8 Ways to Make Old and Boring Topics Feel New and Exciting Again

8 Ways to Make Old and Boring Topics Feel New and Exciting Again

by Miranda Hill

on

I get it.

You don’t want to be one of the millions of bloggers stuck in the land of sameness — indistinguishable as you parrot the same old advice everybody else does.

You want your voice to be heard, and you want it to feel vibrant, fresh and new.

But your blog topic feels threadbare, and you’ve got no bloody idea how to make it exciting again. Every angle has been rewritten, rehashed and reused. It bores you so much you’d rather poke your eye out with a stick of spaghetti than write another post.

So you search for answers on how to stand out.

But all you find is airy-fairy platitudes. Provide unique insights! Be interesting! Write in your own voice!

It’s all surface-level hoopla that lacks the substance and specifics you really need.

So I scoured the Internet in search of posts that felt new and exciting despite having well-trodden topics. And I unearthed a handful of practical tactics you could add to your repertoire.

Enough small talk. Let’s get into it …

Tactic #1: Turn Fluffy Concepts into Living, Breathing Characters


Procrastination. It’s a well-worn topic. It’s also a bit of an ethereal concept — untouchable, yet it touches us all.

But in this insanely viral post, Tim Urban skillfully brings procrastination to life by casting interesting characters to play the roles of emotions that live inside a procrastinator’s brain. See what I mean …

Procrastinator's Brain line drawing

Mel Wicks also did it when she created the Imp to play the role of Imposter Syndrome —  another fluffy concept.

I have a nagging voice inside my head that constantly reminds me of my unworthiness. It tells me to give up before I’m laughed off the Internet. That I’ll never compare to other writers — the real ones.

[…]

I call this voice the “Imp.” Her full name is Imposter Syndrome, and chances are you’ve already met. If you’ve ever had that dread of being outed as a fraud because you don’t stack up to other writers, you’ve experienced Imposter Syndrome, and you have an Imp of your own.

Doing this makes reading about fluffy concepts much more fun and interesting for the reader. You bring the topic to life, as readers can visualize these characters better than ideas that only exist inside our minds.

So if you write about a topic that only exists in the abstract plane, consider breathing some life into it. Think of crazy names for concepts or aspects of problems that your readers may face, and cast human or animal characters in their roles.

Your readers will love it.

Tactic #2: Make Your Readers Choose a Side


Trump or Clinton? Yankees or Red Sox? Ebooks or paperbacks?

You can’t help but choose a side. It’s a natural reaction, and it’s one that you as the writer can play to your advantage. It’ll create standout content for even the most dreary topics.

Devise contrasting sides or categories and compare them to spark your reader’s attention.

Like this:

There are two types of bloggers in this world — let’s call them Sameness and Fearless. Sameness writes posts that are as functional and beige as an L.L. Bean parka. Fearless reveals his deepest thoughts and dares to try new things —  even though he may fail.

Take, for example, Elle Luna’s post, The Crossroads of Should and Must, in which she rockets interest levels to amazing heights by contrasting two paths we can choose to take. It’s a home run of a post that takes the well-trodden topic of “living life to the fullest” to an entirely new level.

The Crossroads of Should and Must

And then we have the $2 Billion Wall Street Journal Sales Letter, which is one of the most successful sales letters ever written:

The Wall Street Journal sales letter

It begins by introducing two young men, painting a picture of their near-identical happy lives, then throws in a surprising contrast to generate curiosity and emotion that makes it impossible to stop reading.

Contrasting two sides like this can be both engaging and persuasive. Readers will be swept up by the comparisons, and they’ll find themselves agreeing with the side you want them to pick.

So next time you write about a dreary topic, consider presenting two opposite sides, and force the reader to choose one.

Tactic #3: Make Them Laugh So Loud They Wake Up People in China


Humor is the perfect way to flip the script on a humdrum blog topic. Oli Gardner proved this point beautifully in his highly entertaining post on landing page optimization.

His setup was gold and left no doubt in the reader’s mind that the post was going to be an interesting ride.

Landing pages rule. Blah.
Homepages suck. Blah.
Do some A/B testing. Blah.
Base your optimization strategy on customer feedback. Blah.

All of those statements are true. But they sound boring and being boring is lame. It’s twenty fourteen and I refuse to be lame.

