Are you regularly publishing fresh, high-quality posts on your blog?
Fresh content is critical for your website, for reasons from increasing traffic to growing your readership to SEO purposes.
When it comes to how often bloggers should be publishing content on their blog, there is not necessarily a one-size-all kind of answer. But the experts will tell you that regularity is key.
The problem with blogging is that it takes effort. There is no quick fix that will create an informative, well-written and engaging blog post for you.
Whether your blog has been inactive for longer than you’d like to admit or you are looking to increase your readership and take your blog to the next level, here is how you can write more blog posts without a lot of the effort than is traditionally required.
Consolidate
If you have been blogging for a while, you likely have some past blog posts that never quite managed to get published. Do you have half-written posts that are still sitting in your drafts? Did you write a guest post for a website that never got published?
You might have half-written or even complete blog posts that you could publish on your own blog without a lot of effort.
This tip is especially true for businesses who have a team of freelancers writing for them. Follow up on all of those guest posts that were sent out. Did they all get published? Chances are you might have a mini stockpile of blog posts to publish on your own website.
Alternatively, don’t hesitate to write published guest posts on your own blog. You can pull out key stats and important pieces of information and put together an entirely new blog post in a lot less time than it would take to write a blog post from scratch.
Backlog of Ideas & Automation Tools
Not knowing what to write is a quick way to make the process of writing a blog post much lengthier, not to mention quickly demotivate you in the process. Have a backlog of ideas on the go so that you don’t have to spend time trying to come up with topic ideas.
When it comes to writing content for your blog, breaking down those barriers to writing is key.
But it can also be helpful to make various aspects of the blog writing process automated, saving you a bit of time between writing your blog post and publishing it. Automating your workflow process with an app like Zapier is a great option.
Learn to Write Faster
Whether you’re a blogger or a freelancer, writers typically benefit from improving their speed. It’s a skill that can be improved upon over time. Eventually, you will be able to write twice as many blog posts in the time it took you to write one.
Here are some tips:
- Write Down What You Already Know. Chances are you spend a lot of time writing on similar topics and have picked up a lot of knowledge that can be recycled into a new blog post.
- Write the Blog Post in One Sitting. Assuming that your blog post is of the length that it could be reasonably be completed in one sitting, it’s best to avoid interrupting your flow of writing by taking a break. Short breaks can give you the refresh you need but should only be taken if you need them.
Research has shown, for example, that it takes 25 minutes on average to get back into a task after being interrupted. That means that even if you take a 5-minute break to check your email, you could be losing up to 30 minutes in overall productivity.
- Set Timers. Sometimes giving yourself a specific timeframe to write a blog post can force you to meet the deadline. If you typically take an hour to write a blog post, try giving yourself 40 minutes.
Repurpose Your Content
One of the easiest ways to publish more content on your blog is to repurpose the content that’s currently on your blog now but in a different format. Not only does this save time, but it also allows you to appeal to the wide range of readers on your blog.
The key when repurposing content is to ensure that it’s evergreen content. That means that the content you’re choosing won’t become irrelevant at some point in the future.
Here are a few examples of how you could repurpose your blog content:
- Update Old Content. The digital world changes quickly, so use this as an opportunity to publish more content on your blog without of effort.
- Turn a Blog Post into an Infographic. All you need is an infographic maker like Canva and about 30 minutes of time. Knowing the design basics (for example, a lot of whitespace and ensuring that your infographic tells a story) is also key.
Guest Blogging
Another great way to reduce your blogging workload is with guest blogging. But this time, you invite others to write for your blog. If you haven’t done this yet, you can start by adding a “Write for Us” page to your blog. (Editor’s note: ours is here: https://microstartups.org/write-for-us/).
It can take some time for you to start receiving guest posts, so be patient. Once you publish your first few guest posts, however, you will start to see that others will follow suit.
Also don’t be afraid to reach out to people directly. If someone has written a guest post in your niche elsewhere, don’t hesitate to contact them and see if they’d like to contribute to your blog.
Outsource
If you have the resources, outsourcing – hiring freelancers to write content for you can save you time and allow you to focus your attention elsewhere. Upwork is a great place to start looking for freelancers. If you don’t want to spend a lot of time sorting through applications, FreeUp is a great option.
The great thing about using a platform like Upwork is that since each freelancer has their own profile, you can view how they have worked with clients in the past.
The Takeaway
Blogging with regularity takes effort, but these tips can help reduce much of the effort that is typically involved and allow you to reap the benefits of posting fresh content.
Arash Asli is at the forefront of business growth helping SMBs grow their businesses, as CEO of Yocale.com, an online scheduling and marketing platform. His thought leadership have been featured in major publications including Forbes, Huffington Post, and Inc. He is honoured to have been named the Business in Vancouver’s Top Forty under 40 business executive.