The power of unique content has been pounded into the brains of us bloggers for a while now. Â Sometimes we struggle to meet the demands of a successful blog. Â But there's one thing you have that no other blogger does – and that one thing is the key to setting your blog apart from the rest.
Where Does Unique Content Come From?
When we try to write unique content, there are hundreds of places to turn for advice.  We look to other authors for tips on making our posts go viral.  We can learn valuable lessons from others who have found unique ways to write better.  But we seldom look to the one thing that we have that no other blogger has.
That one thing is you. Â No other blog but your own has you. Â You are the fountain of unique content for your blog.
Coming Up with Unique Content Ideas
I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to writing unique content, I'm the first to make it harder than it needs to be! Â Let me explain what I used to do before submitting a guest post. Â I would spend at times up to a couple hours pouring over every post that blog had. Â I was looking for a hole – a topic that had been overlooked. Â I racked my brain to find unique topics that hadn't been covered yet because that was what I'd been told to do for guest posting success. Â Or so I thought…
The hard lesson I had to learn was this: Â everything has already been written about. Â It's true. Â It is becoming increasingly more difficult to come up with a unique idea that hasn't been touched on somewhere by someone else. Â So does that mean we throw in the towel and all quit blogging?
Your Fountain of Unique Content
The difference between you and the other bloggers is that none of them have lived the life you have. Â None of them have had the same experiences you've had. Â And that is the key to writing unique content. Â It's too hard trying to come up with an idea nobody's written about before. Â Instead, look to yourself to put a new spin on an old doctrine. Â Your unique experiences and point of view are all you need to create unique content.
Think of an event in your past – can you relate it to your topic? Â Can you think of a lesson from school or a friend that can add valuable insight to what you're trying to teach? Â You'd be surprised how easy it is to relate two seemingly unrelated topics (just recently I wrote about how blogging was just like driving in San Francisco!). Â It's those unique ideas that will make your blog stand out from the rest, even if you're in a highly competitive market. Â Nobody else has you and you have something valuable to contribute!
Final Thoughts
Your goal is to reassess how you go about creating unique content for your blogs. Â Instead of spending hours reviewing posts for ideas, look inwards. Â Use the one thing nobody else has at their disposal! Â It will become a never ending source of great inspiration for you.
Have you had any experiences creating unique content from personal history? Â Let me know how it worked for you below!
Awesome Brandon!
I absolutely agree on the idea “to put your own spin” on the post! We are unique and hence we are able to create unique content by putting out own spin on it 🙂 This is exactly most of the marketers are doing, which is to put their own spin and different angle into the products and sell to people, though you will find that most of the time, the content is what you already know…
Cheers,
Ming
Glad you liked it. Not only does it help set yourself apart from the rest, there’s a huge push from consumers for more personal interactions. You have a much bigger chance to hook a new reader this way. Thanks for reading!
I find the best unique content comes from my own personal experiences. Whenever I run into a problem or discover something new, I’ll do some research and educate myself. It’s then a simple thing to put my experience or new discoveries down in writing and create a blog post.
You bet. Nobody else has the exact experiences you have – nor do they have your perspective. It’s even better if you can extract a lesson about something unrelated. That will make your blog post extra creative. Thanks for the comment!
I absolutely agree with Richard. Your own experience is the best content you can write, especially in certain niches. And the best part about it, is that those kinds of content almost always get a bigger reaction from people, I guess because they sound much more personal and also genuine.
Brandon,
You are right. Just about everything under the sun has been written about. It is not a matter of finding a completely new idea but more of a new twist on existing ideas. Or presenting the old idea in a clearer or more complete manner.
I spent many many hours on my newest article. It is nothing that I haven’t said before but I put it together in what is hopefully a more “complete” manner with just a little bit of a unique spin… So I agree…that is what it is all about.
I think with that article you add another important thing you can do to set yourself apart. Along with being personable, you’re also being transparent. I love how straight forward you are. Thanks for stopping by!
I looooove the statement, “The difference between you and the other bloggers is that none of them have lived the life you have. ” SO TRUE!
Everyone has so much to share and any of it can pertain to what they’re blogging about. Not only that, but ideas can come from Google Alerts, everyday life, a tweet, a Facebook status, a discussion with a friend, etc. Oh the many ways an idea can be sparked is many! We just have to be open to seeing those sparks and then implementing them.
Love this! Thanks!