If you want to be a non-lame marketer, it’s really easy. Read this post, have a laugh, and treat everything I say as gospel.

And he certainly continued to deliver throughout the entire post.

The experienced adult readers amongst you might remember that “Shit. The condom broke!” moment. Yeah you do. You might also remember that it felt like a good time to run a test. #STDsArentFunny. Perhaps. But, as we go through this epic journey together today, I’ll show you exactly when and how you should really be testing.

But what if you’re not funny? Humor can’t be taught, right?

Not true.

Humor writing is a creative art, and, just like all creative arts, it has structure and formula. And all artistic endeavours are built on teachable skills and techniques. — Mark Shatz, Comedy Writing Secrets

Sure, some people seem to be born oozing raw comedic talent, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are doomed. You’ll have to do the legwork, but it’ll be worth it. Many of the most successful and memorable blog posts ever written contain humor or quirkiness.

Here are two of the simpler humor writing tricks to get you started.

Humor Technique #1: The Rule of Threes

Simply put, you write three statements. The first two are the setup, and they establish a thought pattern. Then you add a third, incongruent idea, which is your main point or punchline. Like this:

Let me predict a few things that will happen in the next year. Jon Snow will unite the Seven Kingdoms and save the world. The day you wash and wax your new Honda will be the day it rains. And your inbox will clog up with so many deathly uninteresting posts that you’d rather stab your hand with a freshly sharpened pencil than read another one.

The rule of three is a classic joke structure that you’ll see used by many comedy writers. Here are a couple of examples by the pros so you can see it in action.

Men are simple things. They can survive a whole weekend with only three things: beer, boxer shorts, and batteries for the remote control. — Diana Jordan
I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land. — Jon Stewart
When you die there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. When my father dies, he’ll see the light, make his way toward it, and then flip it off to save electricity. — Harland Williams

See how that works?

Humor Technique #2: Ridiculous Exaggeration

Exaggeration is an age-old trick used to emphasize importance and evoke strong emotions. It’s also a powerful way to inject humor into a post. You can embellish or stretch everyday truths, over- or understate distance or size, and express extreme or ridiculous emotions.

Geraldine DeRuiter’s side-splitting post I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything is a good example, as it’s riddled with exaggeration. Just check out these entertaining quotes:

Like most things in my life, I’ve jumped in headfirst without putting any thought or research into it (this is also how I ended up taking a workout class called “Insanity.” Afterwards, I was drooling and delirious. So I guess it delivered).
Parenthetically, I really should stop listening to people just because they’re attractive. If Jeff Goldblum told me to get a bowl haircut and rob a bank, I totally would.
The cookies look exactly the same before they are digested as after. They are eternal and unchanging. As time passes, they don’t decline in quality or taste because they can’t. They’ve already started out at theoretical zero on that scale.

Hilarious, right?

To do this yourself, begin with a common situation, such as having dismal site traffic. Then play with how it makes you feel, what it makes you want to do, etc. Here are a few I came up with:

  • Dive into a pit of Kleenex and cry like a baby.
  • Send a fire-breathing dragon to incinerate Google HQ.
  • Run away and live in an igloo for the rest of your life.

You get the idea.

So dust off that funny bone and give it a go. It’s a hoot.

Tactic #4: Give Data-Driven Answers to Compelling Questions


In his book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger reveals the results of a study of New York Times articles. He discovered that science articles that discuss research results are more likely to go viral because “they frequently chronicle innovations and discoveries” that evoke a feeling of awe in readers.

In other words, readers love data-driven content.

So instead of approaching your topic the same way as everyone else, perform an experiment or run a survey and share the results with your readers in a post.

That’s what Mark Manson did when he crowdsourced his article, The Ultimate Relationship Guide to End All Relationship Guides™.

Rather than share his own opinion, he ran a survey by the people in his audience who were happily married for 10+ years that asked for their best relationship advice. He then turned the most common answers into an article.

The Ultimate Relationship Guide to End All Relationship Guides

BuzzSumo took another approach. They analyzed 100 million headlines to find the commonalities that popular headlines share and the ones unpopular ones share. Lots of content has been written about writing headlines, but data-backed insights like these are hard to come by.

Buzzsumo Top Headline Phrases

Of course, you may not have access to thousands of subscribers like Mark does, or to millions of headlines and their share counts, like BuzzSumo does, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create data-driven content.

