#all i know is google docs and 1k plus words...

[deliwrites]

ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕗𝕠𝕣𝕥 𝕊𝕝𝕦𝕥 // 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔯𝔬 // Dream Team

// DATE // 26th of October 2022 // PAIRING // DreamTeam x fem!Reader, george x fem!reader, sapnap x fem!reader, dream x fem!reader // WARNING // flirty!reader, Mention of spicy time, snogging with George, use of real names, mention of tease!reader, playgirl(ish)!reader // WORDS // 1k+ // SUMMARY // You are part of the Dream Team, the team has been planning to move in together, but George receives his visa before you. So you "help" him pack. // SERIES // Intro // Part One // Part two // Part three // Part Four // I'm open for serie title suggestions for this one! Feel free to comment your suggestion here or sent it into my inbox!

// MASTERLIST // ANONLIST //

The four of us, aka the Dream Team, have been friends for ages. I first met George when we were kids. Our families happened to meet on vacation. Ever since we had been inseparable even though we lived in different countries.

Later we met Clay and Nick. The friendship was instant, it felt so natural. We started making YouTube videos together. Streaming Minecraft together. Overall we always had fun. Sometimes in more ways than one. I may or may not have been flirty with all three in private. I just like to tease them. It’s so much fun. ‘Cause my actions have no consequences. What are they gonna do while I’m miles away. Plus my attitude was always flirty, so I don’t think they know of the spicy times that have happened in private.

Anyways the conversation of moving in together happened far too often. But when was it actually happening?

“Okay, but when?” I ask one night in a discord call. Just the four of us. We had just finished recording another Manhunt video for Clay’s channel. Three of us had their cams on, Clay didn’t. We didn’t mind. Out of the three of us, only Nick knew what he looked like. Nick being the only one that was already able to move in with Clay into the Dream Team house.

“You two just need to apply for a visa,” Is Nick's simple answer.

“We understand, but it’s not that easy,” George says. “We have to leave family behind for one, along with that. We have other things we need to think about. Think about the entire move. What do we bring, what don’t we bring. Other important matters like government shit that needs to happen.”

“Oh, shit, I don’t think I even told my mom about this plan,” I mutter, grimacing at the thought. Clay wheezes at my face, most likely.

“How could you forget something like that?” He continues to laugh, Nick with him.

“Just ignore the idiots, Y/n,” George says taking away my pout.

“What!” Clay sounds offended though we know he isn’t. Chuckling a little before we continue. Me being the one to open a google docs, sharing it with all three. Putting down a plan and checklists of things that need to happen for this all to work.

Months later around the early evening, the Dream Team group chat starts ringing. George started a call.

“Guys, guys, guys,” he screams once we are all in the call. Again face cams on beside Clay.

“What’s got you all excited?” Nick says. From what I could tell, he was still in bed. His eyes half shut, blanket barely covering his chest. I bite my lip subtly at the sight. Quickly focusing on George again. It was currently 9 am in Florida, so I am not surprised that Nick and Clay are still in bed. I’m surprised they even picked up.

“I GOT MY VISA!” George screams, showing all of us his visa. I am excited, sure, but I can’t help the smile fading from my face. I hadn’t gotten mine yet, which means he can leave without me.

“Finally!” Clay exclaims in excitement. “At last one of you can finally be here.”

“This is great!” I end up saying, not wanting to let my mood ruin the excitement. “If you need me to, I can come over and help you pack whatever you want to bring.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” George says still smiling from ear to ear. “Have you heard anything about your visa?” he asks.

“I- sadly, no,” a pensive look on my face. “But, that’s okay,” I quickly change my mood. A fake but bright smile on my face. “You can go! And that’s great!” I tell him. “But, I’m sorry to leave you guys, I gotta go do something,” I don’t wait for an answer and leave the call.

I felt a little bit selfish at my action, but I didn’t want to drag the mood down. With me leaving the call they can chat amongst themselves. Figure out when he’ll fly over and move in with them. I’ll just wait here patiently.

The coming week I flew over to be with George. I helped him pack the stuff he wanted to bring. Either in boxes or into his suitcase.

“Have you heard anything yet?” he asks while I sit on his big suitcase as he zips it shut.

“No,” I pout, “I’ll just have to be patient,” he chuckles loudly, stopping in front of me. Suitcase now closed.

“You and patient,” he says with a soft smirk playing on his lips. I sent him an exaggerated pout.

“I can be patient.”

“Yeah, right. And pigs can fly,” he shakes his head laughing and I can’t help but grin just slightly. “It’ll be okay. Just know that we’ll be waiting for you. And welcome you with open arms,” he tells me sincerely. I look up at him through my eyelashes, a boost of confidence strikes me. Cupping his face, I close the gap between us, my lips connecting with his soft ones’. He seems a little taken aback. He’s quick to recover from the initial shock. Kissing me back. His hands landing on my waist.

This isn’t the first time we’ve kissed. It’s happened before, we’ve done a lot more than kiss for that matter. Mostly online but whenever we were able to meet in real life. We would sneak kisses here and there. I can’t tell you exactly when it started, but for me, it had a lot to do with comfort.

For me, this particular kiss was a see you soon, hopefully, kiss. I wouldn’t be able to see him, hold him, kiss him for who knows how long once he’s left for America.

“Sorry,” I apologize when we pull away. “I just-”

“I know,” he says. “It’s alright, you know I would never say no to you anyways,” he grins. Close the gap between us once more, his lips are more dominant now. His grip on my waist becomes tighter, moving me closer to him. He is sat on his knees on the floor, my ass still on the suitcase. My legs on either side of him as he slots himself between them.

// MASTERLIST // ANONLIST //

// SERIES // Intro // Part One // Part two // Part three // Part Four //

I'm open for serie title suggestions for this one! Feel free to comment your suggestion here or send it to my inbox!

#dreamteam x reader #dreamteam x you #dreamteam x y/n #dream x reader #dream x you #dream x y/n #sapnap x reader #sapnap x you #sapnap x y/n #George x reader #George x you #George x y/n #dreamteam smut #dreamteam spice #dream team #Nick x you #Nick x reader #Nick x y/n #Georgenotfound x reader #georgenotfound x you #georgenotfound x y/n #dreamwastaken x you #dreamwastaken x reader #dreamwastaken x y/n

[mostlymaudlin]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers 💫

thank you @decaflondonfog for the tag !! ill tag @sillyunicorn @starwarned @urban-sith @tea-brigade

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

98!! (woah) plus an unrevealed t&n fest fic, so 99. wow i need to do something rly crazy for 100 lol. what if i do a ridiculous crossover of all my fandoms and everyone in the fandom tags will hate me. 

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

544,914. (again. woagh)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

mostly all for the game and simon snow series, have dabbled in & posted even less for check please, captain america, and one direction! i feel like i’m missing something but regardless my fixations are hardcore, so all except like 4k of that posted wc is for either aftg or ss hahahha

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

all are andreil! boyfriend privileges (4k, T) / Trigger (62k, E) / flashes of intimacy (10k, t) / Would you still love me if I was a worm? (6k, T) / Inside Thoughts (1k,T)

man this is long, rest is going under the cut lol

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

not very often, but i wish i did. i am stricken with a combination of being really awkward when people are nice to me & being bad at interacting with anyone in ways i fear could be perceived as ingenuine. im not sure if that makes sense LMAO. and sometimes when i put a story out, i kind of feel like i’ve said my piece — i’ve put so much into it that i don’t really know what else to say!

anyway, i always reply to questions, because that’s got clear social boundaries hahaha, and i DO love talking abt my stories!! and sometimes i’ll reply to comments that really get me thinking. but yeah, i know i reply less than i could, and i want to like double down on the fact that i am endlessly grateful for everyone who has ever left a comment on my work <3

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i have killed simon snow twice lmfao. i’d actually classify icarus as rather hopeful — it’s about grief & healing. but legacies is just fucked up lmfao

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

oh man, i write a lot of happy endings haha. i feel like even when my story is tonally darker (rare), it still has a happy or at least hopeful ending. this is probably not the correct answer, but i think sing of the moon has a really vividly happy ending. like — the sun rises for the first time in the whole fic! amazing. or maybe my high school au, We Can Live Forever, which is just the happiest thing i’ve ever written. 

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not really, thankfully! people are smartasses sometimes but overall ive been lucky. there have been a couple of fics where ive winced before hitting post, but it usually ends up fine

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

yessss. i guess i mostly write tender smut, bc i write tender things in general. i think my smut tends to be rather exploratory/playful as well? intentionally sloppy and awkward choreography hahaha

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

sort of LOL. once upon a time i was betaing @tea-brigade's medieval snowbaz au, Reliquary of an Arsonist, and there’s this part where three highway bandits mug simon and baz and then get blasted by simon’s chosen one magic. i am sick in the head so im in the google doc like “lol what if its kandreil.” and then i was like… what if it was kandreil….. and so i wrote Reliquary of a Bandit

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don’t think so

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes!!! and i’m really thankful for everyone who has done so <3333 shoutout to russian aftg translators, yall go HARD

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i recently collaborated with @thewholelemon on our episode of Star Trek: Redemption, Heart-Shaped Box. by which i mean: i wrote the outline & a few scenes, got really overwhelmed, and jenny turned it into something worth reading! 

i also wrote Good Boy in the snowbaz stoner verse with @starwarned, which was rly fun — we sat in the google doc for like, 5 hours trading back and forth on POVs as we wrote pure porn together LOL. it’s funny to think about this, because lauren knows like everything abt me now but we did not know each other as well back then!!! and we were just like “yeah lets write porn together” hahahahha 

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

right now it is deeefinitely andreil… they are everything to me for reasons i just cannot possibly be brief about LOL so ill just leave it at that

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i have a postcanon snowbaz time travel/time loop wip that i was going to try to write for COBB this year but i fucked up the deadlines then the brainrot was like “guess that means more andreil !”. i did SO MUCH research for it and i think it’s rather clever and smutty and fun bc they are yeeted back to watford era! but it’s also dealing with snowbaz, who are in their late 20s and are like in a relationship low point/actively fighting when they end up in the loop… so they are dealing with that tension at the same time as they are trying to get out of the loop. and also fucking around watford to fulfill fantasies HAHAHA

16. What are your writing strengths?

characterization is the thing i care most about! and i think that’s the draw of fanfic in particular to me — i love getting such a grasp on a character that i can translate them into endless situations while still making them feel true to self. i rarely let myself publish anything until i can read through the whole thing without any he would not fucking say that moments hahahha. this is of course pertaining to my own interpretations of the characters, which is the only thing i care abt lmfao

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i rely a lot on body language because im always writing abt reticent fuckers who cant use their words. but i think i sometimes overcompensate, or describe actions that don't actually fit the scene. i've seen this described as "cheek-biting" -- like, throwing in action during a conversation just to delay the pacing/further the tone, but when you really look at it, it's not necessary. (cheek-biting being like, "character bites at their cheek" in the middle of a tense conversation)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

i don’t really know any other languages! i think i’ve put a little bit of french in neil/kevin/baz POVs before, but my french knowledge is elementary at best. love the idea of it though.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

one direction babyyyyyyyy !! i wrote quite a bit of it in like 2012-2015 but published very little. there’s 1 on my ao3, some lost somewhere on fanfiction.net (i dont rmr my username lol), and tons in my folders from my old laptop lol.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

hmmmmm. im gonna cheat bc i cant pick a single favorite. i always say i think No Turning Back is some of my best writing from a craft standpoint, and it also includes my favorite type of conflict (andrew self-destructing lol). however, i reread both that fic & We Can Live Forever on a plane trip recently after not having touched either for 6+ months — and the solidness of We Can Live Forever actually surprised me, especially because i wrote the majority of that fic while i was stoned and also view it as just exceedingly silly. the world of it is just very rich, and also very very different from the typical character backstories, and i’m very proud of how much that reread played with my heartstrings.  

ok last one — there are several installments of my flashes of intimacy series that i come back to a lot, because i’m proud of what they each accomplish in 500 words. especially because i often turn to those when im trying to express my own emotions lol. specifically, my favorites are picking fights, i don’t mind, swimming lessons, and practicing gratitude.

that was such a bullshit and cocky way to answer this lmfaooooo. but tbh i am my own biggest fan and that is by design — i write stuff so that i can reread it months later and have it be perfectly catered to my tastes. i love all my fics <3

#my writing

[greatprotector-if]

Hii, I want to make if game but I'm kinda slow writer. Also I have never written so many words like other authors and it's a bit paralyzing. Do you have any advice how to deal with it?

anon i am so sorry this is 100% just rambling. the TLDR; my advice to you is this: comparison is the thief of joy. i know it's hard not to compare yourself to others, it's a super natural instinct for most of us, but seriously, as long as you're doing the best that you can, it doesn't matter how much or how little everyone else is doing. try changing your scenery! write in a different location! write using different materials! don't even bother with proper grammar and punctuation or whether things sound good or make sense for your rough draft. just write. Don't go back and fix things. and it might suck and you might just end up having to rewrite the entire thing in the end but at least now you know what not to do! and i am wishing you the absolute best in all your if writing endeavours <3

i'm fr just a guy so i'm so sorry if this advice is shit. i'm not a professional. idk if you came to me just because you saw the "slow writer" in the intro post and you saw a kindred spirit, but just in case you are not aware.... i am such a slow writer and i'll be so honest when i started tgp by far the longest thing i'd written was 11k words and it took like... 10 months to finish. usually the stuff i wrote was 500 words in Total and i was also the type of fanfic writer on wattpad who'd post three chapters and then never touch the book ever again

so, not a great foundation for a game that requires this level of commitment, and i knew that!! but i dunno i was so excited about the idea and the characters and i felt like i needed to share it with the world so i just went fuck it and started. when i first got that intro post up i had nothing but a handful of characters, a vague idea and a dream.......

basically what i'm trying to say is. I get it.

and my advice to you is: just do it LOL just write your if game!!!

it will be scary and impostor syndrome is SUCH A BITCH. you will encounter authors who will write like 100k words in the time it takes you to write 5k and THAT IS OKAY. I FEEL THIS EVERY DAY. BUT YOUR WORTH IS NOT BASED ON HOW MANY WORDS YOU CAN WRITE IN AN HOUR, SO TRY YOUR BEST NOT TO BE TOO HARSH ON YOURSELF. COMPARISON IS THE THIEF OF JOY. if your best one day is 15 words and they aren't even good words? that's fine. at least you're getting something down. you are doing the best you can in that moment, and that's what's most important!!!

