Content Conquered is a series of mini-posts designed to ignite content ideas and inspire you to get creative online.

Goodreads.com is one of my favourite-ever places to procrastinate online.  Goodreads is a less well-known social platform that is focused around books, and the haunting ground of many an avid reader. It’s a great way to find literary quotes, it’s a great way to track your reading habits, and it’s a great way to find lots and lots of books you want to read. It’s also a fantastic source of content ideas.

Start by searching for a book in your general sector in the little search bar. I’m going to pick Leave Your Mark by Aliza Licht.  Land Your Dream Job. Kill It in Your Career. Rock Social Media.

Now scroll down to the bottom – the good thing about Goodreads is it doesn’t just have reader reviews, it also has a Q&A section under each book. Some of these will be empty, but some of these will have readers (or potential readers) asking questions to the author and to other readers. Answer those questions in your blog posts. That’s a whole stream of ideas right there before we even start looking at the reviews.

Ok, now on to the reviews. I prefer Goodreads reviews to Amazon reviews because users tend to be those that review for money and/or passion. They go in deep. They’ll make comments on the writing style.

“Aliza’s sassy writing style is very likable making this a hard to put down book.”

How can you incorporate that into your blogging? Can you get a little bit sassy? I bet you can.

“Yes, Aliza talks quite a lot about herself but there’s something that makes her different than other self-absorbed and overly proud authors.

She gives explicit lessons for every personal story she tells.” How can you bring that into the content you create? Well, tell those personal stories that you get attached to, but then, add a concrete lesson at the end of it. Add something that your readers can take away and action.

These may not be fully-formed, standalone ideas, but they’re tips that can help amp up your content and make it more engaging, more targeted and more of what we want.

But let’s talk about my favourite kind of review – the one that starts with the reader explaining why they picked that book in the first place – that’s the real gold right there. They are writing down, in black and white, their pain points. Address those struggles with your content.

For example:

On The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss >>

“I am always interested in life-hacks that can make work more productive and leave more time for leisure so this book grabbed my attention. Little did I know that reading it would feel like listening to a confessional from someone who will leave no corner uncut. If you have no qualms about outsourcing work and underpaying people to do it, then this book may be for you. If not–and you have no anthropological interest in the delusional contours of petty bourgeois entrepreneurial capitalism at the dawn of the 21st century–then avoid at all costs.”

Admittedly – a pretty extreme passionate review. But let’s go with it.

This reader is interested in life hacks. He wants to be more productive at work. He wants more time to spend on fun things. But he doesn’t want to cut corners. He doesn’t want to rely on outsourcing (especially if that means taking advantage of others). How can you use that?

Perhaps you could share a workflow or two, outlining how you streamline your client onboarding process. Perhaps you could write about building a socially responsible team. Perhaps you could publish a series of automation hacks, to help people save time with tech troubles.

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About Daire

Daire Paddy | Life Coach + Witchy Business Strategist | Breathwork + Energy Healer | Host of Your Biz, Your Rules | Creator of MANY life-changing coaching programmes