12 Top Tools for Generating Blog Post Ideas (+ 5 Tools for Organizing Them)

What are you going to write about today? Or tomorrow? Or all next week?

If you're a blogger, generating ideas for your blog posts is a day in/day out challenge. Sometimes you're overwhelmed with the ideas spinning through your head.

12 Tools for Generating Blog Post Ideas 1

…and sometimes you're staring at a blank page, wondering what on earth your should write about next.

You can always tap into the content here at Content Sparks to spark some inspiration.

But then there's still the challenge of what angle to take on a topic or what title will be catchy enough.

To help you out, I did a little research of my own and collected a list of 12 popular tools for generating blog post ideas. As a bonus, I added 5 more tools that will help you stay organized with all the inspiration you're going to have once you're done.

Without further ado, here are the 12 Tools for Generating Blog Post Ideas

Free Keyword Tools

In generating ideas for your blog posts, it helps to start with a keyword. Here are 2 free ones you can use to get started:

KeywordTool.io

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Keywordtool.io is a free keyword generator. You type in a keyword and it will give you a list of related ones from different sources.

It will also return top questions that people are asking

Ubersuggest

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Ubersuggest is another free keyword suggestion tool. Type in your term, pick a language and a source for results. Ubersuggest comes back with a big list based on adding extra words alphabetically. You can then add them to a ‘basket' to copy and save what you want to use.


Engaging Titles

Having a catchy title to work from can give you all the inspiration you need. Here are 4 blog title idea generators that might just spark that blog post idea that goes viral:

HubSpot's Blog Topic Generator

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Hubspot has a free tool that is about as simple to use as you can get. You just plug in 3 nouns and the tool comes back with 5 blog post title ideas. They don't always make sense, but then just go back and switch up your nouns.

Portent's Content Idea Generator

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Portent's Content Idea Generator comes up with some more off-the-wall, creative ideas. Type in a one or two word subject and the tool returns a title idea. Sometimes they don't make sense at all, but you can keep generating one title after another until something inspires you.

Blog Title Idea Generator

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Here's just one more title idea generator tool. The Blog Title Idea Generator works backwards from the others. You click the button to generate title ideas that are ‘fill in the blank'. You then plug in your topic.

Tweak Your Biz Title Generator

Tweak Your Biz Blog Title Generator

And yet another blog title idea tool. Just enter your keyword and you'll get a big list of titles to spur your creativity. Once again, they won't all make sense, but you're bound to find a few to work from!


Trending Topics

Want to make sure you're covering a topic that people want to read about? Look at what's trending on the web, whether it's about a specific topic or what your competitors are successfully blogging on.  Here are 4 tools to help:

Buzzsumo 

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Buzzsumo has both a free and paid tool that tells you what content is performing best on the web.

Type in a topic or domain and Buzzsumo returns a list of the top-performing articles, based on numbers of shares and backlinks.

Scoop.it

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Scoop.it is a tool for content curation, but you could also use it to come up with your own ideas for blog posts. Just find some other people's ‘scoops' on your main content focus areas and browse through what they're sharing. As you come up with ideas, keep a note of them in your notepad of choice (eg, Evernote).

Content Strategy Helper

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Here's a Google Doc spreadsheet from builtvisible with a custom script for generating trending topics. Follow the set up instructions and then type in a keyword (with a ‘+' between each word) to see trending topics from different sources. It's not as up to date as Buzzsumo or Topsy, but worth checking out.

Quora

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Quora is a Question & Answer site in which users ask questions and anyone can answer. Type in a general keyword and you'll see a list of questions. People can ‘Upvote' a question, so you'll see what's most popular at the moment.

Social Media Trending Topics

Most social media platforms now show trending topics. Look on the right side on Facebook. Look at the left sidebar in Twitter. The topics are generated based on what your friends and followers are discussing, so they may or may not be related to your blog. However, you can definitely spark a few ideas for what to blog about or what angle to take.

Feedly

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A tool for organizing your RSS feeds.  Use Feed.ly to organize the RSS feeds of your favorite blogs into different topic areas. You'll get ideas for things to share with your followers, but also be able to see what competitors are blogging about. Even better, use it to get ideas for content you can curate for a round-up post.


Getting it All Under Control

Overwhelmed now with all the ideas you've generated for your blog posts? Here are a few bonus tools for keeping track of all your inspiration:

Evernote

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I can't say enough good things about Evernote since it's a tool I couldn't live without. Use it to ‘clip' ideas/articles/images and more from web pages. Organize your ideas in notebooks. Tag ideas so you can find them later. Make to-do lists. Set reminders. Collaborate with your team. Well, basically you can run your whole life from Evernote.

Trello

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Trello is a more visual tool for tracking ideas and projects. You create ‘boards' and add your ideas, tasks, etc. It's used most often for project management, but many bloggers love it for keeping track of ideas for blog posts too.

Wunderlist

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Wunderlist is a very basic, popular ‘to do' list app. Wunderlist is a great way to note topics you want to write blog posts on and then set up sub-tasks under each topic. If you like things simple, Wunderlist is for you.

Pocket

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Save and keep track of ideas you just don't have time to read about right now. With Pocket, you can mark an article to ‘save for later', whether you're on your phone, tablet, or computer.  When you have time to read, just login and go through your Pocket. If everything is synced, you don't even have to have an internet connection.

I hope those tool ideas were helpful. Please add your own favorites in the comments below!

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  1. I still fall back on those “old” favorites, Google Alerts (I have about 4 or 5 different topics that I follow.) and my LinkedIn Group discussions.

    1. Hi Virginia. Great adds! I used to use Google alerts. Have to get back to that and set more up. And definitely LinkedIn Groups. Those are especially good for business topics.

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