Over at For Bloggers By Bloggers, we offer free weekly blog topics every Saturday. A collection of various ideas, titles and niches, it’s to help bloggers get inspiration when they hit the blog topics wall.
As bloggers, we know how difficult it can be to come up with just the right idea sometimes. It could just be that your mind is a little empty on a given day, or you’re not quite sure how to make the next post seem a little bit different from your previous one.
So, the blog topics section was set up just for these times. So far, we’ve provided 30 specific ideas and topics for you to run with, although we’ve deliberately set it up so you can take the ideas we provide and use them regardless of the niche your blog covers.
It’s been really well-received, and we’ve started to see some of the blogs coming back that have taken our topics and run with them. So, great to see that the service is helpful.
One of the funny things, if you like, that has come about is the question why we don’t charge for our blog topics. There are other bloggers that are offering a similar service, but charging around ten bucks a month for it. So why don’t we charge as well, and are our blog topics less useful because they’re not being charged for?
Ideas Are Everywhere
The simple response to why our blog topics are free is that ideas are everywhere. I know I’ve gotten an idea for a blog post just walking down the street and seeing how a couple interacts. Or how a business responds to a query. Or how a child can teach us about blogging.
Additionally, ask any blogger where some of their post ideas have come from and they’ll probably reply, “From my comments.” See, the great thing about blogs is that they’re two-way. You write the post and start a conversation, but the comments are the gold where even more ideas can be born, including follow-up posts and new blog topics altogether.
So if bloggers get a lot of ideas from their community, then – in a sense – the blogger should be paying their commenters for their ideas, no? Same goes for other bloggers – if you write a blog post and I’m inspired to write my own based on that, you gave me the idea. So, should I pay you for that?
So, yeah, ideas are everywhere.
Ideas Aren’t Always Premium
Riffing on the above, most people pay for a product or service because it offers a premium advantage to something you can get for free. It’s the reason business and customers exist. For me, ideas aren’t premium.
As I mention above, ideas are everywhere – all you need do is look. But if you’re not sure where to look, then that’s where something like our blog topics come into play. But premium?
If we were to offer you steps and strategies on what to do with these topics, then that has the potential to become a premium service. For example, if we were to share how you can then promote these topics ; how it can be used to drive sales leads your way; or how you can measure how successful your post was and how many new readers you got – and kept – then that becomes a premium service.
Ideas are definitely useful, but it’s the strategies that drive the ideas where the real value (usually) lies.
Premium versus Free
Does this mean you shouldn’t pay for blog topics? That’s up to you. Like anything, you gauge the value from what’s free and what’s premium, and how much of a difference there is between the two.
Does the fact that something’s premium mean it’s better? Maybe, maybe not. Although I’m obviously biased, I think getting 10 free blog topics every week from a team of multiple award-winning bloggers offers great value. Again, though, it’s in the eye of the beholder, and the value received.
There’s definitely a need for premium blog services, and we’ll be offering some soon with the likes of blog auditing, blog mastermind classes and more launching soon. But sometimes there’s also a need just for straightforward help for bloggers who’ve helped you get to where you are, or want to be.
Making that help free is just a nice way to say thanks. It’s also another reason why our blog topics are free – it’s our way of saying thanks for your support.
Cheers!
image: jangelo