Ten (Super Rad) Blog Post Ideas

Vanilla Cupcakes

Beyond being a baker, I’m also a blogger.  Had you noticed.  Yea… it’s a real thing.

Maybe you’re a blogger too!  There are tons of blogs these days.  They’re beautiful!  The internet has definitely become a more lovely place… thank you fashion and design bloggers.  For real.   With so much bright, fun, and creative ideas flowing… do you ever wonder HOW?  How do bloggers consistently come with new content, and new clever things to say?

Let me tell you a bit of truth… sometimes I just sit in front of the computer and wonder what… what what whaaat I could possibly write to you.  Should I tell you more about my cat?  No… probably not.  Should I tell you more about my nail polish obsession?  I should probably go easy on that.

Sometimes the work is effortless. Other times… it’s nice to fall back on a few tricks.

Here’s a list of Ten Super Awesome Blog Post Ideas.  Try working within these little bits of inspiration.  Sometimes we just need a nudge in a different direction.

From my blogging heart to yours,

Joy

ps.  The cupcakes?  They’re Twelve Cupcakes and Frosting with just one stick of butter… it’s like a party trick in your kitchen.

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One:  A How-To Post

Just think about all the little things you know how to do!  How-to posts don’t need to be elaborate or complicated.  It’s all about relaying information… fun, simply, and beautifully.  How to Make a Friendship Bracelet.  How to Make a Body Scrub.  How to Trick Your Cat into Sleeping While You Cook.  How to Roast Garlic.

There are a million things you know how to do.  Photograph one of them and make it a pretty post!

Two:  Inspired By!

Everything I write about was inspired by something I’ve seen, consumed, and otherwise enjoyed.  From gorgeous food, to breathtaking photography… inspiration is everywhere.  Detail it!  Share your beauty with everyone around you.  I regularly use my iPhone camera to capture moments out in the world that inspire me.  I find that this little camera is a simple way to keep your eyes open in seeing what’s around me.

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Three:  What are you reading?

A glimpse at that giant stack of books on the nightstand is 100% satisfying.  It calms the nosey nerves, and inspires me to seek out new things for my brain to digest.  Right now I’m reading An Everlasting Meal, The Happiness Project, and How to Eat a Cupcake.  Yes… three at once.  I also read Thought Catalog regularly.  It’s smart and funny… I’m totally obsessed.

Four:  Let’s do a list!

The only thing more satisfying that creating a list, is crossing things off that list.  People love lists, so… give the people what they want!  Shutterbean works lists every week in posts called I Love Lists Friday!  They’re major.

It can be as simple as Five Things I Love!

You might also consider  these Top 10 Real Talk Blog Tips as a sort of ‘meta’ example of listing.  Lists on lists on lists.

pesto collage

Five: A Best-of Post

Real Talk:  I do these best-of, round-up recipe posts when I’ve burned cookies and I have nothing new and chocolaty to show you.  It’s just real life.

Six: A Diary Excerpt

Bust out the diary.  Flip to the center… where you were sixteen (almost seventeen) and  you asked that really tall, awkward boy out to junior prom, and you were the biggest dork (in a journalism class FULL of dorks), and you had no idea how to tame your frizzy bangs (and you wondered why you had bangs to begin with), you borrowed you mom’s blue eyeshadow, and you could not (for the life of you) see the light at the end of the oh-my-god-why-am-I-so-awkward- tunnel.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Yea…. so.  Write about that stuff.  It’s painfully relatable.  Trust.

Seven: Somewhat ridiculous unsolicited advice

Oh my gosh.  I’m so good at offering unsolicited advice!  Duh.  Who isn’t good at this?   You didn’t ask… but I’ve got words for you.  Ex:  On Turning Twenty-One.

Ps.  I’m spot on with the point number ten.

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Eight:  Before-and-After

A before and after post takes just a bit of discipline.  You must be disciplined enough to take a picture of something before, during, and after.  Maybe it’s a new, awesome haircut!  Maybe it’s the  before and after results of a monster desk clean-up.  Tracy is MAJOR when it comes to Before-and-After!  She’s an organizing whizkid!    Seriously epic.

