Are you sruggling with blog posts?

Then try this and see if it helps you out....

http://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by Cornell

Then try this and see if it helps you out....

http://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator

Thanks Cornell!

Like everyone, I sometimes struggle with finding good topics...

When you want to write something - and can't find a good topic to write about - it's easy to bang your head against a wall and give yourself a concussion!

However, I use an adaptation of Denny Hatch's system, which you can read about here...

One Secret for Advancing Your Career: Create a private archive, then exploit it, by Denny Hatch
http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/ar...oit-it-401863#

The essence of this system is to save and categorize interesting news stories you read. These news stories can then later provide the inspiration for any articles you want to write, on that specific topic!

I also have taken inspiration from James Altucher's method, which is essentially to always carry around a notepad and pen, and write down everything... Including observations, ideas, and everything else. You can then refer to these later, when you need them.

How A Waiter’s Pad Saved My Life, by James Altucher
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2012/05...saved-my-life/

I always carry around a "telescopic" pen, because it easily fits in my pants pocket, clipped to my small protective notepad cover with the small notepad in it (I often wear T-shirts, so I don't always have a shirt pocket)... A "telescopic" pen is a pen which can "shrink" to about half its length, similar to the way a telescope can "shrink" in length. I used to carry around short pens, but I found them hard to write with because of their short length. A telescopic pen solves the problem - it's very portable (since it shrinks), and yet is also easy to write with too!

I tried the link you provided, Cornell, and I like it too!

I thought the "blog topic generator" came up with some good topics... If you do struggle for topics, it's a great resource!

Thanks!

Best wishes,

Dien

Thanks for the links Dien.

I carry a digital recorder with me most of the time as thoughts come at the most inconvenient times for writing down...such as driving, or outside doing work.

I used to keep track of links to articles filed under article headline, but I found many of the pages had disappeared when I went back to them so I changed my method.

Now I grab the source code for the page and save it in the same manner as above. When I want to view it, I simply open Homesite editor and open the source code in it...if the site has disappeared, or depending on how the links to images were set in the source code, the images may not be there, but the text of the page is readable, and should there be a specific image on the page that is really pertinent, then I just save the image from the page to the folder where the source code is.

Cornell

I'm new to this forum and I am enjoying it already. There is something quaint and familiar about it, I can tell the folks here have become great adviser's and friends. ;-)

That aside, I would like to chime in; I often have trouble coming up with content and recently I have been looking into possibly hiring a content writer or service. The problem that I am facing is that there are so many writers out there.

I have no idea where to begin, how to weed out the good writers, what a fair price for content is and so on and so on.

What if any experiences have you all had and would you recommend a writer or service?

Thanks,

Frank

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by Frank477

I'm new to this forum and I am enjoying it already. There is something quaint and familiar about it, I can tell the folks here have become great adviser's and friends. ;-)

That aside, I would like to chime in; I often have trouble coming up with content and recently I have been looking into possibly hiring a content writer or service. The problem that I am facing is that there are so many writers out there.

I have no idea where to begin, how to weed out the good writers, what a fair price for content is and so on and so on.

What if any experiences have you all had and would you recommend a writer or service?

Hi Frank,

Thanks for asking, and I'm glad you're enjoying the forum!

I've hired many writers in the past...

The answers to some of your questions depend on what you want the writer for. If you're hiring for simply "SEO" reasons (just to have something the search engines will index) - where grammar and the right spelling often seem not to matter too much! - then it can be very cheap. But, if you want better quality writing, then of course it costs more (as you'd expect)...

There are many freelance websites around. That's where I'd go to look for writers. In general, every writer on one of those sites will have a portfolio of their work you can look at - so you can get an idea of what that writer's skills are like. There's also generally feedback from those who have hired the writer before, which will also give you an idea of what they're like, too.

One good idea is to hire a writer for a small project - kind of like as a "trial." Then, if all goes well, you can hire them for something bigger!

For example, let's say you wanted to hire a writer to "ghost write" a book for you. You could first hire, say, three writers to write one article each. Then, choose the best one out of the three, and ask them to write your book. (That's what I would do.)

Make sure you have a "work for hire" contract that specifies that you own the copyright of the resultant work. Otherwise, the writer will own the rights. It's better for you to own the rights, so that if you want to "reuse" the writing in the future, there won't be any problems with doing that.

Here's a sample contract - http://www.docracy.com/0s38bg2lkok/w...ng-agreement-1

The key part of that contract is this part:

"9. OWNERSHIP/COPYRIGHT. All original Work created for this project shall be considered 'work-for-hire' performed in the United States of America. The copyright for all Work produced under this agreement shall belong to the Writer until 100% of payment has been received. Upon receiving full payment, the Writer shall transfer all rights to the Client. Client shall exclusively own in perpetuity all now known or hereafter existing rights of every nature worldwide pertaining to such Work in or as part of any version of the Client’s publications that are published in print or displayed through computer-assisted and other interactive media such as the Internet and World Wide Web (collectively the 'Rights'). Writer hereby irrevocably grants and assigns to the Client all Rights for the Work free from any restrictions and limitations."

(You can find other sample "work for hire" contracts for writers if you do a search. Make sure that, in the end, you'll own the copyright to the resultant work...)

One freelance website you can try is oDesk. While I haven't hired writers from there, I have hired editors there, and it all went well.

I hope that helps!

Best wishes,

Dien