Whether it’s because of corporate New Year’s resolutions or people using the holiday lull to FINALLY get around to their to-do lists, I’ve been contacted much more frequently in recent weeks by companies who are either starting or expanding their blogs in 2014.

Blogging has been a marketing mainstay for long enough that we now have good, empirical data to support it:

• Small businesses with blogs generate 127% more leads;
• B2B marketers with blogs generate 67% more leads; and
• 61% of US consumers have made a purchase based on a blog post.

Source: http://socialmediatoday.com/mikevelocity/1698201/blogging-stats-2013-infographic

When a blog is on-message and part of a larger marketing strategy, it can clearly be an effective sales and branding tool. But if maintaining other parts of your content plan could be likened to feeding a pet dog, blogs can feel more like you’ve bought a horse. They require a LOT of food, which can be hard to come by when you’re struggling to make content production ends meet.

I present: this infographic from Copyblogger and BlueGlass, which can rescue you from almost any circle of blog-block hell.

I like this infographic. This infographic is my hero.

A few of my favorite pointers:

#1 Curation

This is basic blogging knowledge, but it’s always a good reminder – stealing is encouraged. If you already have a social media program, chances are you’re curating other people’s content via tweets and shares. Look through your recent activity, find a way to unite your favorite posts under a single topic, and turn it into a blog post.

#10 Share Your Failures

Often we learn more from our mistakes than our successes, so why not let others learn from them, too? I’ve long had an idea for a blog post on ad campaign ideas that the client didn’t choose or that were thrown out before I even presented them to the client. Why didn’t they work, and how did that knowledge help me make the right choices in the future? Think of similar ideas from your experience.

#16 Check Google Trends

You want your blog posts to reflect topics of interest, so this makes double sense. Google Trends tracks the top searches of the day and lists them for your viewing pleasure. Sure, many of them are vapid reflections of the American zeitgeist, but many times, at least one of them can spark an idea (or, hey, why not write about something vapid every now and then?). At the time of this writing, the day’s trends included Kanye West, “Ciara pregnant,” a football player I’ve never heard of, and Nest, a digital home thermostat company that was just acquired by Google. From this list, I could choose the topic that most interested me (in this case, the acquisition of Nest) and write a post relating this topic to my industry. Being a writer and marketing consultant, I could, for example, choose to write a post that examines Nest’s marketing strategy and how it led to their success and eventual purchase.

Without further ado, here are 22 ways to create compelling content when you don’t have a clue:

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