Nine:  A Day in the Life

From morning to night… let’s get real nosey with it!  Also… if there’s a chocolate cake involved… that’s pretty major.  Making Baking and Consuming the Best Chocolate Bundt Cake… it’s a day in the life of sorts.  Check it.    Go easy on yourself in the Day in the Life posts.  Not everything is picture perfect… and that’s just real life.  Go on!

Ten:  A giveaway!

Think of something weird that you love… and share it with everyone.  That’s actually how I live my whole life.  Giveaways are a great way to share thing that you love with an excited group of people.  If they like you, chances are they’re going to like the weird things you like.  Be generous and give.  It feels great!

 

Be well.  Happy Blogging… and have fun, dangit!

 

All Comments

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151 Responses

  1. I just started up my first blog & this would have to be the best advice and info I’ve found so far. Thanks for the inspiration!!

  2. Hola! I’ve been reading your web site for a long time now and finally got the bravery to go ahead and give you a shout out from Austin Tx! Just wanted to mention keep up the fantastic work!

  3. It seems just a bit cruel to mention a how-to on tricking your cat to sleep while you bake without sharing the secret with us! Can you do it? Can anybody do it? I’m not sure it’s possible.

  4. Love these tips! I’m new to the blogland and am very excited! Love the idea of the inspiration and taking an expert out of an old diary. Hugs!

  5. This was so helpful. I actually just found your site thanks to Heather Bullard. So happy to meet you. Your post made me smile.
    Karen

  6. Great post with fun tips. I have been contemplating a diary from way back when. I changed my mind;)

  7. Oh, I love this! I will definitely use it!!I do a similar trick with meal planning. When I have no idea what to make for the week I have 5 or 6 meal genres that I pull from like (one pot meal, salad entree, pasta dish etc). That gets the juices flowing. You have a beautiful blog.

  8. Such a great post!
    Sometime I totally lack inspiration and the more I think about it the more I get stuck…
    Lately I decided to let it go, if nothing comes to mind than I just start doing something else. Magically after a couple of hours inspiration reappears!

  9. Such a helpful post, especially for those days when words are stuck somewhere in a cluttered brain closet. I have to admit, I’m a little terrified to open up those old journals though. Bad hair, chubby cheeks, nicknames for crushes which may or may not have involved President’s last names…yikes! That’s some scary stuff!

  10. Wonderful post Joy! I especially love the diary excerpt idea. Thanks for thinking up such an inspirational post. :)

    – Rachel
    pigeondesigns.ca

  11. Hi Joy – the picture of those beautiful, colorful cupcakes first captured my attention and then I got to reading your post. Your ideas are wonderful – I know I would love to read any of those types of blog posts you mentioned. I stop by here often; thank you for always keeping it current (can’t be easy!) and giving us a little something to look at, read, and learn. : )

  12. This is a great post, and what I think is that having a blog has made me more likely to do things like “oh that could be an opportunity for a blog post”. This includes participating in food swaps, an online foodie penpal program, participating in Tuesdays with Dorie, having parties, and taking cooking classes. Some of those things I may have done anyway, but I am not just sitting in my kitchen looking for content ideas. I think that is a great aspect to blogging is that it encourages community, interaction and adventure (at least on my part – very introspective personal blogs may be very different).

  13. Oh, Joy – I love your authenticity-infused posts! You’re like the supermodel that lets everyone in on her workout routine (and tells us about the times she binges on doughnuts.) You’re so cool. Forgive my 90’s speak. But it’s truth. : )

    xo – Shalan

  14. I made your quinoa and kale patties to serve with salmon last night for dinner. BIG, BIG hit. In fact, we had the leftovers with eggs this morning. Healthy and delish! Keep ’em comin’.

  15. Hi Joy, I just found you via The Pioneer Woman. So glad I did! Love your site, photos and recipes. All very inspiring. Can’t wait to cook your best ever chocolate bundt cake. I look forward to reading more.

