Where Do You Find The Time - Tips For Consistent Content Creation
A question we get from busy business owners all the time is, “As a business owner, how do I keep up with my blog writing when I have so many other tasks, and I am not much of a writer, anyway.”
A business owner’s struggle with drafting two blogs a week for his website feels like our approach to attending yoga class every week. We know it is important for our health, and it will take many consecutive weeks of yoga to see results. We even enjoy yoga once we get there, but we find a million excuses not to go this week.
Most people think of writing and blogging as a creative and almost recreational pursuit. With this mindset, you will never get it done. You have to think of it as part of your job as a business owner, like completing payroll or ordering supplies. You have a procedure you follow, and you do it at the same time every week.
Here are some professional tips to the non-professional writer for consistent blog content:
• Create a spreadsheet to keep track of your topics and related keywords. For each title, list up to five keyword phrases. You can reuse keywords for different blogs, but you want to keep track of what you’re doing.
• Brainstorm topic ideas. This is not part of the writing process. Do the brainstorming separately, maybe when you are working on your marketing strategy for a new product launch. Add the new topic ideas to your spreadsheet, so you have them when you are ready to write.
• Add blogging to your schedule. Decide when you can fit writing into your schedule and be consistent. Plan to write for 30-60 minutes at a time. Beyond that your brain will get distracted, and you will not be using your time efficiently. It may take you several sessions to complete one blog, but that is okay. You will get better with practice.
• When you sit down to write, take a topic and the coordinated keywords off your spreadsheet. Focus on just one at a time. It is not necessary to write fluently from beginning to end. You can write down ideas in paragraphs, and then, rearrange the order of them to flow logically for the reader.
• Plan to work on each blog at least twice. The first time is just a rough draft. Let the draft sit and come back to it later in the week to re-read, edit and revise. Having some time between writing and editing will improve the quality of the final product.
Whenever possible, have someone else read your blog before you publish it. That person does not need to be a writing expert, just a fresh set of eyes that could spot typos and other mistakes. See if you can find another business owner who writes his own blogs so you can help each other. Writing and editing are two skills that will improve with practice.
