Here is some info that we have used in the past to get content production teams passed writers block and slow periods.

If you stay informed about your industry news that is the best technique for knowing what to write about.

Steps:

1. Research topics
2. Check search trends of topics and related keywords
3. Check long term search trends for keywords and find related phrases
4. Include all topics and keywords in article according to the steps
5. Here is the format for all written articles
   http://optimizationtutor.com/2011/06/free-seo-content-optimization-strategy-e-book/

Follow it very carefully. Make sure the writers write it formatted so we don’t have to.

Tools for finding topics:

http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends
http://www.alexa.com/hoturls
http://hot.aol.com/
http://www.search.com/top?page=0&tag=se.ts.page.1
http://about.ask.com/en/docs/iq/iq.shtml
http://popurls.com/
http://www.seomoz.org/popular-searches

Check the 90 trend for the topics using this tool. You can also see related keywords to use in the article to support topics.
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

Check the all time average searches for the topics here. This will also give you keywords to use that are related.

https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000&stylePrefOverride=2#search.none!ideaType=KEYWORD&requestType=IDEAS

Once you complete these then you have a great article that will attract lots of traffic.