ALSO WRITE WHAT YOU WANT TO WRITE. you cannot appeal to everyone. there will be people who simply will not enjoy your game and you know.. we ball anyway because there will also be people who LOVE YOUR GAME JUST AS MUCH AS YOU DO, IF NOT MORE. i find that a lot of the time i'm stuck because i'm so worried about catering to my audience, and while it's okay to be conscious of these things, don't let it paralyze you. do not make your story about a bunch of bullshit you don't care about just because it's popular or something or you will just Never progress because you don't care about writing it. those days i shit out 1k (WHICH IS A LOT FOR ME IN ONE DAY) are because i'm like JUMPING OFF THE WALLS EXCITED ABOUT WHAT I'M WRITING ABOUT. WHO CARES IF WHAT YOU WANT TO WRITE ABOUT IS CRINGE (cringe culture is dead anyway) OR SUPER NICHE OR WON'T GET YOU A MILLION FOLLOWERS IMMEDIATELY. i mean don't get me wrong validation feels so good i'm a bit of an attention whore myself but also you deserve to create things that make you feel good, and this is what sustains a long-term project. You know? You feel me? You pickin up what i'm putting down? plus there will always be other people who vibe with your story, no matter how much you think you're the only one it appeals to.

but just in case you aren't just here for incoherent moral support, i would highly recommend straying away from plain old google docs or whatever it is that you usually use to write and trying new things! pen and paper??? pen and Cardboard box (this one works really well for me for my art block for some reason LMAO)??? write while sitting on the stairs instead of at your desk??? stimuwrite 2.0 (i cannot recommend this enough the bubble wrap sounds are sooo good)???

also. remember that rough drafts are just that: Rough Drafts. just write!!! maybe it'll turn out great, but maybe it'll be complete shit. maybe it'll make you want to throw up just reading it back. DON'T DELETE IT AND WORRY ABOUT HOW TO MAKE IT SOUND BETTER. I DONT CARE IF YOU ACCIDENTALLY USED THE WORD "JUST" 3 TIMES IN 1 SENTENCE. AS LONG AS YOU GOT THE MESSAGE ACROSS ENOUGH FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND IT YOU'RE GOOD TO GO.

ok sorry i am mildly sleep deprived at the time of writing this i'm so sorry if i literally just didn't answer any kf your questions at any point in here. i have no idea what i'm doing i just roll with the punches!!!!!!

#answered asks #anon #I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR IF GAME ANON #IT WILL BE AMAZING

[zhuhongs]

WAIT I WROTE A LONG ESSAY ABT GETTING OLDER AND GROWING AD A PERSON.. I JUST NEED TO PROOFREAD IT TO MAKE SURE IT MAKES SENSE BUT HOLD ON

#all i know is google docs and 1k plus words... #literally like i love wroting sooo much #i suck at it but the process of writing out ur feelings is so good.. sound of the summer.. highly recommend it #idk which astrological placement made me that way but i feel like its my virgo moon idl why just vibes

[ladykatie512]

hiatus update

so april 18th, huh? it’d be a shame if i didn’t capitalize on this opportunity and start posting and saints again… okay, but in all seriousness that’s exactly what i’m planning on doing. i’m doing a lot better mentally, but these last few months have been an emotional rollercoaster. seriously, i can’t thank all of you enough who reached out.

updates from my last hiatus message: my personal laptop is still whacked but i’ve been getting a ton of mileage out of my work laptop and google docs. that modern au johnny/v fic i mentioned? yeah, it’s a full-blown smutty romance novel sitting at 142k right now and i’d hesitantly say it’s about 85% complete. apparently i’m also planning on posting it because of some lovely people i med on discord. i’ve also already started working on a cyberpunk space heist-type fic thing? I don’t wanna say too much because i think i’m gonna use that idea as my 2022 cyberpunk big bang fic, whenever that happens (because i’m insane and i’m not writing enough already. it’s like thanksgiving; i just keep piling things onto my paper plate hoping it won’t buckle).

i still haven’t touched my vaas fic (i know, i’m horrible), even after the dlc content came out. i loved it, btw. it was everything i could have hoped for and more. that hotel– just– ugh. it was just bad timing on my part, but also november was nanowrimo. i still can’t get over the fact that i sustained writing at least 1k a day from october 30th to december 18th (spiderman came out and i only ended up writing 500ish words that day).

as for the update i know a good portion of you all are reading this for: and saints. okay, here’s the thing, i didn’t start february thinking that bcs season 6 would be out in two months. and, hey, if i was smart and responsible, i would have pulled up and saints sooner and started tinkering with it last month when we got an official release date. yeah, no, i’m not smart. it took the swift kick in the head that was the season 6 trailer dropping and all of you coming out of the woodwork asking how things were and if i had seen the trailer or if i planned on updating and saints for season six– like, yes. yes to all of that. here’s my game plan, okay? i’m splitting chapter 39 into two chapters with three scenes each. so those two plus the next three are all around the same length outline-wise and should end up being around 5-7k words each. for those five chapters, i have collectively already written 23k words. at most, that’s only another 12k i have to write (that’s not even two weeks of writing, compared to what i had been doing. i can do this). i want all five chapters done before i start posting, because i want to do it weekly again (maybe sundays because bcs is supposed to air mondays?). i just can’t give exact dates right now because i cannot post a specific chapter on or around a specific day in april because– i can’t even say without spoiling anything. i’ll start posting again some time in april, okay? after the 5 chapters are written out i’ll see how i feel about the remaining nine (is my math right? 52 total chapters). I mean how awesome would it be if i finished and saints when the show ends, right? lol, no promises though.

below the cut, i have a hard to be a god chapter (we’re skipping a few but it’s a good stand-alone) because i literally have nothing else completed that wouldn’t be spoilery af. enjoy some jealous nacho, and take care of yourselves❤. the world is crazy right now.

TL;DR:  i’m still a sad bitch, my laptop is still dead, i wrote 142k words for a modern au cyberpunk fic (like, why, though? who needs that?!), i will start posting and saints again sometime in april, check out a nacho pov scene below the cut.

“Shit, man. Tito wasn’t kidding when he said you did clean work,” Travis looked up at Nacho from where he was leaning over, his head stuck through the front window of the Javelin.

“You like it?” Nacho asked, standing near the wheel well with his arms crossed over his work shirt.

“She looks great, better than new. Thank you,” Travis stood back up and went to shake Nacho’s hand. He couldn’t help but think of the compliment Jade had given him the night previous instead.**

“So, uh,” Nacho cleared his throat as he withdrew his hand from Travis’. “Are you still planning on selling her?”

“Now that I’m seeing her done, I’ll have to think it over— Why?” Travis tore his eyes off the muscle car to give Nacho a sly look. “You thinkin’ about buying?”

“You know,” Nacho scratched at the back of his neck, “my girlfriend really loves your car.”

Travis laughed before he nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I’d say.”

“Her birthday’s coming up in February, and honestly, this is the only thing I think she’s truly wanted since I’ve met her.”

“You’re gonna buy her a seventies muscle car for her birthday? Man, that’s gotta be some kind of love,” Travis chuckled before looking across the lot towards the front office. Nacho could practically feel Jade’s eyes on his back and was surprised she hadn’t run outside yet to say goodbye to the vehicle.

“It’s some kind of love,” Nacho repeated with a sigh, his eyes scanning the bright red body of the Javelin.

“Tell you what,” Travis tapped Nacho’s bicep with the back of his knuckles. “I’ll wait a week or two before I put her up for sale. Give you some time to think it over?”

Nacho contemplated the offer for a few seconds. He knew how outrageous it was to even think about buying a nineteen seventy-three AMC Javelin for his soon-to-be twenty-year-old girlfriend. Not even that, but he could only imagine how badly her parents would flip out. “Yeah, okay. I’ll call you when I decide?”

“Sounds good. Say, where is your lady anyway? I thought she’d be all over the car when I picked it up?” Travis asked and looked back towards the office.

“Uh, I think she’s upset,” Nacho shrugged and looked over for himself. The reflection of the cloudy sky on the windows didn’t allow them to see inside the shop.

“Huh, guess so,” Travis sighed, and Nacho looked back at him. If he wasn't mistaken, Travis looked a little disappointed.

“She’d probably come out if you offered her a ride,” Nacho added, despite the twinge of jealousy he felt starting to evolve into something messier, and Travis smiled at him. “Not saying you have to, but she’s been bugging me nonstop for one for almost a week.”

“And you were able to tell her no?”

“Had to, didn’t have a say. You do, though,” Nacho suggested again, trying to get Travis to agree, if only to make Jade happy.

“I’d love to, but, no offense, you don’t seem like the kinda guy to let his girl drive off with another man,” Travis argued. He was correct, and Nacho realized he must have accidentally intimidated the man and dropped his arms to his sides.

“It’s a special circumstance. Maybe if she gets a ride, she’ll get her fill, and I won’t have to dig myself such a financially steep hole,” Nacho tried smiling at the man. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from having a fit of sickly nervous jealousy.

“Maybe,” Travis nodded. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Besides, if she doesn’t come back, I’m not doing something right,” Nacho added in jest, but it only added to the tangle of anxiety and jealousy growing in his gut.

“Cool, man. I’ll go find her. I’ll bring her back in one piece, I swear,” Travis smiled widely at him before turning and heading for the office. Nacho only managed to nod again before he crossed his arms once more over his chest. After a few moments of waiting outside, Nacho wondered if Jade wasn’t in the front at all. Maybe she’d hidden away in the workshop or the storeroom.

Just as the thought crossed his mind that he should go find her for Travis, she burst through the front door.

“Are you serious?” Jade asked him as she did her best to run over in her heels. To Nacho, she looked like a wobbling newborn deer, and he tried to smile at the thought.

“Am I serious—?” Nacho barely got out before Jade’s arms were flung around his neck and her lips crashed into his. Nacho held onto her waist and did his best not to stumble backward from the force of Jade’s enthusiasm. He could taste the strawberry lip gloss Jade had been wearing and felt his heart stutter (a reaction no makeup product had ever given him before).

“You asked Travis to give me a ride? I can go?”

“Yeah,” he answered both of her questions with a single word, and Jade let go of him, stepping out of his reach. Suddenly, with a quiet squeal and her bottom lip between her teeth, her full attention was on the vehicle and Travis.

“Travis, let’s go! Where are we going?” She was already in the passenger seat as Travis reached the driver’s side door.

“I’ll bring her back, I promise,” Travis winked at him before he got into the driver’s seat and immediately started up the loud engine. The gesture made Nacho’s hands tighten into fists. He watched them drive off the lot before he forced himself to turn back for the upholstery shop. He knew he was overreacting, especially when he licked the remnants of Jade’s lip gloss off his lips, which only added to the black knot in his stomach. Even so, Nacho couldn’t help but replay that night over the summer when he’d dropped Corey and Joel off at their apartments. Nacho witnessed how quickly Jade had kissed her ex before jumping into his van, hoping for a quick escape. He couldn’t help but feel he wasn’t far off from boring Jade to that same point where she couldn’t stand to be around him any longer. Their two months of nearly steady dating felt like a miracle in itself.

