Do you sometimes struggle to find content ideas for your dev blog? I often do, and this article will share ways to find content ideas for your blog.
Finding ideas for your blog is essential to staying consistent with publishing content on your blog.
There is no single method to find content ideas.
Let's start.
1. Consult Community Or Forums
Reddit, StackOverflow, StackExchange, and Quora are all great sources of inspiration.
These are Q&A sites where people ask questions and wait for answers from the community.
Since blogging is about addressing people's questions, these sites are often my number one go-to for finding content ideas.
2. Reddit
Reddit is a traffic powerhouse which has 1.7 billion users.
Creating content which addresses a Reddit question is an intelligent move and SEO tactic.
The main subreddits I suggest following for inspiration (and also out of curiosity) are:
3. StackOverflow and StackExchange
StackOverflow and StackExchange are probably the most well-known programming communities out there.
Like Reddit, people use these sites to ask questions (usually programming questions, but often more than that) and wait for answers from community members.
4. Quora
Quora is a popular Q&A site which performs well for search queries.
It's not the most indicated for programming, but it does well regarding career advice.
5. Use Social Media
Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are excellent sources of inspiration if used correctly.
Even though Facebook tends to have a negative reputation, it remains the most popular social media platform. It's the only social media which does well with groups. There are countless of them, some of them more active than others. It's an excellent resource for finding new content ideas.
LinkedIn is another social media which is interesting for content creation. If you have a good following, you can run a poll to ask your audience what content they would like to read more about.
Twitter has recently become my favourite social media platform, and I believe it's the most suited for the tech community. Twitter allows you to select Topics you want to see on your news feed, which helps you find new content ideas.
6. Use Google Trends
Google Trends is a free website that analyses a query's popularity in diverse regions and languages.
Let me show you an example.
In the screenshot below, I entered the words "software engineering".
Google gives you Interest Over Time (worldwide) and the interest by region.
In the screenshot, you can see that "software engineering" is trendy in Ethiopia.
7. Take Advantage Of Code Reviews
If you work as a software engineer, code reviews are a big part of the software development process.
Code reviews are an excellent opportunity to learn from more experienced colleagues.
Code reviews are a way to teach and share knowledge with other engineers. When I have my code reviewed, I often learn new (or better) ways to accomplish something.
You could use what you learn from a code review to create content on your blog.
Related: The Traits Of A Good Code Review
8. Use Existing Blog Posts
Your already existing blogs are also an excellent source of inspiration.
You can go back and read your older blog posts and see if you could expand on anything. Perhaps a sub-paragraph where you could write more content.
Conclusion
In this article, you've learned five ways to find content ideas for your dev blog.
You can use one or a combination of these.
I hope you've found these tips helpful.
Until next time!
🙋🏾♀️