There comes a time with any niche where your mind goes blank or – if you’ve been in the niche a reasonable amount of time – you think you’ve run out of ideas.

There are a few solutions to this:

• Revisit topics you wrote about a long time ago. You’ll be looking at them with fresh eyes and will probably come up with a different angle or just an expansion on what you’ve previously written. It’s said that there are only 7 basic plots for films and novels but that doesn’t stop new ones being produced all the time.
• Set a Google alert. Set it to daily or weekly and don’t worry about deleting the messages you get if you don’t need them straight away – there’ll be another one along soon enough. They can go off topic occasionally but most of the time they’ll give you some insight into how other people are writing about your niche. Use several different keyword phrases if necessary but remember that you need to confirm them (I tried doing a batch once but because I hadn’t confirmed, Google thought I wasn’t genuine)
• Add “how to” or “list” or “10 ways” to your niche keyword and follow the suggestions that come up in the search box. Note that the number 10 is just an example – there are plenty of other numbers you can use including the almost standard book style of 101.
• Generally use the suggestions that show up in the search and check out some of your competition. I find that lists are fertile grounds for ideas – you can usually take one item from a list and turn it into a complete piece of content, even though the site you’ve found may only have a sentence or two explaining it. If you don’t know enough about that particular aspect of your niche, put the new idea into a new search and read up on it. I’ve done that numerous times in self help where there are so many different types of meditation to write about.
• Join a few Facebook groups related to your niche and skim them every now and then to find out what topics show up. Often it’s just a slight change in phrasing that sets off a lightbulb moment.

Depending on how you work:

• Either save a few ideas in a document or spreadsheet, keeping them for a rainy day when your mind has gone blank again.
• Or go with the first topic that takes your interest and start creating content about it. That’s my preferred method as I have a tendency to procrastinate if I don’t start as close to right away as possible.

Then start writing!