“Ay, Nacho,” he was suddenly pulled from his thoughts by Sal’s voice. “You okay, ese?”

Nacho only then realized that he’d stopped walking and had been staring at the half-open garage door, lost in his thoughts for an unknown amount of time. Sal was sitting outside on a crate, halfway through a cigarette break. He didn’t remember seeing Sal outside when he had turned around to walk into the shop.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“She’s coming back,” Sal added between puffs of his cigarette. “At the end of the day, it’s only a car, y’know?”

“Right.”

#Nacho Varga #nacho/OC #nachosverde #fanfic #better call saul #bcs season 6 #and saints #michael mando #vaas montenegro #johnny/v #text post #i thought this would be a quick update and i wrote a novel instead #im sorry

[rosiehunterwolf]

hey random question but what's that app/website you use that is an alternative to Grammarly? i think you mentioned it like once

Sure thing! It’s called ProWritingAid. They actually have an add-on in google docs, so if you use google docs to write like do, you can go to the add-on tab and download it right into your system from there, which then will allow you to be able to scan your document directly inside docs! Pretty sure the application works offline too, so it’s nice.

And if you don’t use docs, they have an online website too that you can use. I’ve never used it, but I’m sure it’s nice.

There is a premium version, but the free one seems pretty nice too. I’ve only ever used the free one and it serves my purposes decently well. I have heard that the free website version can only scan like 1k words at a time, though, so be wary of that. (The docs extension doesn’t have that limit, but sometimes it takes a while to scan).

It’s not perfect- there are a decent amount of the suggestions I just ignore (as this is creative fiction, after all, and sometimes we take liberties from ‘grammatically correct English’ to add more flavor and emotion to our pieces)- but overall I find it way more useful than Grammarly. Grammarly isn’t BAD, but it isn’t great either (at least not the free version.) ProWritingAid goes more in depth on things I deem more important, such as passive voice, weak verbs, and wordiness. Plus, Grammarly is sometimes just plain WRONG. I know quite a lot about grammar (I just use this as a safety net), and some of the suggestions Grammarly gives me I KNOW aren’t true. (Especially when it comes to one word or two, Grammarly seems to especially struggle with that). I mainly use Grammarly for spelling, tbh. But for actual logistics, ProWritingAid will be your friend!

#thanks for the ask anon! #asks #anon #writer things #grammar #writing help #not sponsored lol #just like it

[clumsyclifford]

bella I would love a directors cut on literally any of the rilex you’ve written, but specifically it’s always her, and you, and me, or for these days you’ve been stuck in my brain 💙

OHHHHHH those are some CHOICESSSSSS lucy. fuck yeah. let’s get into it. ill link them both here but we’ll take em one at a time

it’s always her, and me, you

these days you’ve been stuck in my brain

here’s a cut for convenience cos i KNOW i’m gonna go long here.

okay! let’s start with the rilisex fic.

it’s always her, and me, and you

so like it says in the ao3 notes, this fic came from realizing just how frequently rian and alex kiss each other like, all the time? just? casually? for funsies? this was another one of those situations like i mentioned where the hook aka first line (“Rian's no expert, but he doesn't think normal friends kiss this much.”) just appeared in my head and i was like heyyy that’s a GOOD first line. i have to build from that line. that’s the hook, that’s the summary, that’s the core. 

something i discovered upon searching through the editing history of the doc: i had originally sort of intended to go a direction with this where in some other circumstance, rian would see alex giving jack a super casual friendly kiss and he’d get all sad/jealous and be like sure why SHOULDNT alex kiss jack after all its just a thing he does with his FRIENDS. but the fic ended up going a different way and honestly? im glad. i like this way better.

the role of singin in the rain in this fic actually has a HILARIOUS backstory because the night i originally wrote that conversation in the tour bus kitchen, i went into the club and said the following

and then. the next day. rian streamed with ricky, and i asked if he’d ever seen singin in the rain, and he ANSWERED ME and said he hadn’t. so first of all i had already written the scene and i then had to rewrite it to make it so rian wouldn’t have seen it but also!!! i literally asked rian fucking dawson if he’d seen a movie for the sole reason of using that information for fanfiction!!!! and he provided me with the information i needed!!!! whole thing is just fucking hysterical to me. ANYWAY.

ANYWAY, the other reason why sitr has such a big role in the fic is because megs and i watched the movie together while i was in the middle of working on the fic, so it was extremely fresh in my mind. in fact i can probably show you this: i had this comment left for myself when i was kind of trying to figure out if i could make a real metaphor of sorts with the sitr ot3 and the Big Three of this fic. some of this ended up in rian’s wild musings in the hotel scene but i did conclude that it wouldn’t really have worked and that was definitely true but anyway. fuck it, director’s cut, here’s the kind of shit i leave for myself to refer to

so that’s part of the reason why it became such a puzzle piece of this fic, but real talk, it’s also just because i love singin in the rain it’s one of my favorite movies lmao

briefly gonna also touch on lisa and why she’s in this fic because i realize that rian/alex/lisa is an interesting approach to rilex! first of all, i love lisa. i love alex and lisa. and it occurred to me that there was really no reason to split lisex up just to make rilex happen. plus there’s this tweet that really just pushed me over the edge of being like yeah, rilisex is extremely plausible. so that’s that on that.

as for the scene in the hotel room while they’re watching sitr, there is a small piece of that scene - from when alex starts kissing rian’s shoulders etc to “it would defy the laws of nature not to” - that i actually wrote before anything else in that scene. that small piece got stretched out and edited quite a bit from how it started but it did function as a sort of foundation around which i built the rest of the scene, because that small section sort of ~came to me~ absolutely out of nowhere, and i really liked the Vibe it had and i wanted to include it. i THINK that was the only piece of this fic that i wrote Out Of Order - for the most part this was written chronologically.

ALSO!!! omg this is exciting, this fic actually has a deleted scene!!!!!! i hate cutting scenes but i also hate having scenes that are less than 1k and this one didn’t really contribute much to the fic. i can probably share it here right? sure why not ! hopefully you can read this. it originally took place after the scene where alex and rian call lisa for the first time. the question of “what gets left into interview videos and what gets cut” is also just interesting to me as a (fic) concept in general so...eyes emoji, but here’s my mini-exploration that i cut from the original fic. enjoy lol it’s silly <3

oh! also one more thing!! the very final scene was included for two reasons. the first reason being that when i write getting-together fics, i really prefer to add on a scene After they Get Together because i love to write domestic established relationship stuff and i think that’s a satisfying reward for a reader who’s just slogged through all the mutual pining and bullshit to get the characters together. but the OTHER reason is that i got an anon (here it is!) and i read that ask and was immediately like well shit. now i have to fucking include this. for the anon and for myself. so you can thank that anon for that last scene. (also i wanted to include merrikat especially since i had to cut their little moment in the interview scene above.)

so....................whew. i think i’ve bled that fic dry. holy shit that’s a lot of Stuff. OKAY! let’s move on.

~

these days you’ve been stuck in my brain

so!!! THIS fic was the breakthrough after (what felt like) a long bout of writer’s block. long for me was maybe two weeks, but i am the kind of person who is always writing, and two weeks was a long time to go with little to no inspiration/motivation to write anything. i had also been in a weird narrative headspace because i’d been binge-watching disney shows (jessie > austin and ally > girl meets world) and i don’t know how well i can explain this but the way those shows are written is a lot snappier and cares way less for realistic and consistent character development or plots or relationships, and so i was stuck between caring a lot about including those things in my fics but also being unable to conceptualize them in writing because my brain was in Disney Writing Mode. does that make sense? this is rhetorical so let’s go with yes. so anyway. i was in a slump

actually what i ended up doing was basically googling something like “au prompts tumblr” or something and just scrolling through posts. i saw something about soulmate telepathy and i actually tried to write something totally different before i wrote this one, but the first attempt was a different concept and then the direction i took it was like......it wasn’t quite right and i realized that i was kind of writing dark disney style? there is really no way for me to explain what i mean by that because it seems really obvious to me but that’s just because i’m inside my own head so just take my word. 

anyway. attempt #1 of soulmate telepathy rilex went poorly, and this fic was attempt #2. i kinda took the soulmate telepathy thing and changed it as i saw fit and i also went back to skim helen’s telepathy fic because obviously she’s the pro and then i tried not to steal her ideas. and as i was writing it i kinda realized i was doing the whole quirky funny best friend character with jack and also doing the whole “somehow this not-very-dramatic situation with teenagers is treated as The Most Dramatic Thing Ever and that’s totally normal and nobody finds it strange” disney trope with rian and alex being soulmates and i was like (deep sigh) i have to accept that no matter how much i try to fight this, this fic is going to be tainted with disney. and that’s life

on top of that i will add that the real-life rilex were extremely inspiring during the two-day period during which i wrote this fic, because that was when the once in a lifetime video came out and in the brief pre-video livestream rilex were Beyond Married and that definitely helped in the writing of fic rilex!

hmmmm what can i tell you about this fic itself.................honestly, i don’t think there’s much to tell! rian is a band kid because in real life rian was a band kid and he’s staff manager at rita’s just like he was in real life. there is truthfully not a lot to unpack here that i can think of!

oh here’s something i guess: rian and alex go on a date in this fic! that is because watching So Much Disney made me realize that i often forget the fact that people just. go on dates. sometimes. look i clearly do not have an active romantic life but i also really liked the idea of alex and rian going on a date despite not knowing if they’d be soulmates or not and liking each other organically just by getting to know each other, rather than being victim to the whole soulmate thing. like i wanted them to build a connection so that they would want to be soulmates. and then the audience would want that for them too. stakes!! very important.

i can tell you i had a mild crisis over the title of the fic because i am not a fan of the word brain and i didnt wanna use that sticky lyric for the title when it had a word i hated but it was objectively a much better title option than the other one i had, which was “sticky just like the song in my head” but i obviously decided on the former and it has not upset me nearly as much as i expected it to so that was the right decision imo

so! i think that’s all on that! sorry (?) that it got so long although then again i don’t know what’s to be expected in a director’s cut for two long fics but thank you for asking me about these, i love them both so very much rilex is so supremely underrated but so very important

#cashtonasfuck #ask #answered #this is a whole ass multimedia fucking presentation #you asked for the director's cut but like i sure as hell didnt hold back dflkhggj #in fairness you picked two longer fics #though most of my rilex fics are longer ones which is strange #but like good for them #director's cut #this was really fun #thank you lucyyy <3 #these were the good right choices for rilex fics to dissect because the other ones are either shorter or rilex is a background pairing #or like . just aint that deep #i stole the plot of something unpredictable from that other fic by that other person #so ya know #the fact that this response contains an entire deleted scene in a screenshot #this is a lot lmfao

[escapekissed]

HELLO ALL. sorry i’m sparse. my real life is very stressful rn and the real world is terrifying.

HOWEVER. i want to do what i can for minnesota and the black lives matter movement. as such, i will be doing a sort of comission-style, ‘request what you want from me with proof that you have donated at least $5 to @BlackVisionsMN  @reclaimtheblock OR https://gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd and i will do it no questions asked!

here are some of the things i can provide:

-resume editting for $5 donations (with information provided abt ur experience and the job u are applying for, i can do more than edit)

-google doc & google sheet interest checker templates or customization for ur particular blog ($5 for just one, $10 for both, let me know if u want something specific, i will match the color scheme to ur blog’s aesthetic)

-icon sets of 15 per donation (plus icon psd base that u can edit however u want) (with base icons provided $5, with screencaps provided, $10, with nothing provided $15)

example of how fancy i can get, but literally just tell me what u want and i can Provide a decent approximation:

-fanfiction ($5 for 1k words, $10 for more, no nsfw)

-academic essays ($5 per paper, but you have to provide me the sources u want me to use)

everyone should try to donate even if they don’t want anything from me!!! this is just added incentive

#ooc: comissions #i encourage any nonblack people to also try using the tools at their disposal to incentivize people to donate as well!

[wingedashley]

The Princess & The Treasure Hunter

So. I’ve spent the last year playing in an Exalted campaign run by @winterwombat. My character (Tepet Sonorous Windsong) spent half of it in a will-they-or-won’t-they unresolved sexual tension fest with her circlemate Captain Juliet Harrow (played by the esteemed @myrastuff).

Well, that unresolved sexual tension has been conclusively resolved. Will they or won’t they? They will. They did. Oh yes.

