The Jigsaw Approach To Writing A Blog

Are you sat scratching your head trying to think of an idea for your next blog post?  Believe me, we’ve all been there.  I know how frustrating it can be when your deadline is approaching and you have been staring at a blank screen for what seems like an eternity.  There is a solution though!

Try To Approach Writing A Blog In A Different Way

Many bloggers seem to fall into the trap of…

1. Think of an idea,
2. Write up post idea,
3. Publish post,
4. Repeat.

At some point or another, we have all done that.  The problem with this cycle is that when you hit a barren stage (which you WILL) and can’t for the life of you think of your next idea, you are stumped.  If this sounds familiar then you need to break that cycle and approach writing a blog in a different way!

Instead of thinking only about your next post, you need to take a step back and look at your site as a whole – this is where the jigsaw narrative fits in.

The main aim of your blog is to keep people on your site for as long as possible (in order to sell, advertise, etc.) and the best way of doing that is by presenting them with a whole host of content for them to browse through.  Whatever your site is about, you are essentially creating an online information resource for people, and in order for that to work, everything needs to work as a whole.

A jigsaw is an easy way of explaining this.  Let’s say you had a 10,000 piece jigsaw that you had to put together.  The only way in which you can solve it is by taking a step back and looking at it as a whole.  That way, you can see how each individual piece fits together.

Each of your individual posts are like little pieces of one giant jigsaw.  People may find your site via one of those posts, but as they look around, they begin to see the bigger picture of your site as being a place that they can come too for more information.

Your Blog Is One Giant Jigsaw

So how does this fit in with not being able to think of new post ideas?

Well instead of randomly picking post ideas that take your fancy, take a step back and look at your blog as a whole.

• What areas are you missing?
• What topics have you only covered in small detail?
• What areas have holes in them that people would need to otherwise learn elsewhere?

Looking at your site like this “should” help you to come up with a whole host of ideas to write about.  In fact, you shouldn’t really struggle for ideas when you use this approach as there is an endless amount of things that you can write about to help grow your site as a whole.

Why not, instead of thinking up an idea for a single post, think of a topic that you could write about over multiple posts.  That way, you can interlink between them all, creating an information resource for people to use.

Try to remember that everyone starts at a different level.  Some may be completely new to a subject, whereas some may be more experienced.  If you always approach a subject from the perspective of a newbie, you are never excluding anyone.  Start at the very beginning and write about the basics before moving on to more and more advanced topics.  That way, if every anyone gets confused, they can backtrack to one of your previous posts, instead of navigating to another site in search of answers.

So next time you are struggling to fit the next piece into your blogging puzzle, take a step back to look at the bigger picture.  I can guarantee that you will find it much easier!

What helps you think up an idea for a post when struggling for inspiration?  We want to hear from you, so please feel free to leave a comment below!