How to Consistently Write Blog Posts Quickly
We all know that taking the time to write blog posts can be time consuming and daunting. Not to mention just coming up with ideas!
Thankfully there are a lot of time and true tested ways to save you time and effort every time you want to sit down and write a post.
Create Your Template
Depending on what platform you’re using there is usually a way to duplicate posts. If you’re using a CMS like Squarespace, you can select your blocks ahead of time without inserting content into them right away.
If you aren’t using a CMS that can duplicate posts for you, you can open up a Google Document and use that instead.
Some ideas for what to include in your template are:
Title
Banner image/Pinterest Graphic
“Body Text”
“Click to Tweet” reminders
“Supporting Images or Media”
Links to Outbound sources
Links to Inbound sources
Quotes
Buttons
Tag Clouds
Links to an Archive
Blog Signature
Related Posts
RSS Feeds
Sign Ups to Newsletters or other Lead Generators
Social Media Shares
Comment Section
Anything else you regularly include in each blog post
Having a template set up will really speed up your process, especially if you’re using a CMs system that uses some form of content blocks.
Brainstorm Your Content
This is a whole other blog post, so I won’t go too much into detail with this, BUT if you spend a lot of time reguarly coming up with content, taking some time to brainstorm them ahead can really increase your time.
There are a lot of great tools out there for you to gather ideas from. Some of my favorites include:
Google Analytics (See what people are searching to find your blog or search on your blog to find)
Your Blog Analytics
Social Media Analytics
Your Audience (ask them!)
Industry Blogs and Websites
Trending news on Twitter, Linkedin, and elsewhere
Current events
Anything you would like to announce or an event you’re going to or putting on
Products you have
Forums such as Reddit or other places
FB Groups, Linkedin Groups, etc.
Related Hashtags
Comments on your social media or blog
The important thing is to always be looking for inspiration and ideas. Make sure you have a way to jot down notes on your phone or in a notebook.
Create a Blog Calendar
This is similar to above when you’re coming up with ideas, but this focuses on making sure that you know when and what you want to post. Having this already outlined for you will make it a lot easier to plan other things you need to do.
Gather Images and Supporting Materials
First of all, you’ll want somewhere to store your images and other materials. Sites like Wordpress and Wix make this easy by Squarespace and other sites do not. So you’ll want to use Google Drive, a Flashdrive or something else to keep your materials organized.
Next, you will want to collect these ahead of time so you can simply place them into the blog post as you’re writing.
You might change your topic or idea as you’re writing and need to find new images, but don’t worry, it happens.
Important images to have are blog post banners which you can easily create in Canva if you don’t have access to Photoshop or some other editing app.
It’s important to create several variations of these banners.
Not only will it catch your reader’s attention, but you can share the other ones down the line to keep your old content feeling fresh to readers.
But you want to have variations for Pinterest and Instagram so that other people can easily find them and link back to your blog.
Beyond that, gathering supporting materials such as:
Podcasts
Infographics
Videos
Downloads
Quotes
Links
Etc
Anything else you’ll need to include that isn’t what you originally write goes in this list.
Outline Your Blog Post
Writing an outline isn’t just useful for writing novels or academic papers, but when you’re writing a blog, especially creating multiple posts a week, an outline will save you.
It will keep you on track and in case you need to come back to it later, remember what you were going to write.
Finally, if you include your outline as key talking points, when you go to sit down to write, all you have to do is expand upon those points.
Double Check your SEO and other info
Getting your blog seen and shared is an obvious goal, so it’s important to make sure you have a checklist to run through when you’re done writing. This will save you so much headache down the road.
Title Tags
Metatags
Keywords
Hashtags
Description
Meta Description
Your Blog Link
Image Alt Tags
Image Alt Descriptions
etc.
In case you don’t know much about SEO, you can check out this 31-point checklist guide from Ahrefs and google “Blog SEO Checklist” to find more.
Proofread when Finished
Plan your Related Social Media
Some of this should already have been done if you’re following this guide. But once you have your blog set up, focusing on sharing your content is the next most important thing you can do.
You’ll want to make sure you have your images, hashtags, copy, and other ideas ready to go. That way when you publish, you can automatically share related social media and focus on promoting your blog post.
Remember not just to focus on social media, but share in related groups, forums, ask the right people to share it and more as well.
Remember to just be Prepared
Now if you’ve read this and other similar content, you should have an idea of how to more quickly write blog posts and save time so you can focus on sharing and making connections.
The most important thing to point out is that this is really all to say that with some preparation ahead of time, all you have to do is focus on writing and creating the content which is often the hardest part.