To celebrate, I decided to try and build an annotated chronology of our campaign, as it relates to these two nerds and all the intersession RPs Myra and I wrote together. For those who’ve either been tracking us from the start or want to jump straight to the kisses, here’s where it happens:

Harrow/Windsong IV - Joyride (8k words)

For everyone else, here we go!

All artwork is courtesy of @myrastuff, and I highly recommend searching through her “Juliet Harrow” tag sometime. Each google doc RP alternates between sections written by Myra (Harrow’s) and sections written by me (Windsong’s). The Rest sequences are pretty optional, and don’t need to be read to keep track of the rest of the story.

Act 1

A Circle of Solars are brought together by an ancient pact made by their past incarnations, summoning them from across Creation to the West, soon after their Second Breaths.

Circle descriptions can be found here.

They’re quickly dragged into a desperate attempt to stop a Fae Queen from releasing a behemoth upon the Wavecrest archipelago, while simultaneously fighting a guerilla resistance against a sudden Realm occupation.

Much adventuring is had, as the party gets to know each other. Captain Harrow quickly takes on the role of the de facto “team leader”, drafting the other three Solars into joining her crew on her ship. Windsong spends less time bonding and more time reeling from the fresh facts that her parents left her to die, she’s now an anathema, and the Realm are the baddies.

It all comes to a head in a dramatic naval showdown with the leader of the occupation, Peleps Erena. On the eve of the final battle, Harrow attempts to turn the Queen from an enemy into an asset through the ultimate gambit: offering the Raksha a spot on her crew, and offering herself as a paramour.

It works perfectly.

One tiny problem. This gambit was as much a surprise to the rest of the party as it was to Eyasha (the Fae). And this was also the exact moment that Windsong realized that she had a huge crush on her dashing Captain, before proceeding to promptly have her first Limit Break over it.

Act 2

A month has passed since the battle for Wavecrest. The Circle have taken some well earned R&R time off together. Well, almost: Windsong has been extra broody and distant, and spent most of it burying herself in work and avoiding Harrow. Nika and Sil can see this trainwreck coming from a mile away.

They’re suddenly dragged back into action thanks to a series of unfortunate events, culminating in an ambush by a fully prepared Wyld Hunt party.

The fight is an absolute clusterfuck.

Windsong falls asleep by her captain’s bedside (it’ll be the last time she sleeps for months, kept awake in an endless workaholic fever thanks a few charms and a ton of new nightmares). When she wakes up, she decides she can’t hide her feelings any longer. Leading to the first written segment…

Harrow/Windsong I - Confession (4.5k words)

The Circle now know what they’re fighting for: the remnants of a First Age seabound empire built by their former incarnations. The Boundless Fleet. Three gargantuan superships still exist to be fought over, and they’re in a race with Peleps Erena to see who can reach them first:

The Archive, a priceless library.

Nef Lukai, The Floating City, a ship the size of a small country. Has its own factory cathedral.

The Immortal, the ultimate warship. Practically a superweapon.

They head West, seeking out the Archive. To get to it, they have to fight through the Guild. On the plus side there’s at least one familiar face to help them: Jacintha, the leader of an ex-slave guerilla resistance movement that the party clashed with in Act 1. Harrow kind of hated her and her fellow “Bloodless”, but Windsong got along with her swimmingly.

Did I mention fighting through the Guild? Well part of that involved fighting through the Guild’s terrifying pair of Lunar enforcers: Anastasia Ember (a seductive duelist) and Heartless Sona (a vicious gunslinger).

Vicious enough to cripple Windsong for life. Windsong’s left arm is vaporized after a desperate attempt to shield a circlemate from a lethal attack.

The Act concluded on a climactic naval / ground battle with the Guild in and around the Archive itself. It’s a Pyrrhic victory. They freed the Archive and even broke the Guild’s back over it, leaving Harrow’s growing trade fleet as the strongest economic power in the West. But Windsong was already mutilated and they lost Jacintha. She died and returned as an Abyssal only long enough to drag half the combatants permanently into the underworld with her. Windsong Breaks again.

The Circle prepare for a long journey up North, to stop Peleps Erena from taking Nef Lukai. Windsong, however, has had enough. Jacintha left her soldiers orders to obey Windsong if she died, and she resigns from Harrow’s crew to take command of the reeling Bloodless.

But before she leaves on a journey to unite her new forces, Harrow has a gift for her…

Harrow/Windsong II - Artifact (8k words)

Act 3

Nef Lukai has a problem. It spent a long while in the pits of Hell after the Usurpation, and only returned to Creation fairly recently. The upshot of this is that it’s absolutely crawling with demons. On the bright side, it means that Peleps Erena can’t just waltz in; she has to bring an army and siege the city.

A month has passed since the fight for the Archive, and Harrow’s ragtag fleet has (more or less) just arrived. Before they can get their bearings on how to approach the City, they’re suddenly caught in a vicious crossfire between the Peleps Navy and Hell’s. They’re forced to escape deeper North, landing on an abandoned island to recuperate and consolidate.

Complicating matters, Windsong’s back. And she brought friends.

A local Bloodless cell mounted a botched attack on a fleet of slave ships. Windsong arrived a little too late to do much more than mitigate the catastrophe: they successfully freed the ships, but they didn’t have the supplies to drop off the newly freed prisoners anywhere in sight. She decided to bring the ships along with her to her rendezvous with Harrow’s fleet, hoping they could render assistance. And they got marooned on the aforementioned island just like everyone else, except with literally nowhere else to go.

Before they knew it, the Circle started a settlement. The island had an abandoned village and temple on it already, which Harrow quickly refurbished. Over the course of a month, they played the long game, spying on Erena’s siege while opening diplomatic channels with the local Realm-occupied nation.

But before they could all play house, Harrow had to say goodbye to a controversial special someone. Eyasha had spent the last Act growing steadily disillusioned with her Fae nature, and asked Harrow to help end it…

Harrow/Eyasha Rest - Eyasha’s Farewell (5k words)

(Note: This segment was written using Myra’s indie RPG “Rest”. Because in addition to being a great roleplayer, webcomic author, all around craftsperson and fantastic artist… she also writes RPGs. Talk about intimidating.

Rest is a micro RPG system for dream sequences, built to interlock into other RPGs. @winterwombat wrote the somewhat-homebrewed sequence in its entirety and Myra played it through, page by page.)

On a happier note, Windsong also got to spend the course of the month getting used to her new arm!

Harrow had spent the month-long timeskip between Acts 2 and 3 building the Mercy Unconquered. Windsong had it grafted onto her left shoulder in the middle of the Hell/Realm naval crossfire, and used it to great effect to defend Harrow’s ship from Wyld Hunt boarders. The surgery was a bit more rushed than either of them would’ve liked, and Harrow decides to take a moment to make sure everything is okay…

Harrow/Windsong III - Checkup (7k words)

The party learn that Erena is on the precipice of an all-out assault on the demon city, one that’s gonna work thanks to the introduction of goddamn warstriders. They hatch a crazy plan to simultaneously sneak their fleet into the city via an intake port into the Canals district, before capturing and securing the sector before the demons can react.

Problem: they sure as hell can’t defend a beachhead in a demon-infested city, while also managing a new settlement and protecting the Hrimval (the aforementioned local nation). So they concoct a plan that’s just breathtakingly stupid enough to work: put all their eggs in one basket by evacuating both the Hrimval and their settlement into Nef Lukai with them. Nef Lukai is huge, each of its five districts being incredibly easy to fortify and the size of a bloody city.

Somehow, this works. They sneak a strike team into the central manse, and defend Nika long enough from demonic horde mode for her to take over and flood the entire district. They secure victory after killing a giant enemy crab (I wish I was joking, it had a keep full of demons on its back) with the help of a mysterious archer. Mysterious sidereal archer vanishes right after the fight, but not before everyone gets a good look at her:

Windsong’s younger sister, Saerie. The one she sacrificed herself for in the first place. That night, for the first time in a long while, Windsong actually falls asleep.

Windsong Rest - The Gilded City (1k words)

(Myra wanted me to playtest Rest prior to publishing it, and wrote me this sequence to play through.)

Windsong’s Bloodless and the Hrimval work together to build a new home in Nef Lukai. Peleps Erena captured the Academy District with her assault, and the Demon Queen of the city called a ceasefire. Said queen throws a lavish party in the central spire, and everyone is invited.

The Circle show up and settle down for a long night of politicking and gunboat diplomacy. On the bright side, they’re joined by two new allies: Anastasia Ember (seductive Guild duelist from Arc 2, now looking for work and FWB status with Windsong) and Auriana (Eyasha’s solar-powered Fae-ish reincarnation!).

On the less bright side:

Windsong tries to befriend the Wyld Hunt monks, and is utterly dismantled by them for being the naive, stinking traitor she is. How innocent is she really when mortals flock to her banner to die for her causes anyway?

Phaedra, the Demon Queen, is an Infernal. One with complete free will, who rejected her demonic masters and set out to conquer the world into a better place. She’s a perfect counterpoint to Harrow, a warmongering corrupted Solar with ominously familiar goals of world domination and affable charisma.

Harrow’s finally met her match, and has her first Limit Break over her building self doubt.

Nonetheless, they persevere. Windsong sorts her shit out and figures out where her loyalties lie (hint hint, with a certain Solar admiral). Harrow pulls herself out of her fugue too, with Windsong fussing over her every step of the way.

Some skullduggery and clandestine adventuring ensue, culminating in a vicious blitzkrieg by the Realm. They burned a path through the Gardens district, besieging the Canals with warstrider support. Windsong and Sil defend the walls, barely, scraping together a victory thanks to a 11th hour superweapon piloted by Harrow: The Ascendant Justice. Nika and Harrow had managed to capture and consecrate the Cathedral District, giving her access to the personal warstrider of Windsong’s former incarnation.

After the dust has settled, a lot of people are dead. Phaedra shows up to announce her official alliance with Peleps Erena, along with a formal declaration of war in 4 days.

Things are looking grim, but grim is the Circle’s specialty.

A few days into their preparations for the Battle of Nef Lukai, Windsong seeks out Harrow in a quiet moment…

Harrow/Windsong IV - Joyride (8k words)

Afterword

And here we are. It’s been one heck of a journey, and I’ve skipped and skimmed over so much of this campaign (an entire half of the Circle and a ton of supporting characters). Shoutout to @winterwombat again for keeping this carnival going.

I remember throwing in the “Windsong has a crush on Harrow” development on a lark in Act 1, and @myrastuff really ran with it. It’s been almost a year and it’s so very cathartic to see it finally come together. This isn’t the end of their story either, and I can’t wait to see how they develop over the Arcs to come.

Fun fact, I created my tumblr account in the first place just to take part in the tumblr Exalted community. You’re all wonderful, and it’s been a wild ride. ^_^

#exalted #age of sorrows #ex3 #exalted 3e #end of all oceans #sonorous windsong #juliet harrow #harrowsong

[michaelandy101-blog]

Blog Topics: How to find Your Sweet Spot (Even in a Boring Niche)

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/blog-topics-how-to-find-your-sweet-spot-even-in-a-boring-niche-2/

Blog Topics: How to find Your Sweet Spot (Even in a Boring Niche)

I hate to tell you, but Googling “blog topic ideas” is not going to give you the content you should be creating.

Not all content is created equal. Letting the internet tell you what to blog about leads to mediocrity. Mediocrity is fine in some cases, like forcing yourself to show up at the gym at 5:00 p.m. when you’d much rather call it a day. But if you’re going to try and stand out in the very crowded search results page, you won’t stand a chance.

The reality is, it’s hard

The web is overrun with companies that have bigger budgets than you and can churn out content every day. Meanwhile, you’re lucky to get a blog post out once a month. Where you put your time can make or break your digital efforts. How do you compete? What content will grow your traffic month after month and year after year?

If you’re going to put your time into creating and promoting a blog post, and hope to get results, you owe it to yourself to figure out what you’re best suited to blog about.

Forget the 50 handy tools and blog topic lists

The internet will say: “Just research topics using these 50 handy tools and you’ll get a ton of ideas!” That’s cancelled. Slogging away with topics every week for three-plus years taught me that this advice — though well-intentioned — quickly wears thin. Especially if your topic or industry is niche.

So here’s what I would recommend instead:

Figure out what your people care about

Find where the magic happens

Keyword research your topics

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Execute

And that’s what we’ll cover. It may take a little more time, but it will give you ideas and direction you can use for months.

Figure out your people

The best way to find blog topic ideas is to look at your audience. What are their pain points, concerns, and obsessions when it comes to your products? Easier said than done sometimes, but chances are you already have at least an inkling on why they choose you. So start there and backtrack.

If you’re lucky, you’ll have some research or set personas to use. If you aren’t, make do. The point isn’t to get hung up on idealizing your audience, or nailing down that brand of tofu sausage they like. The point is to nail down their pain points and desires and move on.

