write another post that expands on it. If lots of people loved your post about skincare tips, chances are they’re hungry for more!

The best thing about this is you’re giving your audience more of what they want. So your content is defined by others instead of yourself.