The thought of writing and the process of thinking up what to write can be like pulling teeth for some of us. But, when someone asks a question to which you know the answer like the back of your hand... wow! You go on and on about it.
That's why, if you get stuck with content creation, answering questions is the best way to get things going. To top it off, it also feels good because you are helping people out in the process.
Ok, got it, but where do you get these questions? It's simple. Look in these places.
Support tickets or emails
Every business or publisher will have some sort of support option whether is it is a full-fledged support ticket system or simple contact form it doesn't matter. You will often find questions being repeated by different people. Pull those out and start answering them.
Forums
Believe it or not, despite all the rage of social networks, plenty of people still hang out at good old-fashioned forums that don't stalk them all over the Internet. There are forums covering all kinds of topic you can imagine. Find one or several that fit your topic and start digging for questions.
Question and Answer Sites
What better place to find question than where people are asking them? Yahoo Answers is one of them. It's also all neatly categorized and easily searched. There are other sites of course.
Among my favorites is the Stack Exchange network. They have 84 sites where people are asking and answering questions daily. The questions also tend to be better quality. So if you're looking for some medium to high level questions to break things up, this network is great.
Blog Comments
Have a favorite blog you visit often who always gets a lot of comments? Pay attention to them. A lot of times, people ask questions in comments. Depending on the blog, some authors don't even bother to answer questions asked in these comments so you can be their hero. You may not be able to link to your own blog post where you have the answers. In that case, definitely answer in the comments itself and re-purpose your answer (and the question) on your blog.
The great part about this technique, you can scope out competitor blogs and re-work their customer/reader questions for your own site.
On Your Own Property
So easily overlooked. Sometimes, putting up a simple "Ask your questions here" form on your site or blog is enough to get going. Or, if you already have an email list built up, ask your subscribers if they have any questions for you.
A few tips before you go question hunting:
Don't get sucked into the conversations and tell yourself you are 'researching'. There's a fine line between real research and wasting time.
Have pen and paper or a note taking app like Evernote open so you can jot down the questions you find. Personally, I like Evernote because you can take a screen shot and see the question in the context it's being asked with a link back to the site you found it at - for when you need to review the question later.
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