No matter how talented you are, how experienced you are, or how much money you’re making, every entrepreneur and blogger has the same problem:
There are only 24 hours in a day.
Factor in your human needs and obligations and you’re left with a relatively limited time to work hard and get stuff done.
Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing that can be done to change the flow of time. Therefore, it’s important to make the most out of the time that you’ve got, and save as much of it as possible.
Here are 6 ways to write your blog posts more quickly and productively, allowing you to free up more time to market them and make more money!
1. Get Rid Of Your Distractions
Starting with the most obvious, you’ve got to get rid of any and all distractions that can disrupt your flow of writing.
It takes a few minutes to really get into a productive mindset where you can write freely without hesitation. The problem is, everytime you take a break from writing to check your phone or social media, you’re disrupting that flow and you’ve got to start all over again to get back into it.
Eliminate this problem. Silence your phone. Close your social media tabs. Even knowing that there is a message waiting for you will linger on your mind and slow down your blogging.
If you must check your phone or social media sites, it’s best to schedule periodic breaks and check everything then. Get up, walk around, check all of your stuff, and then get back to writing until you hit another break.
You’d be surprised how much writing you’re able to crank out when you focus.
2. Know Your Topic Inside And Out
You’ll write your blog posts a heck of a lot quicker if you don’t have to take the time to research your topic extensively. By having a thorough knowledge of the topic you write about, you’re able to write more freely and really put your own voice into the content.
This is why it’s usually a good idea to start a website on something you already have a thorough knowledge of. While you can certainly create websites about profitable topics you know very little about, the amount of time you spend researching and writing blog posts may not be worth the hassle.
3. Consider Writing Opinion Pieces
When you write from the heart, you’re able to throw out blog posts extremely quickly. One of the easiest ways to do this is to write an article covering an opinion you may have on a topic in your niche.
A few examples opinion posts of mine include:
- Bloggers: Nothing Wrong With Charging Money For Your Work!
- The Real “Secret” To Making Money Online (The Answer May Surprise You!)
- Do You ACTUALLY Need Passion To Make Money Online?
Opinion posts aren’t just great because you can write them very quickly, they accomplish a bunch of other tasks as well.
First of all, opinion posts allow your audience to get to know you on a more personal level, strengthening your relationship with them. As I’m sure you’re aware, people who know and trust you are more likely to purchase from you.
Opinion posts also allow you to brand yourself any way you like. They allow you to create an image of yourself in your audience’s mind, which helps determine how they remember you. Since blogging is more competitive than ever, it’s important to utilize your strengths to brand yourself whenever possible.
4. Write An Outline
For the longest time, I thought I could get away without using an outline for my writing.
I wasn’t wrong, either. I could write a good piece without an outline. Problem was, it took me way longer to remember my ideas while I was writing than it would’ve if I had just written them out in advance.
If you want to write blog posts quickly, you do not want to have to stop the flow of your writing to brainstorm more ideas. Dedicate some time before you begin actually writing your blog posts to brainstorm all of the ideas you’d like to cover in the article, and write them down.
Your outline does not need to be extremely complex, but it’s always a good idea to have one in place. You’d be surprised how much time even a simple outline can save you when it comes to writing long blog posts.
5. Don’t Obsess Over Keywords
Trying to fit keywords into your writing is a huge waste of time. I’m not a real big fan of squeezing in excessive keywords for the sake of SEO, but I’m REALLY not a fan of time wasting.
Here’s the truth. Writing for your readers instead of for search engines is going to save you a ton of headaches. You will never sound natural if you’re trying to please a search engine spider so you shouldn’t bother trying. Sure, you may get a few more visitors stuffing keywords into your content but that does not mean those visitors will convert. The quality of your visitors is far more important the quantity of your visitors. That is a fact.
When you write for your readers, and you’ll natually fit long-tail keywords into your content anyway so you really have nothing to worry about.
6. Write First, Edit Later
This was the killer for me early on. I’m a perfectionist, and want my content to be perfect before I publish it.
Here’s the problem. If you’re going to wait until your content is perfect, you’re going to be waiting forever and you’ll never get anything done. Nothing is EVER perfect, and you shouldn’t expect it to be.
First drafts are meant to be bad. That is why they are a first draft. Focus on getting all of your ideas down before you edit them, otherwise you’ll end up wasting a ton of time trying to get one tiny section to sound good.
However, make sure you do actually come back and edit things extensively. The difference between a good blog post and a great blog post is editing, tweaking, and revising. Subtle changes can make a relatively large difference.
Just because you’ve learned a ton of ways to blog more quickly does not mean that you should edit any quicker than usual. It’s extremely important and should not be neglected under any circumstances.
Writing Quickly Isn’t Always Your Best Option
Although we all want to save time in our work lives, perhaps the best option for you isn’t to reduce the amount of time you spend writing blog posts. Perhaps it’s to eliminate time wasters elsewhere.
I think it’s really important to analyze what activities you are spending the most time on, and eliminate or reduce the amount of time you spend on the least important ones.
For years, I spent an unnecessary amount of time on social media (several hours a day.) This was far more time than I spent writing new blog posts, which was actually only several hours a week.
Instead of cutting back on the amount of time I spent writing, it made much more sense to spend less time on my social media sites. However, social media was vital for attracting new leads and I couldn’t ignore it completely.
My answer was to purchase HootSuite Pro, which allowed me to automate a lot of the tasks I used to do manually, as well as allow me to manage all of my social media profiles in one place. I was a bit reluctant to spend $120 on the tool, but looking back I honestly would have paid 10x that because it’s saved me so much freaking time. With all of that extra time, I was able to double the amount I post on my blog without sacrificing quality, and that is really something special.
Take advantage of tools available to you to free up more of your time, which will allow you to make more money. The right tools really pay for themselves and may make the difference between getting a lot done, or getting nothing done at all.
Conclusion
Writing blog posts faster allows us to focus more time on other things such as marketing our content and generating leads. If you have any tips of your own that you’d like to share, please help us all out by leaving a comment sharing your secret!
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