If you’re stuck for ideas for your website content – whether that’s written, video or any other content – then here are some ways to get ideas fast.

Because, let’s face it, we’ve all stared at a blank screen or sheet of paper, scratching our heads, wondering what to write.

Writer’s block can be very real.

But websites aren’t forgiving of those pauses.

So how do you come up with ideas without too much brain ache?

Change your state

Top copywriter Ted Nicholas does this before every sales letter writing session:

He stands up, raises his head and hands towards the ceiling and yells “Yes! Yes! Yes” at the top of his voice.

It’s not a conventional way of doing things and I’m too scared to try it fully myself but even doing it without the loud yell can change my state for the better.

Give it a try and see how well it works for you.

Another option is to get some exercise – even a short walk around the block will do. Exercise creates endorphins in our bodies and they’re the natural feel good opiate that we (legally) create every time we feel good.

Music is well known for changing state so consider putting some music on in the background.

Some people go further and use specially encoded tracks to play to boost their creativity.

Take a bit of time to figure out what works for you and then use it each time you need to come up with new ideas for your website content.

Use Google’s suggestions

The suggestions that come up as you start typing in Google are based on actual things that actual people are typing into the search engine.

They’re the closest we get to a real time keyword suggestion tool and, in my view, are an order of magnitude better than the ideas that the often suggested Keyword Tool comes up with.

That’s partly because there’s a lot less overwhelm. Depending on whether or not you’ve got “instant” results switched on (hint: switch them off), you’ll get up to 10 suggestions.

That’s more than enough to get one idea for your next piece of website content and it’s far better to use one idea than to have hundreds or thousands squirreled away for a rainy day.

Apart from anything else, our minds can’t really multi-task. So anything more than one topic is too many.

It’s far better to put all your effort in to one topic per session.

If the ideas don’t grab your attention, either scroll down the pages that are returned and click on one that has X number of ideas (10, 25, 100, whatever) and use that to inspire you.

Or scroll to the end of the page and check one of the related searches that usually shows up.

I find if I start with Google’s suggestions I can come up with an idea for a new piece of content in around 10 – 20 seconds including typing time.

Try it and see how you get on.

Use the Content Ideator

This is a customised search that’s free here.

Put in a couple of words related to your topic and you’ll get a selection of titles. Sometimes only a handful, other times they spread over several pages.

For instance, I just asked it to suggest content ideas and got these results:

• A Simple Strategy to Generate Blog Content Ideas
• Five Top Tips on Generating Content Ideas for Blogs
• Suggested Video Content Ideas To Effectively Market Your Business
• Top 5 Content Ideas for an E Commerce Blog Post
• Content Ideas a Struggle for You? Discover the Perfect Cure for No Content Ideas (And More Inside)
• Some Content Ideas Almost Anyone Could Implement
• 10 Creative Content Ideas That Arent Plain Old Articles
• 7 Cool Content Ideas for Idea Strapped Bloggers
• Profitable Content Creation What to Do When Youre Running Out of Content Ideas (3 Big Tips)
• Using YouTube to Promote Your Business: YouTube Content Ideas
• How to Create Your Own Stockpile of Content Ideas
• How to Get Blog Content Ideas for Your Website
• How To Get The Best Content Ideas For Massive Traffic And Sales: The Easy Way

Sometimes you can use them as-is.

Sometimes you need to tweak them slightly.

Sometimes you decide that you didn’t really want to create content on that subject so you use a different keyword.

But almost always I find a suggestion that I’m happy to create content around in a very short space of time.

Use Quora or LinkedIn or similar sites

Quora is a question and answer site, a bit like the longer established Yahoo Answers.

People ask questions and other people answer them.

You can use the questions as the basis for your content – search engines are increasingly being asked questions (I blame Siri for that) and that means that if you write content that answers their questions you’re more likely to show up in the search results for those types of search.

These are just some of the questions that were being asked when I searched for content ideas:

• How do you generate content ideas from the real world?
• What strategies work best for creating new content ideas?
• How can Quora be utilized for content creation and content ideas?
• Are there any recommended tools for an online content idea calendar?
• What are the best resources for Facebook content ideas?

Again, I hope you can see just how fast you can get questions that you could answer by way of the content you create.

Any of the idea generation ideas above will work

That’s the beauty of this method.

It’s short and to the point.

Which gives you plenty of time to do the important work which is creating content for your website.

And if you’d like more ideas and more help, take a look here.