You have heard that creating content for your blog can generate as much as 70% more leads than your competitors. You also know that the more you write, the more traffic you get to your website.
Therefore, you have been doing all you can to generate enough blog posts for your business blog.
But the problem is,
You can’t keep up with the demands of your business and blogging at the same time.
You know what?
This problem is not peculiar to you.
A study revealed that 44% of business owners admitted that producing consistent content is one of their biggest challenges.
Creating great content on a continuous basis is hard work.
You will need to spend several hours on a single blog post.
The fact is, without consistent output, you will not get tangible results from blogging.
But, not to worry, this problem can be solved.
This article will provide ways you can simplify your business blogging to make it easy for you.
Below are 5 strategies that will help you to simplify your business blogging.
1. Deal with Procrastinations
“Never put off for tomorrow, what you can do today” – Thomas Jefferson.
A lot of us procrastinate, especially when it comes to the issue of writing content. Since it is not going to break your business or delay clients from paying you, you find it easy to put off writing for a more convenient time.
The truth is, no time is convenient.
Instead of writing, you prefer to go to Facebook, twitter or Reddit to waste hours reading an endless stream of content.
If you have been struggling with procrastination, it is time to fight it.
Now, there are two ways to solve this problem:
a. Block out websites that can distract you from writing
You can decide to block out any websites (e.g. social media websites) that are distracting you from blogging, such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest, etc.
You can install plugging to block these websites. If you use Chrome or Firefox, you can get a whole lot of plugins to use. I like StayFocusd (for Chrome browser ) and Leechblock (for firefox).
Stayfocusd will enable you to block and allow any website you want. You can list out all the sites that helps you to waste your time and add them into the blocked sites section. The plugin also allow you to specify the duration of the blockage. You can simply input the time it will take you to finish writing your content into the tool.
You can also schedule when you want to be writing daily. You can choose any day you want to work. Also, you can set the plugin to count how much time you spent online wasting time. You can specify the maximum time you want to spend on these websites, when you reach this time, the plugin blocks the websites for the rest of the day.
It is an amazing plugin!.
Leechbox has some of the features of stayfocusd, but it is not as comprehensive as the later. It can also block websites from distracting you from writing. You can set it to block any website for a specific time.
These two tools will enable you to increase the time you can use for writing. You don’t need to use the two of them, check them out and pick the best one for you.
b. Reduce your writing time
Parkinson’s law states that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion“.
This implies that if you specify two days to create a blog post, it will take two days. You will make sure you do it in those two days. When you need to publish a post tomorrow, you will ensure that you work towards its completion today.
You can apply this law to your blog post creation process. Do not give plenty time for writing a post. Reduce the time to the lowest amount possible.
For instance, you can create a blog post in a day. This way you can work towards its completion without much distraction.
2. Create a working system
A system is a process or set of instructions that explains how to do specific things. For example, you can create a system for writing blog posts.
A system consist of three main components: An input, a process, and an output.
For example, the input of writing a blog post is the time and energy. The process is what you do to create the post and the output is a great post.
Creating a system for your content creation will help you to reduce non-productive time and create content on a consistent basis.
For example, to create a post, you can use the process below:
- Come up with blog post idea
- Create an outline (introduction, a body, and a conclusion)
- Create headings for the outline
- Look for supporting research and resources
- Write out the sections
- Design your images for the post
- Add internal links
- Edit and publish
You can choose to follow a format like the above each time you want to create a blog post.
3. Batch your content creation
Batching is a common word used in industrial settings. When factory owners batch their product together, it makes it cheap and fast than to create one product at a time.
Imagine you are given a task to deliver 20 mails to your neighbors in your community. Would you share it one after the other, i.e. pick a mail and deliver it to a neighbor? or you would take all the 20 mails and share them to each neighbor at once? I am sure you will choose the second option.
You can apply the same process to your blog posts too. Instead of coming up with a blog post idea at a time, create as much as 50 blog post ideas at once.
Outline the whole of your content at once. Don’t outline each section and then write it. Don’t edit as you go, edit after you finish writing the article.
This will help you to focus on a particular task and finish it before taking on another. A system improves efficiency.
4. Create a writing habit
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
Creating a writing habit is a great thing. It makes it easy for you to write. In fact, the more you write, the easier it becomes. If you are struggling with blog creation, you can easily create a habit of writing. You can do this in three ways:
a. Create a cue:
You can easily create a cue for writing. This should be something that happens often. For example, it can be an alarm going off, checking a mail, stretching etc.
You can decide to stretch before you start writing or allow the alarm to go off at a specific time you want to start writing. For instance, if you want to write in the afternoon after lunch, you can set an alarm for it.
b. Form a routine
Make it a daily routine to write at a particular time of the day. You don’t need to start writing for long period of time, you can decide to write for 20 minutes daily. You can gradually increase the time as you get used to writing daily. This will enable you to form the habit of writing.
You can choose specific days of the week to publish your blog posts. It can be Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. This will help you to prepare your posts before the day arrives.
c. Reward yourself
Give yourself a part at the back for writing a great post. This can be telling yourself “good job”, taking a short break to go to your favorite eatery or restaurant, playing games for few minutes etc. Find a reward that will encourage you to write more.
5. Take short breaks
Do you know that taking short breaks in-between writing will make you more productive. Studies revealed that short breaks of a few minutes improves your productivity by over 10%.
When you sit for a long time to write, you fatigue and lose focus faster, and get bored easily. This can make you write slowly and then you become less productive.
You need to take short breaks of 2-5 minutes every 30 minutes. Don’t work for 1 hour without taking a break.
A good tool that can help you to schedule timely break is Tomato timer. It follows the Pomodoro technique. I.e. set a timer for 25 minutes, work until it stops, then take a 5 minutes short break. Then repeat setps 1-3 four times, after the fourth time, take a long break of 15-50 minutes as you deem fit.
6. Hire Bloggers
This is a bonus point for you.
If you do all the points above and still find it difficult to keep up with your business blog, then hire bloggers.
This is a viable solution that will enable you to have ample time for other things you need to do. All you need to do is to set aside your budget for blog creation and hire bloggers that are good for content creation like me.
Conclusion
Although it takes time to produce quality content on a consistent basis, it is something you still have to do.
If you use the strategies enumerated in this post, it will be easy for you to keep up with your business blogging. You don’t even need to use all the strategies, just pick the ones that match the problem you are having and apply it.
If you have tried these strategies before or you have other strategies that work for you and your business, I’d love to hear it in the comment section below.