Think about your best customers: How are you helping them live their best life? What are you helping them solve? What frustrates them about your line of services? When do they realize they need someone like you?

Take the time to understand the people that currently buy from you. So you can find more of them. In some cases, finding your audience is easy. In other instances, your audience is really diverse, or you just want what your neighbor’s having. Getting the perfect audience persona isn’t super important. Just get a good enough portrait, and move on.

Find where the magic happens

I barely passed math in college but one thing I did get was Venn diagrams. Two circles, and the magic is where they intersect, cool.

When mulling over what to blog about, I use this type of diagram to decide what I am best positioned to talk about. On the left would be the audience interests and concerns that you figured out in the previous step. On the right, your expertise. In the middle, you get a set of themes that you can specialize in. This doubles as the position you can take in your customer’s world. If you can pinpoint a mix of exciting, aspirational, and realistic themes here, that’s best.

It’s one thing to know what your audience likes. But chase that, and you’re competing with Medium or Buzzfeed.

It’s another to know what you’re good at talking about. But chase that, and you’re talking to yourself.

The magic is finding the spot where your audience’s interests and yours intersect.

During a recent workshop, a woman asked me, “I’m a photographer, and the people who like to work with me are outdoorsy — so are you saying I should create a blog post on hikes in the area?”

No.

Don’t do that.

There are a lot of websites out there that are way more invested in writing about hikes than you, and chances are they have more authority in that topic.

My reply to her: “How about creating content around the most photographable hikes in the area? You can create one blog post for Instagram, another for portraits, and even another one for engagement photos!”

The point is not to create content just because people care about X, Y, or Z. Ask yourself what you are best equipped to talk about, and how that intersects with your audience’s interests. The more specific, and more unique to you and your audience, the better.

Keyword research your topics

Once you know your sweet spot, think about general topics and plug those into a doc or spreadsheet. Then pull those ideas into your favorite keyword research tool. I generally start with a list that has one root word, and export out different keyword ideas using a few tools. As I get more ideas, I plug those in, export, and build a small but healthy list to work with.

There are a couple of tools worth investing in to get this information (and some free options, too). Because I believe in a simplified approach to tools, I recommend:

A keyword research tool like Moz, SEMrush, or Keywordtool.io

A content research tool like Answer the Public, or Buzzsumo

A bonus tool like Ubersuggest or good old “People Also Ask”

Rank your bounty by monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, and social interest. Then, cherry pick the topics you want to tackle for the quarter.

Don’t be disheartened if your key terms are competitive. It’s the 2020s — anything worth anything is competitive. The goal is to start creating content that will pay off over time, while you grow your domain authority.

Word of caution: the topics you pick should be in your sweet spot and help your readers live their best life.

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Once you’ve defined the themes that can anchor your content efforts, use these four categories to help you pick topics within those areas. I like to think of this approach as a pyramid where you cover all the obvious “duh” questions before moving on to the sexy stuff.

Think about topics that would apply in each of these four sections, starting with the largest, general foundation category.

Evergreen content relates directly to the product or industry. These are the questions people ask day in and day out. At face value, the keywords may seem like small fish — i.e., they only get 800 to 1K monthly searches. But if they are aligned with your topic, then you very much want to answer these questions. If you don’t, someone else will. Ultimately, the goal of content is to bring in website visitors who are researching your product or service.

Original research answers a question or provides insight for an area closely tied to what you do. It’s premium content (long form blog posts, supporting guest posts) that takes more resources to create than a typical blog post, but helps build domain authority. This content hopefully helps you get links from reputable sources and is also fun to work in.

Trends and timely content are blog posts that aim to generate buzz, capture attention, and may aid in link building, but tend to be short-lived. These are topics that are in your sweet spot and hot right now. Jump on these seasonally.

Lifestyle content is blog content on topics that relate to company values and will connect with readers. Yes, it’s nice to show the human side of your business, because people buy from people they like. But I’d rather have a post that answers my questions over a post showing me cute dog photos, you?

What might seem like basic info to you might be a totally new revelation to your potential audience.

I’ve built a blog to attract over 100K monthly visitors, and one thing I learned was that the content that brought us traffic month after month was the basic stuff. The simple, how do I figure out ______ stuff.

And chances are your blog (or website for that matter) lacks this “beginning of the buyer’s journey” content. If you think everybody knows this stuff, they don’t. You’re probably too close to it — I’ve been there, too.

Questions you can ask yourself to get going:

What are some common questions that your audience asks? What are the solutions you can give them?

How would you explain this concept to your grandma, or a kid?

What is a cool trend with __________ that is worth investing in?

What do you wish your best customers knew about __________?

Sources of information you can also look at:

Trade pubs (for ideas that can be repurposed for the general audience)

Events (for ideas that can be super timely and relevant to a select audience)

Influencers in your space (for ideas on what your audience gravitates to)

Execution

Ideally you’ll have a mix of topics on the pyramid to choose from, each quarter. Schedule those. I’ve used Google Sheets, or Trello. The cool kids use Airtable — whatever floats your boat and helps you get your content out.

Eyes on the prize

Blog traffic growth should pick up speed over time. If you build your content accordingly, it will. Determine the point where your interests and your audience interests intersect. Find topics that cater to that sweet spot by answering common FAQs. Add original research seasonally, and sprinkle in some trends and lifestyle content.

When you create blog topics that are more in line with your brand and your strengths, and that match what your audience is looking for, you are much more likely to stand out in a crowded space. The internet is hella crowded — to differentiate and appeal to customers, you need to “do you” best.

To help us serve you better, please consider taking the 2020 Moz Blog Reader Survey, which asks about who you are, what challenges you face, and what you’d like to see more of on the Moz Blog.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Source link

#General

[isearchgoood]

Blog Topics: How to find Your Sweet Spot (Even in a Boring Niche)

Posted by DaisyQ

I hate to tell you, but Googling “blog topic ideas” is not going to give you the content you should be creating.

Not all content is created equal. Letting the internet tell you what to blog about leads to mediocrity. Mediocrity is fine in some cases, like forcing yourself to show up at the gym at 5:00 p.m. when you’d much rather call it a day. But if you’re going to try and stand out in the very crowded search results page, you won’t stand a chance.

The reality is, it’s hard

The web is overrun with companies that have bigger budgets than you and can churn out content every day. Meanwhile, you’re lucky to get a blog post out once a month. Where you put your time can make or break your digital efforts. How do you compete? What content will grow your traffic month after month and year after year?

If you’re going to put your time into creating and promoting a blog post, and hope to get results, you owe it to yourself to figure out what you’re best suited to blog about.

Forget the 50 handy tools and blog topic lists

The internet will say: “Just research topics using these 50 handy tools and you’ll get a ton of ideas!” That’s cancelled. Slogging away with topics every week for three-plus years taught me that this advice — though well-intentioned — quickly wears thin. Especially if your topic or industry is niche.

So here’s what I would recommend instead:

Figure out what your people care about

Find where the magic happens

Keyword research your topics

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Execute

And that’s what we’ll cover. It may take a little more time, but it will give you ideas and direction you can use for months.

Figure out your people

The best way to find blog topic ideas is to look at your audience. What are their pain points, concerns, and obsessions when it comes to your products? Easier said than done sometimes, but chances are you already have at least an inkling on why they choose you. So start there and backtrack.

If you’re lucky, you’ll have some research or set personas to use. If you aren’t, make do. The point isn’t to get hung up on idealizing your audience, or nailing down that brand of tofu sausage they like. The point is to nail down their pain points and desires and move on.

Think about your best customers: How are you helping them live their best life? What are you helping them solve? What frustrates them about your line of services? When do they realize they need someone like you?

Take the time to understand the people that currently buy from you. So you can find more of them. In some cases, finding your audience is easy. In other instances, your audience is really diverse, or you just want what your neighbor’s having. Getting the perfect audience persona isn’t super important. Just get a good enough portrait, and move on.

Find where the magic happens

I barely passed math in college but one thing I did get was Venn diagrams. Two circles, and the magic is where they intersect, cool.

When mulling over what to blog about, I use this type of diagram to decide what I am best positioned to talk about. On the left would be the audience interests and concerns that you figured out in the previous step. On the right, your expertise. In the middle, you get a set of themes that you can specialize in. This doubles as the position you can take in your customer’s world. If you can pinpoint a mix of exciting, aspirational, and realistic themes here, that’s best.

It’s one thing to know what your audience likes. But chase that, and you’re competing with Medium or Buzzfeed.

It’s another to know what you’re good at talking about. But chase that, and you’re talking to yourself.

The magic is finding the spot where your audience’s interests and yours intersect.

During a recent workshop, a woman asked me, “I’m a photographer, and the people who like to work with me are outdoorsy — so are you saying I should create a blog post on hikes in the area?”

No.

Don’t do that.

There are a lot of websites out there that are way more invested in writing about hikes than you, and chances are they have more authority in that topic.

My reply to her: “How about creating content around the most photographable hikes in the area? You can create one blog post for Instagram, another for portraits, and even another one for engagement photos!”

The point is not to create content just because people care about X, Y, or Z. Ask yourself what you are best equipped to talk about, and how that intersects with your audience's interests. The more specific, and more unique to you and your audience, the better.

Keyword research your topics

Once you know your sweet spot, think about general topics and plug those into a doc or spreadsheet. Then pull those ideas into your favorite keyword research tool. I generally start with a list that has one root word, and export out different keyword ideas using a few tools. As I get more ideas, I plug those in, export, and build a small but healthy list to work with.

There are a couple of tools worth investing in to get this information (and some free options, too). Because I believe in a simplified approach to tools, I recommend:

A keyword research tool like Moz, SEMrush, or Keywordtool.io

A content research tool like Answer the Public, or Buzzsumo

A bonus tool like Ubersuggest or good old “People Also Ask”

Rank your bounty by monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, and social interest. Then, cherry pick the topics you want to tackle for the quarter.

Don’t be disheartened if your key terms are competitive. It’s the 2020s — anything worth anything is competitive. The goal is to start creating content that will pay off over time, while you grow your domain authority.

Word of caution: the topics you pick should be in your sweet spot and help your readers live their best life.

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Once you've defined the themes that can anchor your content efforts, use these four categories to help you pick topics within those areas. I like to think of this approach as a pyramid where you cover all the obvious “duh” questions before moving on to the sexy stuff.

Think about topics that would apply in each of these four sections, starting with the largest, general foundation category.

Evergreen content relates directly to the product or industry. These are the questions people ask day in and day out. At face value, the keywords may seem like small fish — i.e., they only get 800 to 1K monthly searches. But if they are aligned with your topic, then you very much want to answer these questions. If you don’t, someone else will. Ultimately, the goal of content is to bring in website visitors who are researching your product or service.

Original research answers a question or provides insight for an area closely tied to what you do. It’s premium content (long form blog posts, supporting guest posts) that takes more resources to create than a typical blog post, but helps build domain authority. This content hopefully helps you get links from reputable sources and is also fun to work in.

Trends and timely content are blog posts that aim to generate buzz, capture attention, and may aid in link building, but tend to be short-lived. These are topics that are in your sweet spot and hot right now. Jump on these seasonally.

Lifestyle content is blog content on topics that relate to company values and will connect with readers. Yes, it’s nice to show the human side of your business, because people buy from people they like. But I’d rather have a post that answers my questions over a post showing me cute dog photos, you?

What might seem like basic info to you might be a totally new revelation to your potential audience.

I've built a blog to attract over 100K monthly visitors, and one thing I learned was that the content that brought us traffic month after month was the basic stuff. The simple, how do I figure out ______ stuff.

And chances are your blog (or website for that matter) lacks this “beginning of the buyer’s journey” content. If you think everybody knows this stuff, they don’t. You’re probably too close to it — I’ve been there, too.

Questions you can ask yourself to get going:

What are some common questions that your audience asks? What are the solutions you can give them?

How would you explain this concept to your grandma, or a kid?

What is a cool trend with __________ that is worth investing in?

What do you wish your best customers knew about __________?

Sources of information you can also look at:

Trade pubs (for ideas that can be repurposed for the general audience)

Events (for ideas that can be super timely and relevant to a select audience)

Influencers in your space (for ideas on what your audience gravitates to)

Execution

Ideally you’ll have a mix of topics on the pyramid to choose from, each quarter. Schedule those. I’ve used Google Sheets, or Trello. The cool kids use Airtable — whatever floats your boat and helps you get your content out.

Eyes on the prize

Blog traffic growth should pick up speed over time. If you build your content accordingly, it will. Determine the point where your interests and your audience interests intersect. Find topics that cater to that sweet spot by answering common FAQs. Add original research seasonally, and sprinkle in some trends and lifestyle content.

