Today’s post is by ProBlogger writing expert Ali Luke

Whatever topic you write about, you’ve probably seen a lot of ideas that have already been done to death.

If you’re in the weight loss niche, you might have seen a dozen posts on “How to beat the weight loss plateau”. If you’re in the freelancing niche, you’ve probably come across quite a lot of advice on “Should you charge per project or per hour?”. And if you blog about pregnancy and babies, you’ve probably read post after post about “Why breastmilk is better than formula”.

The problem is, you may also want to cover these well-worn ideas. Perhaps your readers have asked for a post on that particular topic, or maybe you want to make sure your beginner-friendly blog covers all the basics.

Of course, this is where I reassure you that your post will be different because you’ll be bringing your unique voice and perspective to it. (After all, that’s the advice I read time and time again when I started blogging.)

But while that’s true to a degree, I’ve read a lot of posts over the years across various niches that all seemed a bit too derivative.

Without a strategy in mind, it’s all too easy to write a post that just summarises other posts you’ve read on the topic. It ends up bland and boring, or skates over a topic without really giving any new insights.

So how can you offer something more for your readers? Well, I’m going to cover three options in this post, although I’m sure there are plenty more. You could:

1. Use an analogy to make your post more engaging
2. Acknowledge the other posts out there and subvert them
3. Go much deeper into a particular topic than most people do

(If you’ve got other ideas for adding value to a well-worn idea, please share them with us in the comments.)