You could run a survey through Facebook Groups or forums. There are plenty of communities online that you could tap into. And hey, you might just go out into the real world and survey people on the street. That works too!

Or you could run a small-scale experiment of your own. For example, if you write about social skills, you could try different conversation openers with strangers and track their responses, seeing which ones work best.

Or, you know, you could grab data and research results from studies that have already been conducted.

Creating data-driven content takes work, but the end result will be a fascinating post that will stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Note: If you want to make your data look pretty, check out online chart creation programs such as chartgo, onlinecharttool, plot.ly and rawgraph.io.

Tactic #5: Inject Your Post with a Healthy Dose of Attitude


There’s a powerful theme that appears in many wildly interesting posts — they all ooze head-flicking, hip-swaggering attitude.

They’re unmistakable because the writer totally embraces their irreverence. They’re written with wit and quirk. They’re unconventional, confrontational and bold. And they border on unreasonable as the writer dances on the edge of insult.

An undeniable strength and passion is woven through every single word. There’s total conviction and unwavering commitment to the main idea.

David Wong nails it in his post, 5 Ways You’re Sabotaging Your Own Life (Without Knowing It):

What I hate about articles like this is that they’re always trying to guilt you into bettering yourself. “What are you doing sitting on your sofa eating ice cream, you lazy bag of Dorito farts! Get off your ass and go become the high-achieving superman you know you can be!” That pisses me off because I know exactly why I’m on the sofa eating ice cream. It’s because I’ve had a hard day and this makes me feel better, so fuck you. Even if what I’m doing is a frivolous waste of time, I’m doing it for a reason.

Johnny B. Truant also does it well in his post, The Universe Doesn’t Give a Flying F**k About You (I mean, that title alone …) His irreverent message of “You don’t matter” hits hard, yet he turns it into something inspirational.

That means that although what you do doesn’t matter to the universe, it should matter one hell of a lot to YOU.

In fact, it should matter to you more than it currently does. If you knew how small you are and how short a time you have to do what you can, you wouldn’t waste time watching five fucking hours of TV a day. You wouldn’t waste time doing a job you hate. You wouldn’t waste the little time you have dealing with assholes, feeling sorry for yourself, or being timid about the things you’d really like to do.

And let’s not forget Jon Morrow’s How to Be Smart in a World of Dumb Bloggers. He just flat-out calls his readers dumb and gets away with it.

Well, it’s not because you haven’t found the right traffic strategy. It’s not because you need to change your domain name. It’s not because the Google gods have turned against you and cursed you to wallow in anonymity forever.

It’s because you’re dumb.

And if you ever want a chance in hell of anyone listening to you, you’d better smarten up.

Any post you write with irreverence will stand head and shoulders above the masses. Nobody remembers a fence-sitting, white-bread boring post. They remember the hilarious rant in which the writer unleashes daggers of unspoken truth upon a popular idea or common situation. They remember the posts in which the writer says the things that everybody wishes they had the balls to say — but don’t.

Be willing to put your neck on the line. And be ready to piss a few people off along the way. You’re not a blogger to lull people to sleep. You started a blog because you’ve got amazing ideas that need to be heard.

Do this by kicking your emotions into a higher gear. Give yourself permission to write freely — not as you should, but as you want. Don’t be angry, be furious. Don’t be happy, be delirious. Don’t be annoyed, be completely pissed off.

Tactic #6: Snare Your Readers’ Attention with a Surprisingly Mismatched Tone


Let’s start by imagining that all your readers are Walking Dead zombies.

They’re stumbling through their days on autopilot, scrolling through their newsfeeds in a stupor. Your only hope is to shove something unexpected into their eyeballs and shock them back to the here and now.

Contrasting your tone with the topic is a fantastic way to inject interest into your post. You can:

  • Mismatch a story about disappointment with an appreciative tone.
  • Be annoyed by simplicity.
  • Find pleasure in the pain of something going wrong.
  • Write about something you hate as if you love it.

For example, like this …

Ahhhh, tax time. I’m truly astonished by the painful and grim stories of hate and loathing I hear in the weeks leading up to the financial year’s end. Why would any sane person hate a justified reason to never answer their cell phone and leave emails unopened, unanswered and unactioned for weeks on end? And then there’s the crazy-sweet pleasure of spending hours searching for that needle in the haystack of receipts — and then finding it. It sends me into excited fits of high-fiving anybody within a ten-foot radius.

