3 ways to spend less time writing blog posts for your business
So you have a business and a website. You’ve been online, you’ve signed up for webinars, you’ve even taken courses and have gone to events. And you’ve heard this again and again. If you want your business website to be found online, you have to blog. Regularly and consistently. Oh, and for better SEO results, you need a clear, targeted content marketing strategy and in-depth, long-form blog posts (because data shows that those perform a lot better in Google). And that’s all great. But who’s got that kind of time? Aren’t you busy enough running your business? How can you spend less time writing blog posts?
The good news is that if blogging plays a key part in your marketing strategy, you can definitely have an active blog where you publish regular content without spending hours and hours on it every week.
But how, exactly?
Well, you have 3 options.
1. Batch your writing
Creating regular content (in whatever format) is no small feat, and having a system or a method that helps you show up week in and week out (or whenever you can commit to) with fresh content requires a certain amount of planning and preparation. Which is why there’s a lot of talk about batching in the podcasting and video-making communities.
So if you’re a podcaster or a YouTuber, in order to be more productive and efficient, you could pick one day a week (or one day a month) and make that your recording day. This means you’d set up your equipment once, for example, and dedicate the whole day to that activity. You’d then either set aside another time to do your editing and various other tasks required, or you’d outsource all that.
Of course, this works out because you’ll save time by not having to set up and set down your equipment every other day. But batching also stops your brain from switching between tasks and therefore makes you more productive.
So why not batch your written content creation too? All you really need to do to get going with this is a strategy and a plan. As long as you’re clear on what content you’re going to create and why (and that’s your strategy), you then need to grab your diary and schedule time in to do the actual work (your plan).
I’m not going to promise you’ll be able to write all your content in one day, but if you break the process down into the following 5 steps, you’ll be able to write your content for the month ahead much quicker than you would by working on one post at the time.
So the 5 steps are:
If you want to find out more about the process, head over to mini-series on batching and learn how to write 4 blog posts in 8 hours per month.
2. Re-purpose content from your podcast episodes or your videos
If you already create high-quality content via a podcast or video, or by posting on social media, re-purposing content could be a great idea for you. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel all the time – pick your best-performing content and turn it into written content that will help more people find you online.
Once again, having a strategy and a plan that underpins your content re-purposing efforts will prove both useful and time-saving. Before you come up with a plan, you may want to ask yourself questions like:
- What products or services are you promoting with your content?
- Can you optimise your content for different keywords to make sure that people looking for relevant search terms can find you on Google?
- Does your content help you answer your clients’ burning questions?
- Can the content you create help you save time in the long-run (for example, by allowing you to share links with existing or prospective clients?)
- What type of content do your ideal clients like consuming? (i.e. in what format is the content in and on what channel or platform do they like consuming this type of content?).
Being clear on these key points will enable you to decide on what content you should re-purpose first and in what format. So if you’re looking to re-purpose existing pieces into blog posts, think about the content you already have. What other material do you have available in audio, video, or visual (i.e. infographics, pins, etc.) format?
And if you are podcaster and would like to find out more about why re-purposing could a great idea for you, head over to this post: 7 reasons why you should re-purpose your podcast episodes into blog posts.
So re-purposing content saves you time because you don’t have to create content from scratch. But what if you don’t have the time to do it?
3. Outsource
If you want an active blog but cannot commit the time to write it or re-purpose it, you can always outsource it.
Who do you outsource it to, exactly?
To a professional who’ll take the time to understand your brand, your message, your audience, and your strategy. To someone who’ll write content that will help your business grow.
I’ve written more about what it’s like to work with me as a Content Writer in this post. And if one of your concerns is that no one else can write for your brand in your voice, I’d invite you to dig deeper into some of the ways I work with my clients. I’m sure this post will give you some reassurance around hiring a writer who can indeed replicate your writing voice.
But what would you outsource exactly?
- You could outsource your writing beginning to end. I offer Blog Writing Packages (starting from £250 per month) where I write your entire blog posts each month.
- Or, you could decide to draft your own blog posts and then hand over the editing and polishing to me.
- And if you have content in other formats (mainly audio and video but also other written pieces) you could outsource your content re-purposing. Check out my Podcast Re-purposing packages.
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