Have Nothing To Write? Aggregate!

If you’re having trouble coming up with content for your blog, you’re a lot like the rest of us who need fresh ideas to keep going.

Don’t worry. Use someone else’s.

O.K., now that I’ve got my main point out of the way – let me explain.

Starting a blog is tough. There’s a lot of work involved and it takes a lot of time and energy. Beyond that though, it takes solid content to develop and grow a blog into a blogosphere norm.

As I said, content can be tough for all of us to generate, all of the time. When, in those instances, the content just isn’t coming, it’s OK to use other people’s content to keep your site going – especially when it’s new.

Now, obviously, I don’t mean just take someone else’s work and paste it on your blog – that would be wrong. I’m talking about aggregating.

Aggregating content is a good for a number of different reasons. First, it puts a lot of good content in one place, creating convenience. Second, it perceives authority if your readers realize you can recognize good content. Third, it creates a spring board from which your ideas can grow.

1. Convenience

Convenience is the foremost reason for aggregating content on your blog. If you’re able to create a vast pool of resources that your readers can pull from, they’ll keep coming back simply because you make their lives easy.

Some of the most popular sites (not just blogs) aggregate content. Conventional wisdom says Blogrolls are a bad idea, because it drives traffic away from your site. That’s not necessarily true because if you’re site regularly links to good content, then readers will always return to their original destination.

The idea of being the middleman may not be appealing to all of us. Some of us want to be the expert and have the final say. But sometimes, just offering the valuable insights of others in an excerpted fashion, with your own remarks, can draw you an audience equally as big as the audience of the original insights.

The best example of an aggregated site is the Drudge Report. Drudge is one of the most-visited sites on the internet and the site offers almost no original content. That, if anything, defies everything I believe about blogging. Yet, day after day, people return for the sake of convenience.

2. Authority

It pains me to say that you don’t have to know what you’re talking about, to look like you know what you’re talking about. People fake it all the time. I’m definitely not advocating this, but I’m merely saying it’s possible.

The bigger picture is that if you continually aggregate good content and provide further insight or comments, then your readers will recognize your ability and knowledge.

On the contrast, if you continually aggregate poor content and offer comments without substance, then your readers will recognize you don’t know what you’re talking about.

It’s authority by association.

Notice though, in most cases, it’s not enough to be like Drudge and just push visitors to other content. You need to offer your readers something extra – in the way of additional comments or reviews.

3. Ideas

Lastly, if you’re following along with other bloggers in your niche and staying up to date with what they think and what they’re talking about, then you’re going to have more ideas.

For example, you might be blogging about Italian food. If you read other food blogs and notice a trend in dessert reviews – it’s probably a good idea to do a dessert review or two.

Also, if you notice that your readers are commenting a lot on a particular topic you’re aggregating, then you know it’s a good idea to write something original on the same topic.

Conclusion

Aggregating content isn’t cheating. In fact, it’s a good idea – especially for up and coming bloggers.

Even if you’re worried about building your traffic, sharing a few links will help more than it will hurt.

It’s important to stress that when I say “aggregating content” I don’t mean just sharing links. I mean summarizing, excerpting and commenting in-depth.

By aggregating content, sharing and commenting on bloggers in your niche, you will offer your readers convenience, build authority and discover new ideas.

So, what are you waiting for – share this article!

Matthew Moran is the author of The Omni Blogger. Follow Matthew on Twitter.