And check out this hilarious post about the worry of thinking you have cancer. A topic that summons expectations of gravity and worry.

So This One Time I Thought I Had Breast Cancer—And the Doctor Was a Huge D*ck

So today I placed my boobs into a giant, hospital-grade George Foreman grill and held my breath as the nurse took the X-ray.

The headline piques interest, and the wry and unexpected tone of the opening sentence snares your attention and commits you to an irreversible free-fall until the end of the post.

Tactic #7: Predict the Future


The future is the devil we don’t know. And it’s cloaked in uncertainty.

Your readers desire for certainty about tomorrow is as guaranteed as day turns into night — and it can be used to your advantage.

Build your reader a safe haven of certainty by predicting the future as Jon did here by sharing his view on how to write great content in 2014.

Why Education Readers is No Longer Enough

There’s evidence everywhere to illustrate how not-so-interesting, written-to-death topics, such as content marketing, can continue to pull huge share counts every year by exposing trends for the immediate future.

Content Marketing Trends

Mike Blankenship also worked this tactic nicely in How to Write a Paragraph in 2017.

How to Write a Paragraph in 2017

But what if you don’t know the future?

Remember that none of us do. Chances are, however, that you know the history of your niche (if you don’t, get researching), you’ve checked out your competition, and you have an opinion about how things are evolving.

So be bold. Write a future prediction that becomes a magnet for attention as it creates hope, generates discussion and encourages new ways of thinking for your reader. If you get it wrong, no one’s going to call you on it — it’ll just vanish into the fog of forgotten posts. (You can always delete it too.)

Tactic #8: Pepper Your Post with Quirky Visuals


You’ve probably heard that you should add visual content to your blog posts. And yes, adding infographics, screenshots or photographs can do a lot to liven up your posts… But you can also use visual content to add some whimsy and fun to your posts.

Several of the posts I’ve already featured as examples do this.

Take the aforementioned Medium post from Elle Luna, the Crossroads of Should and Must. She doesn’t just have her readers pick a side, her post is also full of line drawings like this:

Quirky line drawing visuals

The casual nature of these line drawings lifts the feeling from humdrum to fun and injects the post with an entertaining dose of personality and character. As soon as the reader scans the page, they instantly feel like they’re in for a treat.

Tim Urban also uses drawings in his post about procrastination (and every other post he writes).

Quirky line drawing visuals - 2

Line drawings are a great way to move away from the dry formality of graphs and screenshots, but they’re not your only option.

If you don’t feel that artistic — though you don’t have to be that artistic to draw a stick figure — you can also use other quirky imagery, like memes, cartoons and funny pictures. These can be found on the web or easily created with tools like Canva and other meme generators.

If you look back on Geraldine de Ruiter’s I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything, she interchanges the expected photos of food with images like this:

Entertain readers with GIFs

Dull topics are more likely to send your reader’s brain for a coffee break instead of paying full attention. Keep them riveted to their seats by entertaining them with unusual, surprising and vibrant visuals.

Time to Breathe New Life into Those Old and Boring Topics

No blog topic is too boring, too dull or too worn-out to ever be interesting again. It’s you, the writer, who has everything within you to make it interesting.

Because when you do, your voice will be heard and you’ll know you’re helping others as you share new ways of doing things, thinking, and approaching tasks, work or life.

Your posts will stand out from the masses of regurgitated ideas and cookie-cutter advice.

Your posts will open the doors of possibility for your readers, and let you shine brightly.

So which tactic are you going to try first? Pick one and start to make money blogging today.

Light up your blog topic with an explosion of freshness like only you can.

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Miranda Hill

Miranda Hill is a qualified coach, behavioral profiler and writer who helps people to master their  performance in business and life. As a published blogger and ghostwriter, she helps entrepreneurs to trade confusion for clarity. Trained in many coaching models, she’s developed her guide 10 Mindset Secrets That Set Truly Successful Writers Apart so you can boost your writing results.