Glad you liked it! There are lessons everywhere you look. My favorite is to look around me when I’m not at the computer. I find it to be a fun challenge to relate random things to my blogging. With practice I’ve gotten much better at spotting lessons too! Thanks for the comment!
Thanks for the information. As a newbie blogger, I’m trying to pick up as much info as possible and this just gave me a few ideas for future posts. Thanks a million!
Hey Cheryl,
Glad I was able to help! If your real estate blog is what you’re trying to build, I think you’ve got a great opportunity to become a friendly and approachable authority. Keep writing with those personal insights that make you seem real, you know? Good luck and let me know if you ever need any help!
I’m not really sure if my content are unique, but I’m always very sure when someone read it, they will feel something different about it for the reason, most of my content, are straight to the point with some entertaining stories inserted into the content.
But I do agree unique comes from personal experience because everyone is born different, there is no mind in the world that are the same, only the concept is the same.
Exactly. And if you don’t have any personal experiences to make your content unique, you definitely have a unique voice. Good ideas!
Another awesome post by Brandon!
I remember having an unique article in my blog which actually drove my traffic up. Not only traffic, I had quality readers. But when I began to write articles which were also found elsewhere, I did not get much response as I got from that ‘unique’ article. Hope I can succeed in writing more unique articles!
Hey thanks! I’m glad you can prove that what I wrote about actually works 🙂 Thanks for stopping by and good luck being unique!
Another thought is to look at every day things in funny or unusual ways. One of the “strangest” stories I ever wrote was about things entrepreneurs could learn from circus performers. I was actually sitting at UniverSoul Circus writing. People were looking at me. Although it wasn’t a very read story, it was waaaaay different.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s always hit or miss with what becomes popular, but you can always be sure there’s nobody like you. I think that’s a great example, thanks for commenting!
Great job. I always need tip to write article. And finally I’ve found here.
There are in fact a lot of tools out there that will enable us to spark ideas to write some unique content
So glad you found it useful Aditia! There are lots of good tips here all the time!
Ricardus, I’d love to hear about your favorite ways to spark ideas. What works for you?
Thank you both for stopping by!
I completely agree. As one who reads a few blog about blogging, marketing, etc. you come across blogs saying the same thing, but each have their own unique way of saying it. Sometimes you read about something 3 or 4 times, but when it’s written a certain way, you see it from another angle.
I agree, you never know what will resonate with your audience. Or with yourself as a reader for that matter. Keeping posts personal really kicks it up a notch. Even if you’ve read it a thousand times before, it can quickly become your favorite place to read it! Thanks for the comment!
What works for me is that whenever I am short of ideas, I read my old posts & I try explaining the sub points in detail which gives me several new posts. It works brilliantly for me! 🙂
I think that’s a great strategy. Many times I’ve wanted to cram too much into a post anyway, so it helps to remember to split it up into separate articles. Even if you have good ideas already, it never hurts to add that personal touch. Thanks for reading!
Well I agree Brandon! Personal touch should never be forgotten. 🙂
Rewriting a topic using your own understanding way can open new ideas and make the topic even more interesting. However, not all cases work the way we plan it to be. In fact, some people might just skip your post and find topics which are really “new”.
True. You can’t please anyone. But I’ve read a bunch of articles that were so well written I didn’t even realize they were rehashing content I already knew. I didn’t notice or didn’t care because I appreciated the fresh perspective. Thanks for reading!
Hi, Brandon.
Very nice article. And actually I can’t but agree with everything what you said. Writing unique posts has become pretty difficult nowadays as most of the topics have been covered by and large. But giving your own opinion based on your personal experience is something that can make your article unique. And we shouldn’t forget that everyone who writes on a regular basis has his own way of writing. And this may add to the uniqueness of the article as well.
Yep, just developing your blogging voice can be enough to set yourself apart if you have great content. I always find it great to add stories too. I guess I just like stories. Thanks for commenting!
No one has lived the life I have – wonderful thought. That makes every blogger (every person) unique. If every blogger is unique, he/she simply has to write in their own way! That’s it 🙂 Great insights.
I like it too, because when I find a blog I enjoy reading it makes me feel like I’ve found more of a friend than a source of information. Glad you liked it, thanks for the comments!
Good advice here. I always find that, once I’m in the writing ‘groove,’ ideas come at me faster. Then I keep a word document on my desktop with little story seeds. I use personal experience as story pegs, quite often, and I also get ideas for new articles and posts from Google Alerts, which I have set to notify me about new posts relating to my top keywords.
