One of the top ways to do well in search engines is to provide relevant content. Done right this gives you all kinds of content for the search engines to index, get relevant backlinks with less effort, and retain your visitors.

But, as Ewan Brown from Aberdeen web design company, Azzurro Blu explains, one of the hardest parts is figuring out what to write about. Coming up with new topics can be really, really tedious. So what can you do to make it easier?

One of my personal favorite resources is to look at how people are finding my site right now. This might seem redundant, as you’re looking at topics you’re already getting content on, but the results might surprise you.

I like to focus on the questions people ask, but anything will do. You use this information to see what people really want.

Maybe you have a page that is already addressing that topic, but how focused is it? Do you have more information you could add now that you hadn’t thought of back then? Was the page even really all that relevant to the question?

This is one of the ways you can take advantage of the long tail, which has been much discussed of late in search engine optimization circles.

There’s no need to stick precisely to what you find when checking out your stats. These can inspire you in ways you wouldn’t expect.

Another favorite way for me to find new topics is to use Google Alerts to keep up with what Google is finding online. I use the Comprehensive search, which sends News, Search and Blog results to me. It’s fascinating. Just select your keywords and set up alerts for them.

I also read quite a few blogs regularly. These can provide great inspiration. Sometimes I comment on them, but if I have an extended comment, well, there’s an article. If you put it in a blog and link back to the original post, that’s a trackback, which can show up as a link to your site.

Linking back to the original source is just good manners. Some people don’t like to do that, but it really makes you look more genuine to share where you get inspiration. It also gives valuable background, and there are some who feel that search engines like to see quality outbound links. Linking out may not be as bad as some may feel.

Inspiration is out there. It won’t always be enough to really break free of writer’s block but it certainly can help.