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Written by Miranda Hill

Miranda Hill is a qualified coach, behavioral profiler and writer who helps people to master their  performance in business and life. As a published blogger and ghostwriter, she helps entrepreneurs to trade confusion for clarity. Trained in many coaching models, she’s developed her guide 10 Mindset Secrets That Set Truly Successful Writers Apart so you can boost your writing results.

80 thoughts on “8 Ways to Make Old and Boring Topics Feel New and Exciting Again”

    • Yes, the power of creating sides for a reader to choose from is amazing. I love that it’s already sparked some creative ideas for you. Be sure to write them down while they’re still fresh in your mind 🙂

      Reply
    • Hi Deborah, I would agree with this as well in reflecting on the simplicity and sheer power of incorporating this into writing.

      It’s not something that I have done a lot in my writing “intentionally” thinking about it, but I think that many have done this to some degree if they’ve been writing for any respectable time at all.

      After reading this post, what I love about the choice aspect of it is that you actually increase engagement by not allowing the reader to just simply internalize what they’ve read and then leave the post settling on whatever position they’ve chosen to in the end.

      I think a lot of times we end up making a choice with respect to what we read regardless of whether the choice parameters have been laid out before us, but there’s something intentional and directional about saying to the reader, it’s either A or B.. now tell me what you think.

      It’s creative.

      It also gives you the ability to redirect that information for some other purpose.. repurposing it in a poll or to even use it to start another conversation or add to another one too.

      Reply
  1. Hi Miranda,

    It’s an awesome post and the title is also very attractive. For this, I didn’t wait to read this when I got an email from Jon Morrow.

    Thanks a lot of elaborating all the eight points thoroughly. Will surely apply…

    Wish you all the best,
    SM

    Reply
  2. Hey Miranda!

    Love this post a lot!

    Very valuable tips and information – and yet very entertaining.

    I like the tactics #2, #3, and #8. I like your tip on making ‘them’ choose a side. That is something I have not really thought about, so thanks!

    I like using humor a lot, and also I like using gifs and funny memes. People really like to be entertained a bit. You gotta have some sort of sense of humor when you are blogging!

    That would be my two little cents here.

    Thank you for sharing!!

    Cheers! 😀

    Reply
    • Hi Freddy, you’re so right, being entertaining is one of the biggest keys to writing interesting posts. And humor is most certainly an amazing way to stamp your personality on a post. It’s fun too 🙂

      Reply
    • Taking a position at times in blogging is a great way to inspire more comments from readers and shares on social networks. “Position blogging” creates a new targeted audience and improves SEO potential as well.

      Reply
  3. Hi Miranda,

    Great tips overall. I am so huge on the humor one.

    By adding lightness and humor and some laughter to my posts I intend to lighten up – myself – and to make learning, fun. Blogging is a fascinating topic to cover but many tend to do so from serious, staid, tense energies. 3rd person posts, practical tips, no flavor. Not good. Because anybody can offer such advice. Anybody can share a few simple, practical tips and hit the publish button.

    It takes a little bit more effort to share similar advice through the art of establishing analogies. This is what I do at my blog. I relate my wacky travel stories with some good old fashioned, proven, tried and true practical blogging advice. Easy way to inspire folks to remember lessons and also, to get them to chuckle along the way too.

    It takes practice though. Because by default, most bloggers are self-conscious, tense and pretty much reject humor for fear of going out on a limb, and for believing that they are not funny. I just tell stories from an authentic space, add vivid details, and try to make my travel experiences funny, so when I draw analogies I can better connect the 2, and to inspire my readers to learn a lesson and to have a hearty laugh in the process.

    Thanks for sharing these smart tips Miranda.

    Ryan

    Reply
    • Hey Ryan,

      I love that you are already adding lightness and humor to your posts. It certainly takes a little more effort at first, but the best things come from effort, don’t they 😉

      Keep it up, laughter is good medicine for the soul.

      Miranda

      Reply
  4. Hi Miranda,

    Great read and I so agree about making your content different than everyone else’s.

    We all know that everything has been written about online. However, it doesn’t mean that we can’t write about it.

    I truly believe that you’ll do better if you can distinguish yourself and stand out from the same ole same ole.

    I’ve actually been trying to share more of my personal story in my posts. I don’t go too deep, but I want to be able to connect with my readers.

    It’s still a lot of work as I am a very introvert person. I don’t like to share a lot about myself.

