Blogging success requires constant effort and sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day to create the fresh, informative content readers crave. The solution is not to compromise on quality but to increase your productivity. These quick tips will soon have you banging out quick, compelling posts for optimum results.
1. Set Yourself a 10 Minute Challenge
Dedicate 10 minutes of your day to blogging. Mark out the time in your schedule or set an alarm to remind you. During this period, eliminating all distractions – email, social media, music, phone calls and the like – and focus on creating compelling content within this short window. In the early days you probably won’t achieve your goal of a creating complete, publishable post. But persistence is key. Keep at the challenge and log the progress you make over the course of a month. The results may surprise you.
2. Blog on the Go
If sitting in front of a computer is a luxury, learn to use your mobile device for on-the-go blogging. All smartphones possess great cameras and, once you’ve downloaded an app for WordPress, you’re a cab ride away from knocking out a great post. Typing on a cell phone is more difficult than typing on a desktop computer, so you’ll be forced to keep your posts brief. Get down to brass tacks here; a pithy quote with a short commentary, a news flash, a picture with an invitation to comment or a link to something interesting fit the bill. Whatever you choose, make it short, sweet and significant.
3. Brain to Blog Teaser Posts
If, like most people, you get an unexpected flash of inspiration, take ten minutes to write up your idea instead of filing it away for a rainy day. While some ideas are best left to percolate, there’s nothing wrong with blogging a teaser of an idea that you can flesh out at a later date. Ask readers to respond, and you’ll know pretty quickly whether people care about your content, and which aspect of the issue you’re blogging about ruffles the most feathers. That way, you can tailor your follow up post to give your readers exactly what they want.
4. Fun Sized Posts
Communicating a message doesn’t require an English degree or a page of purple prose. If you’re short on time, break up a topic into several small chunks and post a quick paragraph about each chunk on consecutive days. Summarize your ideas in list form, if that gets the job done faster. That way, you thoroughly cover the whole topic without the writing task ever becoming intimidating. You reduce the period between posts, too.
5. Have A Plan
Writing when inspired is one thing, but there’s a bigger picture to your content. At the beginning of each month, prepare a content schedule that maps out the topics you’re going to cover that month, the basic messages you want each post to convey and the tags you’re going to use. It may seem silly mapping out a schedule for a product that ultimately will take you just 10 minutes to prepare, but the schedule gives a focus to your blogging that allows you to write informative post with short effort.