  16. This was an awesome post. I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets in a rut sometimes with the blogging. Sometimes I like to post something interesting for people to read besides just recipes (although recipes for yummy food are great!)

  17. Always appreciate your blogging tips, Joy! Just what I needed to hear. After seeing one of your “what I’m reading posts,” I considered doing one myself, but didn’t want to be that girl–the one who copies Joy the Baker. But now that you’ve given the OK… :)

  18. great post! i find myself wishing i could search for all your “non-baking” posts more easily. the ones where you give unsolicited advice and give us a peek into your day to day. can we make this happen? my nosey nerves are on edge!

  19. Um… as a polish addict (with a newly formed polish blog) I feel you do not talk about your polish addition nearly enough… I love your random nail shots. We haven’t had one in a while!!

    PS – thanks for the advice ;)

    <3 Kelly

  20. Excellent round up of blog fodder…because half the time I stare blankly at my screen and think…there has to be something to post than just a photo today…

  21. These posts are my number one reason why I absolutely adore your blog. Your baking is fabulous – but your thoughts on life, your advice – that is the reason I keep coming back! I LOVED your “turning 21” post! I am now and will forever be aware of my “resting face”. For that alone, I thank you. :) Really- every person out there should read that list!
    Have a fabulous weekend,
    xx

  22. What a great post Joy…I’m also a blogging newbie and although I have tons of ideas, I need to find ways to make them fresh as I feel like versions have all been done before! I’m trying to not reinvent the wheel, but get my own sparkly wheel out there!
    Thanks for the tips!

  23. Great tips! I definitely need to “break out” and write more interesting things than I do. Hopefully that will get more people to read my blog.

  24. great ideas! hmmm a giveaway…i’ll have to think about how to do one of those. they seem fun. meantime, thanks for the advice!

  25. Love your quirky, albeit pragmatic suggestions, interspersed with delicious pictures of delicious dishes! Thank you for the book recommendations, the “Happiness Project” looks intriguing! Hug, Assia

  26. What do you do if you are the awkward 17 year old wanting to go to prom but you don’t even have the awkward tall kid in your awkward journalism class to ask?

  27. As a fairly new blogger, it can be hard to find your voice in the beautiful online world. Thanks for the ideas and inspiration. And mega congrats on your cookbook. It’s true that when you are passionate about something, sucess will come.

  28. I enjoy you so much, you could blog about anything and I’d be glad I “visited” you. Rock on, Joy. Inspiring post here. I started a blog 8 years ago when I became a mother for the first time. But after he was no longer a toddler, I let it languish. This makes me think about resuscitating it as something new.

  29. Great tips – thank you! I really enjoy your blog and your photographs. Can’t wait to make everything in your book – it all looks wonderful! Please come back to New York sometime – I missed you in Brooklyn.

  30. Joy, thank you! I’m a newbie in the blogging world and can use all the tips, tricks, ideas and advice I can get!

    p.s. I can really, really relate on the nail polish obsession – it’s a weakness, and a sickness. represent.

  31. Thanks for such a wonderfully inspiring post. I’ve been working on my blog for awhile now and wondering if I should continue. This is exactly what I needed to keep going on. Thank you so much!

  32. I had nearly that EXACT experience with the frizzy bangs and the asking of awkward tall boys to prom. It’s like you did an excerpt from MY diary instead of your own. weird.

    Except, at the time, I did not think I was awkward myself. I thought I was boss. True story.

  33. As a new blogger, and longtime reader of Joy the Baker, I really enjoyed this post. Very inspiring.
    I am also loving your book! It’s just as good as I expected, if not better.

  34. Haha Joy-I see what you did there. (#4)

    LOVE your blog-I haven’t made any of the recipes yet-once I’m done with finals!-but I love the photography, your writing, and creative baking/cooking ideas! Will try to comment more often!

  35. Increíble! Un post inteligente, honesto, creativo, con humor y buen gusto!
    Siempre es un placer pasar por aquí!
    Un abrazo enorme desde España!