    However, I’ve personally found that as I’ve been sharing more about my personal life and trying to implement storytelling.

    My readers like it. Of course, it’s still difficult and takes me a little longer to write my articles.

    However, like anything else, it just takes practice. Eventually, I’ll be writing my articles in about 30 minutes.

    Thanks for sharing these tips.

    Have a great day 🙂

    Susan

    Reply
    • Hey Susan, you’re so right. Sharing personal stories requires vulnerability, which can feel risky. But it’s our vulnerability that draws our readers in. Good on you for choosing to take that risk, for choosing to take the more difficult road and for the success you’re noticing as your readers enjoy your posts. Keep it up. 🙂

      Reply
  5. There’s virtually unlimited unique ways to bring back old blog posts. You can include them as a “related” or “read more” link located in the body of a new blog post or webpage. You can include it in a .pdf file and give out the .pdf file for free or as a $1 download. You can include a link to the old blog post in the header description of a YouTube video, or repost to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and write a full unique description from scratch with relevant hashtags and post to Pinterest.com. The good thing to know is if the blog post is written evergreen content style, it really doesn’t matter when the blog was posted. Old “evergreen blogs” never go out of style and always stay relevant.

    Reply
    • Hi Filip, thanks for your question.

      By “not so old” articles, I’m assuming you mean refreshing an existing old post? If you plan to do a lot of rewriting, then yes, these tactics can all be used. If you’re going to stick with most of the existing post, then #8 is a great place to start by adding some entertaining visuals.

      If, on the other hand, you meant new posts on “not so old” topics – then yes, these tactics can all be used for any new post you’re writing to add interest.

      All the best with your writing.

      Reply
  6. This has given me a whole new lease of life! I write about consumer rights and I’ve done all the posts about here are your rights. Done many stories as they come and go about getting redress and many press releases as topical stuff as and when but was beginning to think shit, I’ve done it all, struggling to think of new content but this is brilliant. Even just writing notes from reading I’ve come up with how to apply nearly all if not all the points to re invent a load of posts! Brilliant thanks. Only found it by accident, was looking at another post and saw this one, can’t remember what I was meant to be looking at now!

    Reply
  7. I regularly check my Google Analytics and keep on checking that which of my post has received a less or no engagement at all from readers. Then, this good old technique of improving & updating the topic with fresh content increased some of my blog post traffic.

    Reply
  8. Hi Miranda,
    Good and excellent tips.
    Sometime if I can vividly relate to my time of entertainment blogging, I can say that writers block can cause this issue of running after some voices which will never make you look original. But, to make your blogging challenge looks real, then you must have these.

    1. Passion
    2. Research relevant questions on the net and provide solution to them…
    3. Understand copying as a crime.

    These ways, you will be able to withstand being original. Thanks much for your tips

    Reply
  9. Hi Miranda,

    I loved the humor techniques! Brilliant! I guess you can teach humor 🙂 Twitter is a great place to test them out when sharing content, so that’s what I will be doing, and I will let you know how it goes.

    Cheers,
    Hazim

    Reply
  10. Hey Miranda,

    It’s been a while since I haven’t updated any old post. Maybe I should now. I always like the data-driven posts.

    Letting people know about the current trends or predicting the future is always the great idea.

    In the past couple of years, I have come across many posts having the funny yet humourous concepts which totally match what you have mentioned here.

    Making your readers choose is something I am exploring. A must have post to answer a few questions.

    Thanks for sharing with us.
    Enjoy your weekend.
    ~Ravi

    Reply
    • Ravi,

      A good way to revive old posts is to create a hyperlink from a keyword or phrase in a new blog posts and add the rel=”nofollow”> attribute.

      Reply
  11. My process:
    Step 1: Brainstorm for ideas. …
    Step 2: Read General Background Information. …
    Step 3: Focus on Your Topic. …
    Step 4: Make a List of Useful Keywords. …
    Step 5: Be Flexible. …
    Step 6: Define Your Topic as a Focused Research Question.

    Reply
  12. Hello Miranda,

    Some good tips !

    It is always the best option to update old content and make it interesting for people to read it again and maintain readership, but it take some efforts, because for adding something interesting, we will need to research which takes time, hence updating old topics with interesting & cool content takes some hard efforts for sure.

