How To Write a Blog in 30 Minutes
By Gregory Perrine - eGuide Owner
“So Busy, No Time To Blog”
Working with small organizations, we often hear the statement “there’s just not enough time in the day to get blog writing done”. Brace yourself for a little tough love. We challenge the thought. Somehow humans find enough time to brush their teeth every day (well…most) and the same could be said for content creation. I get it, you are not brushing your teeth for 30 minutes straight, but if you spent the same 5 minutes a day on blog writing that you do on teeth brushing, you would have almost a full blog post per week following the rules below.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY TO THAT?!
Alright, you don’t have to get snippy. I’ll put our minutes where my mouth is.
Set Intention and Write What You Know
Let’s start with the simple fact that anyone who has a remote desk job is writing hundreds, if not thousands of words per day. Every Slack/Teams message, email, or project deck update yields a lot of words. It’s not that we are incapable of writing blog content, it’s that the task itself seems to be more of a lift than the actual work behind it.
With this in mind, think about what is taking your attention. Was there a conflict in a project that was resolved, a new trick you learned, a meaningful conversation you had? Look at the writing you’ve done over the past day and come up with something that is top of mind.
With the topic in mind, chances are you are already equipped with a TON of information that is already swirling, so it should make it easier to get it from your head to the paper in less time.
Outline
With the intention and topic identified, build yourself a road map. But FULL STOP here for just a moment. Just because you CAN put together an outline that would compete with your senior thesis, doesn’t mean you should. Blog Tyrant says that a good blog length in 2022 should be around 1,600 words, but we would say that 800 - 1,599 words are better than no words at all.
Think about how many paragraphs you would like to write for each section. 2-3? If paragraphs are approximately 60 - 80 words and 3 -5 sentences (Did anyone else have a middle-school teacher that said all paragraphs should include 5 sentences?) then your total outline should be about 5 sections (Math - 5 sections * 3 paragraphs * 80 words = 1,200 words).
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
Often times we find that when you find your groove, you can use that momentum to carry you through an entire post. Depending on your approach, it may be easier to start to write that first paragraph after your outline is complete. If the subject matter is top of mind, getting it out may be a few bashed keyboard buttons away.
Another strategy is to put writing into your workflow. We recommend making it the first thing you do when you sit down at your computer. The emails can wait, and chances are a little blog writing will act as a good warm-up to get your mind and fingers talking together. Having 15 minutes, 2-3 times per week, held on your calendar (Note: and holding yourself to that time) may be another recipe for success. Use the outline you’ve created as a guide, and work a post through to completion as quickly as you can.
Review & Support Your Facts
With a draft created, you can quickly find a few supporting facts. Like, did you know that according to bloggingwizard.com there are over 600 million blogs on the internet? Or that Blogs are the best way to build credibility and authority for your company according to Contentpowered?
Finding a few items that enhance the credibility of the content you are producing is not only good for readers, but it’s also good for link-building! Once you have a draft complete it’s a few quick Google Searches to support your statements with some research and build in some SEO.
Sealed & Delivered
With the content written, it’s time to get that post published. WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix all allow you the ability to schedule a post. This means that you can take your well-crafted message and publish it at an optimal time. Apart from your blog writing time, spend a few minutes looking through your website's and social media's daily traffic. When do you have the most visitors/active users? Getting the message out to your core audience during that time will increase engagement.
Also, think about how your new blog is going to appear on your site. Are you utilizing categories and tags to make your content more searchable? Perhaps it's a block on your homepage that only shows featured content? A little engineering in the posting process can go a long way in keeping your site fresh with new content, and your repeat users engaged.
Don’t Forget to Share
And on that note of engaged users, don’t forget to blast that new blog post when it’s published! For Squarespace users using the built-in marketing tools, it’s as easy as clicking share from your log to create a newsletter featuring the new blog content.
If you’ve taken the time to write it, and it’s relevant to your core audience, then getting some interested readers should just be a few clicks and posts away and will help drive traffic, increased indexing, and top-of-mindedness to your audience.
P.S. Some Stats
This blog is 950 words, a little shy of 1600, but again, better than nothing.
This blog took eGuide Owner, Gregory, 23.5 minutes to write.
Help Someone. Have Fun, Be You. Learn & Teach. Finish What You Start.