Google alerts, that’s a good way to go, thanks for sharing! Sounds like we have much of the same strategy.
If you give 20 people the same experience, you’ll find in the end that you get 20 very different interpretations of that experience when you’re done. It’s that individual perspective that can make all the difference in the world. Thanks for the comment!
You make excellent points and simply read about something and come up with your own point of view can be an excellent inspiration. I find that I don’t have a lack of idea’s, but more like sometimes I just don’t “Feel like blogging” or at least writing blog articles. This comes from sitting on my arse 10 hours a day for my day job which has nothing to do with blogging, and then not feeling like spending another 2-3 hours doing blogging. It is a tough balance.
Many times I find inspiration in other bloggers, even if it isn’t about the same topic just reading a refreshing article can spark up my interest to blog again. I may like a contest idea, or a guest article on a site like this one 🙂 It may be tweets or social media buzz, or it may be something off the wall like a funny or stupid comic or video I saw.
Usually though I grab my iPad 2 and browse CNN Technology or something related to news and find something to form an opinion about and share it on one of my blogs. The only blog that I run where I never run out of idea’s or even creative inspiration is my poetry blog ironically, for some reason I just never run out of ways to form words together. I can even cheat and just make a poem a post on my personal blog if I can’t think of anything else to say too.
I know exactly how you feel! Sometimes I’m just drained of ideas too. It’s a good idea to browse something like CNN for ideas. For me I like to read different books. I don’t know why but it helps me think of ideas. Thanks for the comment!
Wring from experience can get you so far, no matter the niche you will end up using most of your self experience ideas at some point. And then you will need to look for ideas in other places. I suggest Yahoo Answers. That website always give me plenty of new ideas in just a couple of minutes.
Yahoo Answers is great for finding ideas and learning what questions people have that you can answer. I also think that if you practice enough, you can find a blogging idea somewhere every day if you’re in the habit of looking. That’s pretty much a never ending source of ideas right there!
Writing Unique Content is a GOD gifted ability, with time and experience content writer get versatile, and get fame in open market.
It’s a great gift to have, I’ll say! I wish I was better at it too! You’re right about it taking time though. It takes quite a bit of practice to gain that following! Thanks for stopping by!
Great post there Brandon. It’s so hard to come up with unique content these days as you pointed out. The problem is there’s just so many people blogging these days it feels like everything has been covered. But as you said, nobody has the same personal experience that you have, and also we all have different opinions.
I know how you feel! Even in a super competitive niche there are little treasures to be found by using personal experiences. Combine those with each persons different opinions and that’s a great recipe for successful blogging. Thanks for the comment!
Hi there mate.
Thanks for sharing this article. You know, being unique, it’s very great, and in the same time, it’s also very difficult, as we have to come up with fresh ideas every day.
It’s super hard isn’t it?!?! Sometimes I get discouraged too. It’s hard to get traction with some ideas but with practice it gets easier, I promise! Thanks for reading!
Writing unique content gets a lot difficult especially when one has to update the blog daily. Like you mentioned, your past experiences and sharing one perspective will create many new ideas.
Great article. Some times, it’s near impossible to generate posts ideas but I’ve gained one or two points from this. Thanks
When you are focusing Google Search Engine, Unique & Fresh content is the first priority given by Google. So try to use such kind of content on your website to get good ranking quickly. Thanks
Brandon,
You inspired a unique post idea with this article. To be honest, I rarely have problems coming up with post ideas. In fact, I write a lot more posts than I actually publish. Those posts sit in a folder on my hard drive aging. Then before I go to publish one, I’ll review and edit it to make the post a little better.
Maybe some people have trouble coming up with ideas. For me it is natural though. I’m not sure why. I guess it is because when I am reading a post, I think of it like a conversation between me and you. So, I always have something to say in response and often times enough to say to fill a whole blog post.
Well you Ted are definitely gifted! Maybe you can share some of your strategies with the rest of us! I’d love to learn how you have so many ideas. Thanks for commenting!
Own experience is really a good idea to create unique articles. Sometimes it really becomes difficult to come up with topics that are unique. Thanks for sharing the idea, it will be of great help to the bloggers.
Shree,
Thanks for the comment! I’m glad you liked it. I hope it does help out a lot of bloggers. At least it’s helped me to try keep that in mind more while I’m writing. Thanks for stopping by.