When you create blog topics that are more in line with your brand and your strengths, and that match what your audience is looking for, you are much more likely to stand out in a crowded space. The internet is hella crowded — to differentiate and appeal to customers, you need to “do you” best.

To help us serve you better, please consider taking the 2020 Moz Blog Reader Survey, which asks about who you are, what challenges you face, and what you'd like to see more of on the Moz Blog.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

via Blogger https://ift.tt/2ZMolzp #blogger #bloggingtips #bloggerlife #bloggersgetsocial #ontheblog #writersofinstagram #writingprompt #instapoetry #writerscommunity #writersofig #writersblock #writerlife #writtenword #instawriters #spilledink #wordgasm #creativewriting #poetsofinstagram #blackoutpoetry #poetsofig

[whitelabelseoreseller]

Blog Topics: How to find Your Sweet Spot (Even in a Boring Niche)

Posted by DaisyQ

I hate to tell you, but Googling “blog topic ideas” is not going to give you the content you should be creating.

Not all content is created equal. Letting the internet tell you what to blog about leads to mediocrity. Mediocrity is fine in some cases, like forcing yourself to show up at the gym at 5:00 p.m. when you’d much rather call it a day. But if you’re going to try and stand out in the very crowded search results page, you won’t stand a chance.

The reality is, it’s hard

The web is overrun with companies that have bigger budgets than you and can churn out content every day. Meanwhile, you’re lucky to get a blog post out once a month. Where you put your time can make or break your digital efforts. How do you compete? What content will grow your traffic month after month and year after year?

If you’re going to put your time into creating and promoting a blog post, and hope to get results, you owe it to yourself to figure out what you’re best suited to blog about.

Forget the 50 handy tools and blog topic lists

The internet will say: “Just research topics using these 50 handy tools and you’ll get a ton of ideas!” That’s cancelled. Slogging away with topics every week for three-plus years taught me that this advice — though well-intentioned — quickly wears thin. Especially if your topic or industry is niche.

So here’s what I would recommend instead:

Figure out what your people care about

Find where the magic happens

Keyword research your topics

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Execute

And that’s what we’ll cover. It may take a little more time, but it will give you ideas and direction you can use for months.

Figure out your people

The best way to find blog topic ideas is to look at your audience. What are their pain points, concerns, and obsessions when it comes to your products? Easier said than done sometimes, but chances are you already have at least an inkling on why they choose you. So start there and backtrack.

If you’re lucky, you’ll have some research or set personas to use. If you aren’t, make do. The point isn’t to get hung up on idealizing your audience, or nailing down that brand of tofu sausage they like. The point is to nail down their pain points and desires and move on.

Think about your best customers: How are you helping them live their best life? What are you helping them solve? What frustrates them about your line of services? When do they realize they need someone like you?

Take the time to understand the people that currently buy from you. So you can find more of them. In some cases, finding your audience is easy. In other instances, your audience is really diverse, or you just want what your neighbor’s having. Getting the perfect audience persona isn’t super important. Just get a good enough portrait, and move on.

Find where the magic happens

I barely passed math in college but one thing I did get was Venn diagrams. Two circles, and the magic is where they intersect, cool.

When mulling over what to blog about, I use this type of diagram to decide what I am best positioned to talk about. On the left would be the audience interests and concerns that you figured out in the previous step. On the right, your expertise. In the middle, you get a set of themes that you can specialize in. This doubles as the position you can take in your customer’s world. If you can pinpoint a mix of exciting, aspirational, and realistic themes here, that’s best.

It’s one thing to know what your audience likes. But chase that, and you’re competing with Medium or Buzzfeed.

It’s another to know what you’re good at talking about. But chase that, and you’re talking to yourself.

The magic is finding the spot where your audience’s interests and yours intersect.

During a recent workshop, a woman asked me, “I’m a photographer, and the people who like to work with me are outdoorsy — so are you saying I should create a blog post on hikes in the area?”

No.

Don’t do that.

There are a lot of websites out there that are way more invested in writing about hikes than you, and chances are they have more authority in that topic.

My reply to her: “How about creating content around the most photographable hikes in the area? You can create one blog post for Instagram, another for portraits, and even another one for engagement photos!”

The point is not to create content just because people care about X, Y, or Z. Ask yourself what you are best equipped to talk about, and how that intersects with your audience's interests. The more specific, and more unique to you and your audience, the better.

Keyword research your topics

Once you know your sweet spot, think about general topics and plug those into a doc or spreadsheet. Then pull those ideas into your favorite keyword research tool. I generally start with a list that has one root word, and export out different keyword ideas using a few tools. As I get more ideas, I plug those in, export, and build a small but healthy list to work with.

There are a couple of tools worth investing in to get this information (and some free options, too). Because I believe in a simplified approach to tools, I recommend:

A keyword research tool like Moz, SEMrush, or Keywordtool.io

A content research tool like Answer the Public, or Buzzsumo

A bonus tool like Ubersuggest or good old “People Also Ask”

Rank your bounty by monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, and social interest. Then, cherry pick the topics you want to tackle for the quarter.

Don’t be disheartened if your key terms are competitive. It’s the 2020s — anything worth anything is competitive. The goal is to start creating content that will pay off over time, while you grow your domain authority.

Word of caution: the topics you pick should be in your sweet spot and help your readers live their best life.

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Once you've defined the themes that can anchor your content efforts, use these four categories to help you pick topics within those areas. I like to think of this approach as a pyramid where you cover all the obvious “duh” questions before moving on to the sexy stuff.

Think about topics that would apply in each of these four sections, starting with the largest, general foundation category.

Evergreen content relates directly to the product or industry. These are the questions people ask day in and day out. At face value, the keywords may seem like small fish — i.e., they only get 800 to 1K monthly searches. But if they are aligned with your topic, then you very much want to answer these questions. If you don’t, someone else will. Ultimately, the goal of content is to bring in website visitors who are researching your product or service.

Original research answers a question or provides insight for an area closely tied to what you do. It’s premium content (long form blog posts, supporting guest posts) that takes more resources to create than a typical blog post, but helps build domain authority. This content hopefully helps you get links from reputable sources and is also fun to work in.

Trends and timely content are blog posts that aim to generate buzz, capture attention, and may aid in link building, but tend to be short-lived. These are topics that are in your sweet spot and hot right now. Jump on these seasonally.

Lifestyle content is blog content on topics that relate to company values and will connect with readers. Yes, it’s nice to show the human side of your business, because people buy from people they like. But I’d rather have a post that answers my questions over a post showing me cute dog photos, you?

What might seem like basic info to you might be a totally new revelation to your potential audience.

I've built a blog to attract over 100K monthly visitors, and one thing I learned was that the content that brought us traffic month after month was the basic stuff. The simple, how do I figure out ______ stuff.

And chances are your blog (or website for that matter) lacks this “beginning of the buyer’s journey” content. If you think everybody knows this stuff, they don’t. You’re probably too close to it — I’ve been there, too.

Questions you can ask yourself to get going:

What are some common questions that your audience asks? What are the solutions you can give them?

How would you explain this concept to your grandma, or a kid?

What is a cool trend with __________ that is worth investing in?

What do you wish your best customers knew about __________?

Sources of information you can also look at:

Trade pubs (for ideas that can be repurposed for the general audience)

Events (for ideas that can be super timely and relevant to a select audience)

Influencers in your space (for ideas on what your audience gravitates to)

Execution

Ideally you’ll have a mix of topics on the pyramid to choose from, each quarter. Schedule those. I’ve used Google Sheets, or Trello. The cool kids use Airtable — whatever floats your boat and helps you get your content out.

Eyes on the prize

Blog traffic growth should pick up speed over time. If you build your content accordingly, it will. Determine the point where your interests and your audience interests intersect. Find topics that cater to that sweet spot by answering common FAQs. Add original research seasonally, and sprinkle in some trends and lifestyle content.

When you create blog topics that are more in line with your brand and your strengths, and that match what your audience is looking for, you are much more likely to stand out in a crowded space. The internet is hella crowded — to differentiate and appeal to customers, you need to “do you” best.

To help us serve you better, please consider taking the 2020 Moz Blog Reader Survey, which asks about who you are, what challenges you face, and what you'd like to see more of on the Moz Blog.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

from The Moz Blog http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/9375/13736557

#The Moz Blog

[epackingvietnam]

Blog Topics: How to find Your Sweet Spot (Even in a Boring Niche)

Posted by DaisyQ

I hate to tell you, but Googling “blog topic ideas” is not going to give you the content you should be creating.

Not all content is created equal. Letting the internet tell you what to blog about leads to mediocrity. Mediocrity is fine in some cases, like forcing yourself to show up at the gym at 5:00 p.m. when you’d much rather call it a day. But if you’re going to try and stand out in the very crowded search results page, you won’t stand a chance.

The reality is, it’s hard

The web is overrun with companies that have bigger budgets than you and can churn out content every day. Meanwhile, you’re lucky to get a blog post out once a month. Where you put your time can make or break your digital efforts. How do you compete? What content will grow your traffic month after month and year after year?

If you’re going to put your time into creating and promoting a blog post, and hope to get results, you owe it to yourself to figure out what you’re best suited to blog about.

Forget the 50 handy tools and blog topic lists

The internet will say: “Just research topics using these 50 handy tools and you’ll get a ton of ideas!” That’s cancelled. Slogging away with topics every week for three-plus years taught me that this advice — though well-intentioned — quickly wears thin. Especially if your topic or industry is niche.

So here’s what I would recommend instead:

Figure out what your people care about

Find where the magic happens

Keyword research your topics

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Execute

And that’s what we’ll cover. It may take a little more time, but it will give you ideas and direction you can use for months.

Figure out your people

The best way to find blog topic ideas is to look at your audience. What are their pain points, concerns, and obsessions when it comes to your products? Easier said than done sometimes, but chances are you already have at least an inkling on why they choose you. So start there and backtrack.

If you’re lucky, you’ll have some research or set personas to use. If you aren’t, make do. The point isn’t to get hung up on idealizing your audience, or nailing down that brand of tofu sausage they like. The point is to nail down their pain points and desires and move on.

Think about your best customers: How are you helping them live their best life? What are you helping them solve? What frustrates them about your line of services? When do they realize they need someone like you?

Take the time to understand the people that currently buy from you. So you can find more of them. In some cases, finding your audience is easy. In other instances, your audience is really diverse, or you just want what your neighbor’s having. Getting the perfect audience persona isn’t super important. Just get a good enough portrait, and move on.

Find where the magic happens

I barely passed math in college but one thing I did get was Venn diagrams. Two circles, and the magic is where they intersect, cool.

When mulling over what to blog about, I use this type of diagram to decide what I am best positioned to talk about. On the left would be the audience interests and concerns that you figured out in the previous step. On the right, your expertise. In the middle, you get a set of themes that you can specialize in. This doubles as the position you can take in your customer’s world. If you can pinpoint a mix of exciting, aspirational, and realistic themes here, that’s best.

It’s one thing to know what your audience likes. But chase that, and you’re competing with Medium or Buzzfeed.

It’s another to know what you’re good at talking about. But chase that, and you’re talking to yourself.

The magic is finding the spot where your audience’s interests and yours intersect.

During a recent workshop, a woman asked me, “I’m a photographer, and the people who like to work with me are outdoorsy — so are you saying I should create a blog post on hikes in the area?”

No.

Don’t do that.

There are a lot of websites out there that are way more invested in writing about hikes than you, and chances are they have more authority in that topic.

My reply to her: “How about creating content around the most photographable hikes in the area? You can create one blog post for Instagram, another for portraits, and even another one for engagement photos!”

The point is not to create content just because people care about X, Y, or Z. Ask yourself what you are best equipped to talk about, and how that intersects with your audience's interests. The more specific, and more unique to you and your audience, the better.

Keyword research your topics

Once you know your sweet spot, think about general topics and plug those into a doc or spreadsheet. Then pull those ideas into your favorite keyword research tool. I generally start with a list that has one root word, and export out different keyword ideas using a few tools. As I get more ideas, I plug those in, export, and build a small but healthy list to work with.

There are a couple of tools worth investing in to get this information (and some free options, too). Because I believe in a simplified approach to tools, I recommend:

A keyword research tool like Moz, SEMrush, or Keywordtool.io

A content research tool like Answer the Public, or Buzzsumo

A bonus tool like Ubersuggest or good old “People Also Ask”

Rank your bounty by monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, and social interest. Then, cherry pick the topics you want to tackle for the quarter.

Don’t be disheartened if your key terms are competitive. It’s the 2020s — anything worth anything is competitive. The goal is to start creating content that will pay off over time, while you grow your domain authority.

Word of caution: the topics you pick should be in your sweet spot and help your readers live their best life.

