It happens to all of us. We sit in front of our computers, stare at the screen and have no idea what to write about. It should be so easy, yet nothing comes to mind. Chances are, we’re thinking to hard.

If you do have bloggers block, here are 10 topics to help you come up with an idea to blog about.

Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

Every business gets asked the same questions over and over again. These could come from prospects or clients and are great topics for blog posts. Chances are, if they are a FAQ, they’re also searched on a lot too.

New Products and Services

What’s new with your company? What are you offering now that you didn’t previously? Maybe its brand new or maybe it’s version 2 of an existing product. Don’t be afraid to tell the world when you have something new to offer them.

Feature Spotlight

I’d be willing to bet that most people don’t know how to use half the features of the products they use every day. That’s why putting the spotlight on different features is such a good idea. People love to get more out of what they are already using.

When you think about blogging don’t think about quantity of blog posts, think about quality. The quality of content is one of the biggest factors leading to a successful blog because people like original, thought-provoking content.

If you output a lot of mediocre posts, visitors or search engines won’t see value. The blog will get less traffic, fewer comments, lower rankings, and visitors will be far less likely to share it.

If you take some time and create engaging content, with unique and original thoughts, the value of that content will be much greater. Those posts will get more attention from search engines, visitors will get more value, and the likelihood of those posts being shared on the social web increase considerably.

One thing to keep in mind is that quantity, or post frequency, doesn’t appear on this chart. The more often you post, the more hooks in the water you have; however quantity is often misinterpreted. People tend to think that the posting more often is so important that quality gets sacrificed when quantity comes into play. Yes, it would be nice to have a large number of quality posts, but that may take time to accomplish; and that’s OK.

Every company want to blog these days as they feel that it’s a good way to increase brand visibility, search engine traffic, and gain more sales; which it can if done it right.

Here are 10 tips you should keep in mind when working with a blog.

Don’t Over Think Everything

A blog should not be so complex that you can’t come up with posts or move forward. Stop, relax, and simplify. Post like you’re talking to your customers and you should be fine.

Know Your Target Audience

Are you posting for new customers, existing customers, industry professionals, or a little bit of everyone?

If posting for new customers, or people who don’t know your industry, be careful not to use acronyms or industry terminology without first explaining them.

If posting for existing customers, then don’t try to sell them your product when they already have it.

Posting to everyone isn’t a bad idea, but your posts should be broken out so that some are for newbies, while others are more technical. Mix it up and don’t try to target two different types of people with one kind of post.

Upgrade? Don't Upgrade?

Yes, WordPress 3.0 is now available, but it may not be a good idea to upgrade to it just yet.

Here are 3 things you need to complete before you upgrade.

1) Do you really need to update now?
WordPress 3.0 is a big update and it’s been under construction for quite a while now. Yes it’s good, but sometimes there are security holes or bugs that the developers didn’t see in the testing environment. You never know what kinds of things people find until you release it. So it may be a good idea to wait a few days, or even a week or two, to ensure that no big issues get uncovered. Or, if they do come up, WordPress can fix them with a security update.

2.) Check your plugins
Just because a WordPress update is out, that doesn’t mean that all your plugins will work. There’s a chance that you’ll need to update a plugin to be compatible, or that the plugin just isn’t going to work until the developer updates it. Then you have to decide if you can live without certain plugins, or if you’d rather wait until all plugins are WordPress 3 compatible.

Do you like cupcakes? Who doesn’t? But what is it about a cupcake that makes you love it? And how do cupcakes relate to blogs?

Presentation

Lets start with the presentation. Most cupcakes catch your eye because of how they look. Maybe it’s the coloring of frosting or the overall design. This is the first impression and it’s important that the cupcake speaks to the right audience.

Now when you have a blog, the same holds true. When someone visits a blog, the first reaction is on the look and feel, the colors, the layout. Is it visually appealing?

Sure, cupcakes and blogs are about more than just the look and feel, but sometimes people can’t get past an ugly one.

Satisfaction

Maybe it’s how you feel once you’ve consumed one. Eat one good cupcake and you’re bound to have another. Eat a great cupcake and chances are you’ll tell a friend about it.

Reading a blog post should leave the visitor satisfied and happy. Readers should want to share it, bookmark it and come back.

No one is ever going to tell their friends about a generic boring cupcake, so why would they share a generic blog post?