I think it really helps to keep a notebook so that when you think, “Oh, that would make a great post!” you actually remember to write it. There are some posts that I come across and think to myself that there’s something missing or that the writer could have expanded on much more, so I think it’s perfectly fine to write about topics that have already been written about.
I like your methods. I have a desk littered with a thousand sticky-notes. I’m sure your way is a lot more conducive to proper sanity 🙂 Actually I lied, I have sticky notes and a Word doc, so we’re kinda the same. A cool thing to remember is that if your writing about something another author missed, or expanding on something they left out, you’re not really writing about a topic that’s been written about, so you’ve got unique ideas all over the place. Thanks for the comment!
having unique contents really extends your ranking and also gives you new ideas to write on . thanks a ton for this informative post.
Wow, thanks Brandon… Good reading… I have learned something new today 🙂
Thanks
Google is the only search engine that gives do follow backlinks and accepts do follow link. So Google is giving 1st priority for fresh and unique content.
Nice one, Brandon. I find in speaking to people about blogging, a lot of folks get hung up on worrying about if their opinions and thoughts are right or wrong… like “Who am I to write about this, there’s some experts out there already writing on this!”
I tell them that we each have our own experiences to put our two cents in and it’s up to no-one else to decide if we are an authority on a subject or not. Of course, if you’re way off base and don’t make educated statements, you’re sunk, but generally if your blogging in your own area of expertise, that’ll never be an issue.
My problem is not always “what” to write…it’s staying motivated to write. For example, if I’m sick and I am out of commission for two or three days…it’s SO hard to get back into the groove of writing. I have plenty of stuff to write, just can’t get back into the right frame of mind. How do I get past that? I’m sure it’s not just me, right? Right??
Excellent post Brandon and really I got many tips and ideas to write unique post. Thanks
Going off on a tangent after sharing a personal story? I never tried that before. Maybe it’s because I try to be too formal about my writing. Or that I try to keep the focus on the piece I am writing too much that I fail to give it a shade of my personality. Thanks for the tip!
Hi Brandon! I just read this another blog backlink from one of your site (Two Questions Guaranteed to Improve Your Blogging). We have to be true and natural in ourselves to get this unique ideas, and it will comes out naturally. Because as you said “none of them have lived the life you have. None of them have had the same experiences you’ve had.” and that was very well said!
Thanks much for the great info , i totally agree with you , every one is the fountain of unique content his/her blog. that`s a great post.
for people interested in learning more ways to get unique content for their websites, go to: http:// marketingtoolreview. com/content-is-king-how-to-write-unique-content
You will learn more about unique content and how you could create unique content for any website or blog.
It’s all down to your personal experience. There may be details you can still use that aren’t included in other people’s posts. Use your experiences to your advantage, just as Brandon suggested.
Great advice! The best part of this method is that you don’t have to do a lot of extra research for the information, just look inward – into your past for experiences that lie in your memory. I’ll be trying this for my next post. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing tips, now have some idea how to write unique content in different way. Great tips!
Writing a unique content has many advantages in SEO. Google gives much priority to unique & fresh content.
I have to write when I’m in the mood to be a bit sarcastic or funny for my parenting humor blog. You’re right the best ideas or how to title your post does make your blog standout. 8)
Unique is easy, but today we need to think about content being both unique and authoritative. Hastily written articles with no factual backing, references etc. will not (or should not) fair so well as well researched and authoritative content.
Finally someone with some common sense. The “industry” is full with people telling you you have to do something no one’s ever done before; a unique topic, a unique post! I wouldn’t go so far as to say everything has been written butthere is a big chance most of the ideas you have someone else has had before you. By accepting this fact, and what Brandon points out, you get rid of the pressure of having to reinvent the wheel every time you want to write a post and allow for a more creative frame of mind. it’s already been said right? “It is not WHAT you do, but HOW you do it!”
Will keep an eye on your other posts, Brandon!
Unique content is formed when you present something in a new perspective. With one’s own judgement and knowledge the content can be turned into a more interesting one adding personal experience and drawing the readers to a new conclusion. Thanks for sharing.
Great article. Unique content is something that is always in need, talking around all known websites. Everyone engaged with internet has observed at least once that the exclusive articles is a key to good results, but not everyone seems to recognize its real magnitude, until visitors begins turning up and the website begins position well.
Instead, look to yourself to put a new spin on an old doctrine. Your unique experiences and point of view are all you need to create unique content.
Nicely describe.