    ~ Atinder S Gill

    Reply
    • You’re so right, putting in the effort to research a topic to a deeper level so you can give your readers something better than they expected takes time – but it’s well worth it. Good luck with your writing.

      Reply
  13. this is really helpful especially for the new blogger, i recently started blogging and will use these tips to give something new to my reader. Although, i face problem while reading in English as this is not my native language but still i try my best to write.

    Reply
  14. Wow.. Amazing Miranda!!!

    Thats what i am looking for. It is very helpful. I am gonna follow your tips and i will recommend your blog to beginners that they can also get some amazing tips.

    Thanks

    Reply
  15. Awesome Miranda!

    And I LOVE the tip about making them laugh.

    When it comes to sitting down and writing ‘something funny’ though, I always dry up…

    I laugh the most with friends and family, the humour flows effortlessly.

    Because it’s so spontaneous, I try to keep note on my phone for use later on.

    Reply
    • Here’s a tip then, don’t sit down with the goal of writing something funny. Either try free writing about anything that comes to mind and give yourself permission to run with it wherever it goes.

      Or, another trick is to write somewhere else – I’ve been known to leap off a treadmill and run for a paper and pen halfway through a workout to keep track of a post opening I wrote in my head while running.

      Going outside with my laptop is another favourite of mine – try a few new things and see what works for you. Taking notes on your phone is a great start 🙂

      Reply
  16. I regularly check my Google Analytics and keep on checking that which of my post has received a less or no engagement at all from readers. Then, this good old technique of improving & updating the topic with fresh content increased some of my blog post traffic.

    Reply
  17. Hello Miranda,

    This is what I need! Thank you for sharing! This post is really helpful. I have a blog which has never been updated since I wrote for the first time. I am going to reshape it.
    Thanks for sharing with us.

    Reply
  18. Well we can not change the whole article or blog post but we can make few changes related to new things and updates that would make the thing not boring 🙂
    Anyway thanks alot and nice site 😀

    Reply
  19. Hi Miranda,

    This is more than awesome. You blew me off my seat with an amazing post here. Where I really got cracked up was when I saw how Jon subtly called us, Dumb in his and post and like you said, he walked away with it. But in the true sense of it, he drove his point home. That was smart!

    Being an unconventional blogger is such a smart way to knock competition out of the way. One good point, or call it overhauling of an old post can actually bring life to it.

    Thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate this.

    Reply
  20. Hi Miranda,

    Extremely information post and I am quite motivated by your thought process where you want your readers to have their opinion on issues (numbered 2 and 8). Yes, it is important to be assertive, authoritative and bold, by putting forth your point for drawing the attention of readers as well.

    Thanks a ton, will follow for sure

    Reply
  21. I wish I knew how to create an app so I could not only be featured in Forbes magazine online, but have a better understanding of how to serve useful information to people so they can communicate more effectively. 🙂

    Reply
  22. Yes 🙂
    You have helped me in millions. I will definitely love to subscribe this blog now.
    Thanks For sharing this useful post. i would love to read how to get subscriber on blog. kindly share this also

    Reply
  23. Hi Miranda,

    Thanks for sharing so amazing tips..i have not worked on my old blog posts from long time…i will surely try to follow these technique on my older blog post…thanks again..!

    Reply
  24. I have read through other blogs, but they are cumbersome and confusing. I hope you continue to have such quality articles to share with everyone! I believe a lot of people will be surprised to read this article!

    Reply
  25. Some very interesting approaches in this post. Content enhancement or content upgrades are always needed when time pass by, even for very good pieces. Search intent and user interested in changing over time so this alone is good enough reason for blogger to ”upgrade” their content.

    Reply
  26. Great Post Indeed.
    I always try to update my old posts, but here I’ve gotten some great concept to follow. I appreciate your effort.
    Thanks

    Reply
  27. Some very interesting approaches in this post. Content enhancement or content upgrades are always needed when time pass by, even for very good pieces.

    Reply
  28. This is truly a unique and inspiring approach for myself on how to write a post. Including humor in my very technical posts is something I have to add … somehow (after I improve my English which is not my first language).
    Thanks Miranda.

    Reply
  29. very nice and interesting article, i never thought about converting boring into Exciting topic, i am sure this will keep readers engage on that topic. Thanks for sharing this tips

    Reply

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