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Once you've defined the themes that can anchor your content efforts, use these four categories to help you pick topics within those areas. I like to think of this approach as a pyramid where you cover all the obvious “duh” questions before moving on to the sexy stuff.

Think about topics that would apply in each of these four sections, starting with the largest, general foundation category.

Evergreen content relates directly to the product or industry. These are the questions people ask day in and day out. At face value, the keywords may seem like small fish — i.e., they only get 800 to 1K monthly searches. But if they are aligned with your topic, then you very much want to answer these questions. If you don’t, someone else will. Ultimately, the goal of content is to bring in website visitors who are researching your product or service.

Original research answers a question or provides insight for an area closely tied to what you do. It’s premium content (long form blog posts, supporting guest posts) that takes more resources to create than a typical blog post, but helps build domain authority. This content hopefully helps you get links from reputable sources and is also fun to work in.

Trends and timely content are blog posts that aim to generate buzz, capture attention, and may aid in link building, but tend to be short-lived. These are topics that are in your sweet spot and hot right now. Jump on these seasonally.

Lifestyle content is blog content on topics that relate to company values and will connect with readers. Yes, it’s nice to show the human side of your business, because people buy from people they like. But I’d rather have a post that answers my questions over a post showing me cute dog photos, you?

What might seem like basic info to you might be a totally new revelation to your potential audience.

I've built a blog to attract over 100K monthly visitors, and one thing I learned was that the content that brought us traffic month after month was the basic stuff. The simple, how do I figure out ______ stuff.

And chances are your blog (or website for that matter) lacks this “beginning of the buyer’s journey” content. If you think everybody knows this stuff, they don’t. You’re probably too close to it — I’ve been there, too.

Questions you can ask yourself to get going:

What are some common questions that your audience asks? What are the solutions you can give them?

How would you explain this concept to your grandma, or a kid?

What is a cool trend with __________ that is worth investing in?

What do you wish your best customers knew about __________?

Sources of information you can also look at:

Trade pubs (for ideas that can be repurposed for the general audience)

Events (for ideas that can be super timely and relevant to a select audience)

Influencers in your space (for ideas on what your audience gravitates to)

Execution

Ideally you’ll have a mix of topics on the pyramid to choose from, each quarter. Schedule those. I’ve used Google Sheets, or Trello. The cool kids use Airtable — whatever floats your boat and helps you get your content out.

Eyes on the prize

Blog traffic growth should pick up speed over time. If you build your content accordingly, it will. Determine the point where your interests and your audience interests intersect. Find topics that cater to that sweet spot by answering common FAQs. Add original research seasonally, and sprinkle in some trends and lifestyle content.

When you create blog topics that are more in line with your brand and your strengths, and that match what your audience is looking for, you are much more likely to stand out in a crowded space. The internet is hella crowded — to differentiate and appeal to customers, you need to “do you” best.

To help us serve you better, please consider taking the 2020 Moz Blog Reader Survey, which asks about who you are, what challenges you face, and what you'd like to see more of on the Moz Blog.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

#túi_giấy_epacking_việt_nam #túi_giấy_epacking #in_túi_giấy_giá_rẻ #in_túi_giấy #epackingvietnam #tuigiayepacking

[fmsmartchoicear]

Blog Topics: How to find Your Sweet Spot (Even in a Boring Niche)

Posted by DaisyQ

I hate to tell you, but Googling “blog topic ideas” is not going to give you the content you should be creating.

Not all content is created equal. Letting the internet tell you what to blog about leads to mediocrity. Mediocrity is fine in some cases, like forcing yourself to show up at the gym at 5:00 p.m. when you’d much rather call it a day. But if you’re going to try and stand out in the very crowded search results page, you won’t stand a chance.

The reality is, it’s hard

The web is overrun with companies that have bigger budgets than you and can churn out content every day. Meanwhile, you’re lucky to get a blog post out once a month. Where you put your time can make or break your digital efforts. How do you compete? What content will grow your traffic month after month and year after year?

If you’re going to put your time into creating and promoting a blog post, and hope to get results, you owe it to yourself to figure out what you’re best suited to blog about.

Forget the 50 handy tools and blog topic lists

The internet will say: “Just research topics using these 50 handy tools and you’ll get a ton of ideas!” That’s cancelled. Slogging away with topics every week for three-plus years taught me that this advice — though well-intentioned — quickly wears thin. Especially if your topic or industry is niche.

So here’s what I would recommend instead:

Figure out what your people care about

Find where the magic happens

Keyword research your topics

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Execute

And that’s what we’ll cover. It may take a little more time, but it will give you ideas and direction you can use for months.

Figure out your people

The best way to find blog topic ideas is to look at your audience. What are their pain points, concerns, and obsessions when it comes to your products? Easier said than done sometimes, but chances are you already have at least an inkling on why they choose you. So start there and backtrack.

If you’re lucky, you’ll have some research or set personas to use. If you aren’t, make do. The point isn’t to get hung up on idealizing your audience, or nailing down that brand of tofu sausage they like. The point is to nail down their pain points and desires and move on.

Think about your best customers: How are you helping them live their best life? What are you helping them solve? What frustrates them about your line of services? When do they realize they need someone like you?

Take the time to understand the people that currently buy from you. So you can find more of them. In some cases, finding your audience is easy. In other instances, your audience is really diverse, or you just want what your neighbor’s having. Getting the perfect audience persona isn’t super important. Just get a good enough portrait, and move on.

Find where the magic happens

I barely passed math in college but one thing I did get was Venn diagrams. Two circles, and the magic is where they intersect, cool.

When mulling over what to blog about, I use this type of diagram to decide what I am best positioned to talk about. On the left would be the audience interests and concerns that you figured out in the previous step. On the right, your expertise. In the middle, you get a set of themes that you can specialize in. This doubles as the position you can take in your customer’s world. If you can pinpoint a mix of exciting, aspirational, and realistic themes here, that’s best.

It’s one thing to know what your audience likes. But chase that, and you’re competing with Medium or Buzzfeed.

It’s another to know what you’re good at talking about. But chase that, and you’re talking to yourself.

The magic is finding the spot where your audience’s interests and yours intersect.

During a recent workshop, a woman asked me, “I’m a photographer, and the people who like to work with me are outdoorsy — so are you saying I should create a blog post on hikes in the area?”

No.

Don’t do that.

There are a lot of websites out there that are way more invested in writing about hikes than you, and chances are they have more authority in that topic.

My reply to her: “How about creating content around the most photographable hikes in the area? You can create one blog post for Instagram, another for portraits, and even another one for engagement photos!”

The point is not to create content just because people care about X, Y, or Z. Ask yourself what you are best equipped to talk about, and how that intersects with your audience's interests. The more specific, and more unique to you and your audience, the better.

Keyword research your topics

Once you know your sweet spot, think about general topics and plug those into a doc or spreadsheet. Then pull those ideas into your favorite keyword research tool. I generally start with a list that has one root word, and export out different keyword ideas using a few tools. As I get more ideas, I plug those in, export, and build a small but healthy list to work with.

There are a couple of tools worth investing in to get this information (and some free options, too). Because I believe in a simplified approach to tools, I recommend:

A keyword research tool like Moz, SEMrush, or Keywordtool.io

A content research tool like Answer the Public, or Buzzsumo

A bonus tool like Ubersuggest or good old “People Also Ask”

Rank your bounty by monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, and social interest. Then, cherry pick the topics you want to tackle for the quarter.

Don’t be disheartened if your key terms are competitive. It’s the 2020s — anything worth anything is competitive. The goal is to start creating content that will pay off over time, while you grow your domain authority.

Word of caution: the topics you pick should be in your sweet spot and help your readers live their best life.

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Once you've defined the themes that can anchor your content efforts, use these four categories to help you pick topics within those areas. I like to think of this approach as a pyramid where you cover all the obvious “duh” questions before moving on to the sexy stuff.

Think about topics that would apply in each of these four sections, starting with the largest, general foundation category.

Evergreen content relates directly to the product or industry. These are the questions people ask day in and day out. At face value, the keywords may seem like small fish — i.e., they only get 800 to 1K monthly searches. But if they are aligned with your topic, then you very much want to answer these questions. If you don’t, someone else will. Ultimately, the goal of content is to bring in website visitors who are researching your product or service.

Original research answers a question or provides insight for an area closely tied to what you do. It’s premium content (long form blog posts, supporting guest posts) that takes more resources to create than a typical blog post, but helps build domain authority. This content hopefully helps you get links from reputable sources and is also fun to work in.

Trends and timely content are blog posts that aim to generate buzz, capture attention, and may aid in link building, but tend to be short-lived. These are topics that are in your sweet spot and hot right now. Jump on these seasonally.

Lifestyle content is blog content on topics that relate to company values and will connect with readers. Yes, it’s nice to show the human side of your business, because people buy from people they like. But I’d rather have a post that answers my questions over a post showing me cute dog photos, you?

What might seem like basic info to you might be a totally new revelation to your potential audience.

I've built a blog to attract over 100K monthly visitors, and one thing I learned was that the content that brought us traffic month after month was the basic stuff. The simple, how do I figure out ______ stuff.

And chances are your blog (or website for that matter) lacks this “beginning of the buyer’s journey” content. If you think everybody knows this stuff, they don’t. You’re probably too close to it — I’ve been there, too.

Questions you can ask yourself to get going:

What are some common questions that your audience asks? What are the solutions you can give them?

How would you explain this concept to your grandma, or a kid?

What is a cool trend with __________ that is worth investing in?

What do you wish your best customers knew about __________?

Sources of information you can also look at:

Trade pubs (for ideas that can be repurposed for the general audience)

Events (for ideas that can be super timely and relevant to a select audience)

Influencers in your space (for ideas on what your audience gravitates to)

Execution

Ideally you’ll have a mix of topics on the pyramid to choose from, each quarter. Schedule those. I’ve used Google Sheets, or Trello. The cool kids use Airtable — whatever floats your boat and helps you get your content out.

Eyes on the prize

Blog traffic growth should pick up speed over time. If you build your content accordingly, it will. Determine the point where your interests and your audience interests intersect. Find topics that cater to that sweet spot by answering common FAQs. Add original research seasonally, and sprinkle in some trends and lifestyle content.

When you create blog topics that are more in line with your brand and your strengths, and that match what your audience is looking for, you are much more likely to stand out in a crowded space. The internet is hella crowded — to differentiate and appeal to customers, you need to “do you” best.

To help us serve you better, please consider taking the 2020 Moz Blog Reader Survey, which asks about who you are, what challenges you face, and what you'd like to see more of on the Moz Blog.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[bfxenon]

Blog Topics: How to find Your Sweet Spot (Even in a Boring Niche)

Posted by DaisyQ

I hate to tell you, but Googling “blog topic ideas” is not going to give you the content you should be creating.

Not all content is created equal. Letting the internet tell you what to blog about leads to mediocrity. Mediocrity is fine in some cases, like forcing yourself to show up at the gym at 5:00 p.m. when you’d much rather call it a day. But if you’re going to try and stand out in the very crowded search results page, you won’t stand a chance.

The reality is, it’s hard

The web is overrun with companies that have bigger budgets than you and can churn out content every day. Meanwhile, you’re lucky to get a blog post out once a month. Where you put your time can make or break your digital efforts. How do you compete? What content will grow your traffic month after month and year after year?

If you’re going to put your time into creating and promoting a blog post, and hope to get results, you owe it to yourself to figure out what you’re best suited to blog about.

Forget the 50 handy tools and blog topic lists

The internet will say: “Just research topics using these 50 handy tools and you’ll get a ton of ideas!” That’s cancelled. Slogging away with topics every week for three-plus years taught me that this advice — though well-intentioned — quickly wears thin. Especially if your topic or industry is niche.

So here’s what I would recommend instead:

Figure out what your people care about

Find where the magic happens

Keyword research your topics

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Execute

And that’s what we’ll cover. It may take a little more time, but it will give you ideas and direction you can use for months.

Figure out your people

The best way to find blog topic ideas is to look at your audience. What are their pain points, concerns, and obsessions when it comes to your products? Easier said than done sometimes, but chances are you already have at least an inkling on why they choose you. So start there and backtrack.

If you’re lucky, you’ll have some research or set personas to use. If you aren’t, make do. The point isn’t to get hung up on idealizing your audience, or nailing down that brand of tofu sausage they like. The point is to nail down their pain points and desires and move on.

Think about your best customers: How are you helping them live their best life? What are you helping them solve? What frustrates them about your line of services? When do they realize they need someone like you?

Take the time to understand the people that currently buy from you. So you can find more of them. In some cases, finding your audience is easy. In other instances, your audience is really diverse, or you just want what your neighbor’s having. Getting the perfect audience persona isn’t super important. Just get a good enough portrait, and move on.

