by Doreen Martel

Created on: September 02, 2011

Online article writing can be a lucrative career choice provided that writers have good ideas. While many writers have special topics they like to focus on, there is often a challenge with coming up new ideas. Fortunately, there are many tools available to assist in generating ideas for online article writing.  Finding the right topic to create articles may be less complicated than it appears.

Trending topics - Google Trends can help a writer find out what people are talking about and reading online. During any given day several different trends may develop based on weather, politics or entertainment news.  These trending topics can provide a wealth of ideas for writers who are interested in writing about current events.

Twitter trending topics is so popular it has its own Twitter userid.  These tweets display the most popular topics on Twitter and what people are talking about now. These trends often change several times a day, but they are no less valid for generating ideas for online article writing.

Answer sites - There are sites like Yahoo Answers that allow readers to ask questions that require answers. These questions may provide ideas for writing great online articles. As an added bonus, once the question is answered, the article can be promoted by answering the question and including the article link in the response.

Advertising programs - Google’s AdSense program has a partner known as AdWords. AdWords has a wonderful feature known as Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool. This tool allows a writer to plug in a single word or phrase and after entering a Captcha code, it will provide a list of search terms.  
One of the best features of the AdWords tool is that it allows writers to determine how many people are searching for specific phrases and what the competition is for those keywords. This can help writers who are interested in earning revenue from their article writing.

Ideas from blogs - Technorati publishes a list of the top 100 blogs. This list can help article writers generate ideas for online article writing. These are the blogs that people are reading and therefore, it is likely that an article that addresses a topic in these blogs.  The best thing about this option is the wide variety of topics that are covered allowing nearly any writer to take advantage of this tool.

Perhaps the most significant challenge of writing online is coming up with ideas for articles. Generally speaking, online writers are more than capable of researching on any subject and writing a relevant article. The primary problem is usually ideas for new articles. These tips for generating ideas for online article writing will work for some writers.  Remember, nothing is foolproof and writing about something that a writer has passion about will almost always result in an article that is well written. Writers who try to force themselves to write about subjects that they lack interest in will likely give up on their pursuit of writing for money.  It is not hard to find ideas that line up with a writer’s passions.

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