  36. Great ideas! I may have to use some! I’ve been wanting to do a giveaway, but I’m pretty sure I only have about 20 readers, and most are my friends and family. lol Thanks for the ideas!

  37. I completely agree that the internet has found its happy place – blogs! Pinterest! Instagram!

    I could sit and read blogs for hours. And sometimes I do! (And yours is ALWAYS one of them!!)

  38. Your “10 Real-Talk Blog Tips” post was the first post of yours that I *read*, really read. And, since then I’ve been an avid reader of yours! So thank you for being so real.

    P.S. The Happiness Project is one of my favorite things (not just books!) of my entire world. It changed my life. I hope you love it!

  39. I completely agree that the internet has found it’s happy place – blogs! Pinterest! Instagram!

    I could sit and read blogs for hours. And sometimes I do! (And yours is ALWAYS one of them!!)

  40. Love love love this post. I find I’m always trying to walk the line between helpful and informative/letting people in. Especially because I feel I should be doing more of the former, but people seem to respond more to the latter.

    You are adorable and inspiring and always make my day brighter. Thanks!

  41. I just started blogging… a little slow on the take, I know. Of all the food blogs out there, I think yours, Joy, is by far the best I’ve come across. It’s honest and down-to-earth, but mostly, unpretentious. There are some really great food blogs out there, but most of them don’t seem to reflect the author very well. For example, do those people really talk the way they write? That is one of the reasons why I like yours so much. It seems you’re having a personal conversation with all of us.

    Thanks again for your blog and keep up the great work.

  42. First of all, those cupcakes look amazing!
    Second of all, I’ve been looking for a good post like this. I just got back into blogging, but sometimes I still feel stuck on what to post about. These tips you posted definitely helped and gave me some good ideas. I hope one day my blog will be as good as yours :)

  43. THANK YOU! this is very helpful. I’m just starting off with my blog and I’m already out of inspiration most of the time. So this is definitely helpful. Thanks :)

    x
    Angie
    sundaybelle.com

  44. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. Your blog! Just ordered An Everlasting Meal, can’t wait to read it. On Turning 21… YES! And Thank You!! And AMEN girl! Book recommendation: Life is A Verb by Patti Digh.

  45. You’re funny – and I love this post. Funny it popped up today as I was thinking about what to post and coming up a bit thin. I think it’s all about how you present it – and you present it so well. And now must make those cupcakes like, for real. Thanks :)

  46. Enjoyed reading this one. And the Top 10 Real Talk Blog Tips. And Turning 21. And loved them all.
    You’ve shared some great advices on each of ’em.
    The recipe of telling about oneself is the only unique one in this world and it’s great to share, to connect with readers :)

  47. I don’t know, I kind of always like to hear about your cat, Joy. I think a blog post with a cat picture in it is never a wasted blog post, but that’s maybe just me…

  48. Nice post with great tips for the just started blogger like me (just a month blogging now)!
    Some things I had already in mind, some are a good eyeopener! Full of ideas now! Can’t wait till I have some time to take action and blog!

  49. This is so great! I appreciate this so much. Reading your blog has influenced my blog and blogging ability so much already. These tips are so great! You are my blogging hero and one of the easiest and most fun blogs to read.

  50. Love the ideas, thank you! And I like how you listed them, discussed them, gave examples AND still managed to make them applicable to any/all bloggers. Much appreciated!

  51. Here’s my trick for when I’m feeling uninspired: I pop over to your blog and read it for a while. You always leave me with a smile on my face and the inspiration to find something to write about. So thank you!!

  52. AWESOME, Joy!! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve also sat in front of my computer and just sat there thinking, and thinking, and thinking of something to write about, and then eventually, I write, “I have to be honest, today I’ve got nothin’. Here’s the recipe, but I’ve got nothin’ to say, so it’s a silent post.” Sometimes, it’s a good thing for there to be silence and for our readers just to enjoy a recipe, or a review or a how-to – It keeps are real.
    I’ve bookmarked this. Thank you for so many wonderful ideas! Once again, Joy, you’ve inspired and motivated me! xoxoxox

  53. As far as your advice for turning 21, you are even more spot on with number three. Facebook is not real life. I know SOOOO many 21 year olds who need to realize that.