Find where the magic happens

I barely passed math in college but one thing I did get was Venn diagrams. Two circles, and the magic is where they intersect, cool.

When mulling over what to blog about, I use this type of diagram to decide what I am best positioned to talk about. On the left would be the audience interests and concerns that you figured out in the previous step. On the right, your expertise. In the middle, you get a set of themes that you can specialize in. This doubles as the position you can take in your customer’s world. If you can pinpoint a mix of exciting, aspirational, and realistic themes here, that’s best.

It’s one thing to know what your audience likes. But chase that, and you’re competing with Medium or Buzzfeed.

It’s another to know what you’re good at talking about. But chase that, and you’re talking to yourself.

The magic is finding the spot where your audience’s interests and yours intersect.

During a recent workshop, a woman asked me, “I’m a photographer, and the people who like to work with me are outdoorsy — so are you saying I should create a blog post on hikes in the area?”

No.

Don’t do that.

There are a lot of websites out there that are way more invested in writing about hikes than you, and chances are they have more authority in that topic.

My reply to her: “How about creating content around the most photographable hikes in the area? You can create one blog post for Instagram, another for portraits, and even another one for engagement photos!”

The point is not to create content just because people care about X, Y, or Z. Ask yourself what you are best equipped to talk about, and how that intersects with your audience's interests. The more specific, and more unique to you and your audience, the better.

Keyword research your topics

Once you know your sweet spot, think about general topics and plug those into a doc or spreadsheet. Then pull those ideas into your favorite keyword research tool. I generally start with a list that has one root word, and export out different keyword ideas using a few tools. As I get more ideas, I plug those in, export, and build a small but healthy list to work with.

There are a couple of tools worth investing in to get this information (and some free options, too). Because I believe in a simplified approach to tools, I recommend:

A keyword research tool like Moz, SEMrush, or Keywordtool.io

A content research tool like Answer the Public, or Buzzsumo

A bonus tool like Ubersuggest or good old “People Also Ask”

Rank your bounty by monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, and social interest. Then, cherry pick the topics you want to tackle for the quarter.

Don’t be disheartened if your key terms are competitive. It’s the 2020s — anything worth anything is competitive. The goal is to start creating content that will pay off over time, while you grow your domain authority.

Word of caution: the topics you pick should be in your sweet spot and help your readers live their best life.

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Once you've defined the themes that can anchor your content efforts, use these four categories to help you pick topics within those areas. I like to think of this approach as a pyramid where you cover all the obvious “duh” questions before moving on to the sexy stuff.

Think about topics that would apply in each of these four sections, starting with the largest, general foundation category.

Evergreen content relates directly to the product or industry. These are the questions people ask day in and day out. At face value, the keywords may seem like small fish — i.e., they only get 800 to 1K monthly searches. But if they are aligned with your topic, then you very much want to answer these questions. If you don’t, someone else will. Ultimately, the goal of content is to bring in website visitors who are researching your product or service.

Original research answers a question or provides insight for an area closely tied to what you do. It’s premium content (long form blog posts, supporting guest posts) that takes more resources to create than a typical blog post, but helps build domain authority. This content hopefully helps you get links from reputable sources and is also fun to work in.

Trends and timely content are blog posts that aim to generate buzz, capture attention, and may aid in link building, but tend to be short-lived. These are topics that are in your sweet spot and hot right now. Jump on these seasonally.

Lifestyle content is blog content on topics that relate to company values and will connect with readers. Yes, it’s nice to show the human side of your business, because people buy from people they like. But I’d rather have a post that answers my questions over a post showing me cute dog photos, you?

What might seem like basic info to you might be a totally new revelation to your potential audience.

I've built a blog to attract over 100K monthly visitors, and one thing I learned was that the content that brought us traffic month after month was the basic stuff. The simple, how do I figure out ______ stuff.

And chances are your blog (or website for that matter) lacks this “beginning of the buyer’s journey” content. If you think everybody knows this stuff, they don’t. You’re probably too close to it — I’ve been there, too.

Questions you can ask yourself to get going:

What are some common questions that your audience asks? What are the solutions you can give them?

How would you explain this concept to your grandma, or a kid?

What is a cool trend with __________ that is worth investing in?

What do you wish your best customers knew about __________?

Sources of information you can also look at:

Trade pubs (for ideas that can be repurposed for the general audience)

Events (for ideas that can be super timely and relevant to a select audience)

Influencers in your space (for ideas on what your audience gravitates to)

Execution

Ideally you’ll have a mix of topics on the pyramid to choose from, each quarter. Schedule those. I’ve used Google Sheets, or Trello. The cool kids use Airtable — whatever floats your boat and helps you get your content out.

Eyes on the prize

Blog traffic growth should pick up speed over time. If you build your content accordingly, it will. Determine the point where your interests and your audience interests intersect. Find topics that cater to that sweet spot by answering common FAQs. Add original research seasonally, and sprinkle in some trends and lifestyle content.

When you create blog topics that are more in line with your brand and your strengths, and that match what your audience is looking for, you are much more likely to stand out in a crowded space. The internet is hella crowded — to differentiate and appeal to customers, you need to “do you” best.

To help us serve you better, please consider taking the 2020 Moz Blog Reader Survey, which asks about who you are, what challenges you face, and what you'd like to see more of on the Moz Blog.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[timeblues]

Blog Topics: How to find Your Sweet Spot (Even in a Boring Niche)

Posted by DaisyQ

I hate to tell you, but Googling “blog topic ideas” is not going to give you the content you should be creating.

Not all content is created equal. Letting the internet tell you what to blog about leads to mediocrity. Mediocrity is fine in some cases, like forcing yourself to show up at the gym at 5:00 p.m. when you’d much rather call it a day. But if you’re going to try and stand out in the very crowded search results page, you won’t stand a chance.

The reality is, it’s hard

The web is overrun with companies that have bigger budgets than you and can churn out content every day. Meanwhile, you’re lucky to get a blog post out once a month. Where you put your time can make or break your digital efforts. How do you compete? What content will grow your traffic month after month and year after year?

If you’re going to put your time into creating and promoting a blog post, and hope to get results, you owe it to yourself to figure out what you’re best suited to blog about.

Forget the 50 handy tools and blog topic lists

The internet will say: “Just research topics using these 50 handy tools and you’ll get a ton of ideas!” That’s cancelled. Slogging away with topics every week for three-plus years taught me that this advice — though well-intentioned — quickly wears thin. Especially if your topic or industry is niche.

So here’s what I would recommend instead:

Figure out what your people care about

Find where the magic happens

Keyword research your topics

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Execute

And that’s what we’ll cover. It may take a little more time, but it will give you ideas and direction you can use for months.

Figure out your people

The best way to find blog topic ideas is to look at your audience. What are their pain points, concerns, and obsessions when it comes to your products? Easier said than done sometimes, but chances are you already have at least an inkling on why they choose you. So start there and backtrack.

If you’re lucky, you’ll have some research or set personas to use. If you aren’t, make do. The point isn’t to get hung up on idealizing your audience, or nailing down that brand of tofu sausage they like. The point is to nail down their pain points and desires and move on.

Think about your best customers: How are you helping them live their best life? What are you helping them solve? What frustrates them about your line of services? When do they realize they need someone like you?

Take the time to understand the people that currently buy from you. So you can find more of them. In some cases, finding your audience is easy. In other instances, your audience is really diverse, or you just want what your neighbor’s having. Getting the perfect audience persona isn’t super important. Just get a good enough portrait, and move on.

Find where the magic happens

I barely passed math in college but one thing I did get was Venn diagrams. Two circles, and the magic is where they intersect, cool.

When mulling over what to blog about, I use this type of diagram to decide what I am best positioned to talk about. On the left would be the audience interests and concerns that you figured out in the previous step. On the right, your expertise. In the middle, you get a set of themes that you can specialize in. This doubles as the position you can take in your customer’s world. If you can pinpoint a mix of exciting, aspirational, and realistic themes here, that’s best.

It’s one thing to know what your audience likes. But chase that, and you’re competing with Medium or Buzzfeed.

It’s another to know what you’re good at talking about. But chase that, and you’re talking to yourself.

The magic is finding the spot where your audience’s interests and yours intersect.

During a recent workshop, a woman asked me, “I’m a photographer, and the people who like to work with me are outdoorsy — so are you saying I should create a blog post on hikes in the area?”

No.

Don’t do that.

There are a lot of websites out there that are way more invested in writing about hikes than you, and chances are they have more authority in that topic.

My reply to her: “How about creating content around the most photographable hikes in the area? You can create one blog post for Instagram, another for portraits, and even another one for engagement photos!”

The point is not to create content just because people care about X, Y, or Z. Ask yourself what you are best equipped to talk about, and how that intersects with your audience's interests. The more specific, and more unique to you and your audience, the better.

Keyword research your topics

Once you know your sweet spot, think about general topics and plug those into a doc or spreadsheet. Then pull those ideas into your favorite keyword research tool. I generally start with a list that has one root word, and export out different keyword ideas using a few tools. As I get more ideas, I plug those in, export, and build a small but healthy list to work with.

There are a couple of tools worth investing in to get this information (and some free options, too). Because I believe in a simplified approach to tools, I recommend:

A keyword research tool like Moz, SEMrush, or Keywordtool.io

A content research tool like Answer the Public, or Buzzsumo

A bonus tool like Ubersuggest or good old “People Also Ask”

Rank your bounty by monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, and social interest. Then, cherry pick the topics you want to tackle for the quarter.

Don’t be disheartened if your key terms are competitive. It’s the 2020s — anything worth anything is competitive. The goal is to start creating content that will pay off over time, while you grow your domain authority.

Word of caution: the topics you pick should be in your sweet spot and help your readers live their best life.

Brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize

Once you've defined the themes that can anchor your content efforts, use these four categories to help you pick topics within those areas. I like to think of this approach as a pyramid where you cover all the obvious “duh” questions before moving on to the sexy stuff.

Think about topics that would apply in each of these four sections, starting with the largest, general foundation category.

Evergreen content relates directly to the product or industry. These are the questions people ask day in and day out. At face value, the keywords may seem like small fish — i.e., they only get 800 to 1K monthly searches. But if they are aligned with your topic, then you very much want to answer these questions. If you don’t, someone else will. Ultimately, the goal of content is to bring in website visitors who are researching your product or service.

Original research answers a question or provides insight for an area closely tied to what you do. It’s premium content (long form blog posts, supporting guest posts) that takes more resources to create than a typical blog post, but helps build domain authority. This content hopefully helps you get links from reputable sources and is also fun to work in.

Trends and timely content are blog posts that aim to generate buzz, capture attention, and may aid in link building, but tend to be short-lived. These are topics that are in your sweet spot and hot right now. Jump on these seasonally.

Lifestyle content is blog content on topics that relate to company values and will connect with readers. Yes, it’s nice to show the human side of your business, because people buy from people they like. But I’d rather have a post that answers my questions over a post showing me cute dog photos, you?

What might seem like basic info to you might be a totally new revelation to your potential audience.

I've built a blog to attract over 100K monthly visitors, and one thing I learned was that the content that brought us traffic month after month was the basic stuff. The simple, how do I figure out ______ stuff.

And chances are your blog (or website for that matter) lacks this “beginning of the buyer’s journey” content. If you think everybody knows this stuff, they don’t. You’re probably too close to it — I’ve been there, too.

Questions you can ask yourself to get going:

What are some common questions that your audience asks? What are the solutions you can give them?

How would you explain this concept to your grandma, or a kid?

What is a cool trend with __________ that is worth investing in?

What do you wish your best customers knew about __________?

Sources of information you can also look at:

Trade pubs (for ideas that can be repurposed for the general audience)

Events (for ideas that can be super timely and relevant to a select audience)

Influencers in your space (for ideas on what your audience gravitates to)

Execution

Ideally you’ll have a mix of topics on the pyramid to choose from, each quarter. Schedule those. I’ve used Google Sheets, or Trello. The cool kids use Airtable — whatever floats your boat and helps you get your content out.

Eyes on the prize

Blog traffic growth should pick up speed over time. If you build your content accordingly, it will. Determine the point where your interests and your audience interests intersect. Find topics that cater to that sweet spot by answering common FAQs. Add original research seasonally, and sprinkle in some trends and lifestyle content.

When you create blog topics that are more in line with your brand and your strengths, and that match what your audience is looking for, you are much more likely to stand out in a crowded space. The internet is hella crowded — to differentiate and appeal to customers, you need to “do you” best.

To help us serve you better, please consider taking the 2020 Moz Blog Reader Survey, which asks about who you are, what challenges you face, and what you'd like to see more of on the Moz Blog.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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