I have been blogging for about 3 years now, so I like to think that I am getting pretty good at creating fast blog content, while still maintaining the quality. I can remember when I first started out, it would take me hours just to try and force out a 300 word blog post that seemed half-way decent. Now, it comes much more naturally…but not before lots of practice, trust me!
So I thought I would share some tips that have helped me over the years with being able to generate quality content rapidly.
Stock Pile Your Blog Post Ideas
One of the hardest things that people have trouble with, is coming up with new blog post topics to write about. Personally I go in waves of coming up with new ideas. So when I am in a brainstorming mode, I try to squeeze as many topics out of myself as possible. I also find that post ideas will come at random times. Sometimes while I’m reading another post, at the mall, in the car, on the phone, etc…
So be prepared for when you come up with that killer idea.
- Keep a notepad with you wherever you go
- Use a web-based application like Evernote to manage your blog post topic list
- Add key points that you don’t want to forget to write about
Bookmark Content You Want to Reference Later
People that read a lot of blogs or content, usually read from an RSS aggregator to help speed up the process of reading their favorite blogs. This is a great time to bookmark content that you may want to reference later in a blog post. If you find an awesome image, video, quote, data; bookmark it and this way you can quickly access it when you are writing a post that it is relevant to.
I would recommend using a firefox extension called Read It Later to help bookmark content that you want to reference later.
Outline Each Post
Whenever I am starting a post, I will start by outlining the Main and Sub Topics for the entire post. This helps with not having to stare at a blank screen with nothing on it. If you have an outline, it can help to get your thoughts down and makes it easier to write. Using a mind mapping program like SmartDraw will allow you to easily outline the structure of your post and key points you want to make sure you include.
Start Writing
The best way I have found to write content is to not agonize over every word and sentence. If you do that, you find that it take 5x longer to deliver a post. Similar to not letting your pen lift up from the paper, don’t let your fingers stop typing. Keep writing, writing, and writing, not stopping for spelling errors or punctuation mistakes. Just keep throwing out ideas and content, until you can’t write anymore. Once you have a stopping point where your thoughts are not coming naturally, you can go back and fix all of the mistakes. You may also want to run certain words through a thesaurus to help spice up the post a little.
Add Images/Video/Links
Once you have the blog post structured how you want it, its time to add relevant images and/or video. If you bookmarked some relevant posts, now is the time to start adding references. If you don’t already have images or video that you plan on adding, you may want to go to places like iStockPhoto, YouTube, and perform various Google searches to find other quality content to add.
Read it Over
Even though the goal is to create fast blog content, you still need to review it and make sure there are no mistakes. If you have other resources and people that can help, you may want to pass it on to an editor or someone that can review the content for you.