  54. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for the tips and for all of the great recipes! It can be so hard sometimes to figure out what to bake and then what to write about and not have it be boring. I feel like such a child in the blogging world sometimes but I love every minute of it. P.S. I feel like you could win any boys heart with your brown sugar bacon biscuits…AND your cookbook is amazing!

  55. Joy,

    I’ve been lurking here for awhile, but, wanted to leave a comment on this post! Thank you for such a great round up of ways to think about what to blog about — as a friend of mine says, its deciding what to write about that is the hard part of blogging! Love your blog and all that you produce on it!

    Abbey

  56. Being in a blogging rut is definitely not new to me. After spending hours in the kitchen sometimes I find it hard to actually put something down on paper (or screen), and sometimes there is nothing but this voice in my head going duhh-duh-duh-duhhhhhh while I stare at the blinking cursor. Maybe I should get that checked. Great tips on blogging!

  57. Awesome post. You definitely covered the goods!

    I use the “Inspired By” post quite a bit. How could I not? I could spend every minute of my day reveling in what’s being born in the creative world and be happy!

    And, considering I’m sure you could to, I ask this question in hopes that you answer but with the understanding that you’re busy! … What do you think of “How to Eat a Cupcake?” Would you recommend it?

  58. Thanks for all the tips! I’m fairly new at blogging. It’s more challenging than I expected, and different than the writing I did for newspapers. But this blogging thing is so much fun. Been following yours for years (love it!), and I’m so happy to have my own little space on the Internet now.

  59. Wow, Joy! You’re awesome! I’m a big fan! <3
    I've just started blogging and, for sure, there are times there's nothing worthy to turn into a post. And you said something that's true: write with heart.
    This post is already my favorite – like tons of yours. Thaaank you!

  60. I love this post, Joy. Like you, there are times when I have absolutely no idea what I want to talk about, mostly because I’m terrified my crazy and excessive thoughts will completely scare away anyone who reads my blog… I can be a little strange sometimes.

    I’ve always felt compelled to do a giveaway, but do you sponsor yourself or does the product’s company sponsor it for you???

  61. This is fantastic! I have been blogging for a little over a year, but sometimes I have no idea what to say and end up just writing about things I’ve been thinking about or saw that day but we allllll know that isn’t that exciting. Thanks so much!

  62. Believe it or not, your post magically mostly always made me thinking “hey i feel the same way too, i thought about that too” maybe you could be my bestie in the real life :D . Truly love your writing. Effortless yet very beautiful :)

  63. Love these. I should definitely do the list one – and the day in the life more often. I’ve got a “week” in the life (sort of) coming, but the lists – must do the lists. And what I’m reading.

    Thanks for the advice!

  64. Thanks Joy. This is great advice and something I’m going to try and do in some of my upcoming blog posts. I love your tips on inspiration as thats something I am always on the look out for.

    Sally

  65. Love the 10 ideas and what I’ve found works the best if I’m ever at a loss for words (rarely!) but don’t feel like I have anything amazing or newsworthy to share is to either run a giveaway…ha!

    Or just look over the pictures on my memory card stick that are just sitting in Lightroom and find the most interesting one and talk about that and include a link to a previous recipe that is fitting…basically, make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Not that you asked for what the rest of us do when we’re a little stumped but I post driven by what pictures I have waiting.

    Your posts rock, period!

  66. Thanks for the great advice Joy! There are so many lovely blogs out there it can be overwhelming. It is always good to find ways to mix it up a little. You are truely an inspiration :)

  67. I think more carefully about what I write these days. Sometimes (or often) I get stuck but eventually something comes to me. This is a handy list to have around! I already use some/many of these tactics but you know, having it all laid out like that can get one to the ‘aha!’ moment quicker.

  68. This is a great blog post. Super helpful and definitely something I will do in the next few posts. My posts have become quite similar and it is time for me to start doing something more fun or come up with something creative to share. Thank you so much for this lesson! You are awesome!

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