You are stuck in the doctors office waiting for them to call you back. Sure they charge you an arm and a leg for their time but disregard yours. Don’t waste this chance to find some blogging inspiration. You are stuck in a room with a great tool at your fingertips: magazines.
A magazine can be filled with 100s of ideas for you and your blog, even if it’s on a completely different subject. You can use magazines to find great color schemes, learn more about layouts, find out about what people are wanting to learn, and best of all find great headlines and post ideas!
If you have never tried using a magazine for inspiration. Grab a magazine, a pen and paper or I like me your phone or tablet. (Don’t have a magazine check out magazine covers on Amazon.com.)
You are going to start creating headline formulas and build a list of post ideas.
Use Eye Catching Keywords
Original Headline: Have a Stress Free Summer (Good Housekeeping)
Basically Stress Free is your keywords here. So your formula will be Have a Stress Free ________. When I write my ideas down on my tablet if I don’t have an idea instantly I will leave blanks.
My Examples:
- Blogging twist: Have a Stress Free Editorial Calendar
- Kids twist: Have a Stress Free Play Date
- Weight loss twist: Have a Stress Free Date Night on a Diet
Original Headline: Sexy Hair Made Simple (InStyle)
Your formula: ________ Made Simple
My Examples:
- Blogging twist: Categories Made Simple
- Weight loss twist: Grocery Shopping Made Simple
- Social Media twist: Facebook Pages Made Simple
Create a List Formula
Original Headling: 285 No-Fail Ideas to Scrapbook (Creative Keepsakes)
Quickly create your formula: # No-Fail Ideas to ________. I don’t actually add the numbers until I start brainstorming and come up with how many items I will have in my list.
My Examples:
- Blogging twist: 10 No-Fail Ideas to Blog Posts
- Weight loss twist: 5 No-Fail Ideas to Get Your Exercise
- Social media twist: 8 No-Fail Ways to get Followers
Original Headling: 12 Sneaky Tricks to Peel Off the Pounds (SELF)
Formula: # Sneaky Tricks to ________.
My Examples:
- Blogging twist: 7 Sneaky Tricks to Get Comments
- Weight loss twist: 13 Sneaky Tricks to Healthy Snacking
- Vlogging twist: 3 Sneaky Tricks to Awesome Videos
Great Phrases
My Examples:
- My blogging twist: Headers! How to Create your Own
- Kids twist: Bubble Wands! How to Create your Own
- Social media twist: Icons! How to Create your Own
My Examples:
- Blogging twist: More Subscribers Instantly
- Weight loss twist: More Protein Instantly
- Social media twist: More Privacy Instantly
See how quickly and easily you can start building ideas and creating great eye catching headlines? The best part of this is you can do this in a few minutes or for a half an hour. It’s quick to pick up and put down.
What’s your favorite way to find blogging inspiration? Have you used a magazine for inspiration before?
Wow! What a great idea… once again illustrating how, when we are alert to life, we can be working on becoming more effective with our business, our writing, and our creativity literally 24/7.
Thank you for the inspiration!
Love this idea! Just found your blog and it already a favorite!
Just came across your site today from Tip Junkie. Great idea to use magazine headlines as starters for my own blog. I am already making notes!
I’ve been loving this so much and with the editorial calendar plugin I am set for posting for months! I’ll have to share a post about how to go from your headline ideas to getting a great editorial schedule going!
This is a great way to brainstorm, and I like that I can challenge myself to fulfill the post titles I come up with. Thanks for sharing!