As Google Chrome continues to grow, so to the extensions that go along with it and their functionality. Below are a few extensions that bloggers can use to quickly create new blog posts without leaving the page they are on.

ScribeFire

ScribeFire has long been one of the most popular blogging extensions for Firefox, and it has made its way to Google Chrome.

ScribeFire allows you to create, edit and update all your blogs from one extension. It has built-in support for WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Windows Live Spaces, Tumblr, Posterous, Xanga, LiveJournal, and other blogging platforms. It’s quick, easy and probably the best extension for blogging on Chrome.

ScribeFire

Blogger

Blogger has their own extension called Blog This! It’s built by Google specifically for their Blogger platform so you know its gotta be good. If you are still on Blogger, it is worth checking out.

Blog This!

TypePad

TypePad also has their own Chrome extension called TypePad Blog It. It only works for TypePad blogs and is an official TypePad extension so you know it’ll integrate well into their system. It’s worth checking out if you use TypePad.

TypePad Blog It

Salesforce recently launched a WordPress plugin that allows you to add a form to your blog and capture lead details in Salesforce.

The good news here is that it’s easy to install, easy to set up a form, and integrates nicely into your WordPress theme.

Settings

Form Fields

Integration

Widget

The downside is that there are no custom fields, no spam protection, and you can only create one form. I’m hoping these are limitations of the initial release and future versions will have more options.

Overall, for an initial release, the Salesforce WordPress plugin is a simple way to capture leads in Salesforce from your WordPress blog. It’s easy to set up, easy to use, and Salesforce fans will find it very handy as long as you don’t need to get to complex.

I know that popups are one of those words that bring chills to some people, but they can be an effective way of promoting a product or service your blog.

Now we’re not talking about old school popup browser windows, but rather a small CSS window that shows on top of your content. These types of popups often bring a higher conversion rate, as compared to a button or form in the sidebar, as they allow the visitor to easily focus on one thing.

Call to action (CTA) popups can be used to:

• Announce a new product or service.
• Advertise a sale.
• Obtain more subscribers.
• Promote an event.
• Call out a white paper or case study.
• Publicize company news.
• … and many more.

More than likely, you’ve just seen ours.

If you want to add a CTA popup like this to your WordPress site, grab the WP Super Popup plugin. WP Super Popup makes it easy to create and configure these types of popups.

Options include:

• Show content from:
  • a URL
  • create it with the WYSIWYG editor
  • pase in HTML
• Set height and width.
• Determine how often the popup shows.
  • Example: Every x days or for the first x visits. (based on cookie in browser)

Search is a bit part of any online presence. Most people focus on getting people to their site, but what happens after they are there? Does your blogs search perform as well as it should?

If you are using WordPress’ default search, then what you are getting is a pretty bad search experience. It seems that WordPress’ default search returns results based on date, not on relevance, which makes finding anything very difficult.

To make WordPress’ search much better, grab the Search Unleashed plugin.

Search Unleashed allows you to:

• Define what you want included in search results. IE: Pages, Comments, Posts, Authors, Tags
• Use search operators and wild cards.
• Replace category and tag archives with search results.
• Highlight matching terms on search result pages.
• Customize your type of search engine.
• See what users have been searching for.
• Search within categories.

The best part about the plugin is you just need to install and activate it. There is no need to edit your theme or worry about customizing anything. It just works.

Take your WordPress blog search to the next level with Search Unleashed. You, and your visitors, won’t be disappointed.

TopRank’s recent Blogging and SEO survey of in-house, agency and independent marketing, advertising and PR professionals revealed that 95% of respondents incorporate blogs as part of their online marketing mix. Nearly 88% have successfully increased measurable SEO objectives as a direct result of blogging.

Thousands of new blogs are started by companies and individuals each day. Yet getting a blog set-up, optimized, and launched are just the first steps. No one will know you have a blog to read, subscribe or link to unless you take an important next step: promotion. There are plenty of places you can promote and market a new blog:

• Add A Link – If it’s a company blog, or if it’s attached to another site, add a link to the blog from the main navigation on the parent website.
• Create A Badge – On the main website, add a badge to the homepage, or sidebar, that promotes the blog. Images are a good way to catch a visitor’s attention.
• Email – Add a link to the blog in your email signature.
• Newsletter – Announce the blog in the company newsletter.