When it comes to blogging for your business, speeding up your blogging process is always the goal. We all know that writing can be time-consuming, and while we’d all love to spend two, three, four hours a day creating content for our business blogs, it simply isn’t feasible.
But just because time is tight it doesn’t mean you have to put a stop to updating your business blog – in fact, that’s the last thing you want to do!
Blogging regularly for your business is an incredibly lucrative marketing method. It builds strong customer relationships, establishes you as an expert in your industry and gives you countless opportunities to start valuable conversations with your prospects.
But how can you do that if you don’t have the time? We’re glad you asked! Our in-house copywriters have compiled a list of all the ways you can fly through your blogging process in record time.
How to Speed Up your Blogging Process
Research before you start
Research is arguably the most important part of any blog post. In order to form a cohesive text, you need to have in-depth knowledge of the topic and a deep understanding of its target audience. Without solid research to underpin it, your blog post becomes null and void.
While research is time-consuming by nature, failing to do it before you start writing can slow your blogging process down even more – and that’s the last thing you need when you’re trying to get a wriggle on!
Researching ahead of time not only allows you to build your knowledge, but it also provides you with ideas and inspiration for how to get your message across to your audience.
Then, when it comes to actually writing the blog itself, your head will be full of ideas that you’re ready to get down on paper and you won’t have to flick between document and Google to find the information you need.
Far quicker and far more efficient, if you ask us!
Collect facts and statistics to use
There’s nothing worse than interrupting your flow of writing to find a fact or statistic to back up what you’re saying.
What you think will be a quick Google search turns into falling down a research rabbit hole, desperately looking for the evidence you need, hoping that it does actually exist and you haven’t just made the whole thing up. We know we’ve been guilty of this once or twice, but never again!
Interrupting your writing to collect facts and statistics can drastically slow down your blogging process. You’ll find it hard to refocus your mind once your attention has been pulled elsewhere, and you’ll have to spend time reminding yourself where you left off.
Instead, make a note of the points you want to make and collect evidence to support these points before you start. That way, you’ll be able to build your blog around solid evidence without having to waste valuable time looking for it while you’re trying to write.
Create a clear plan
Starting to write your blog without a clear plan is like heading off on a road trip without looking at a map. You may have a rough idea of how to get from A to B, but they’ll be plenty of wrong turns along the way that could have been avoided, adding a significant amount of time onto your journey.
The same goes for your writing – without clear direction, it’ll take your longer to plot your route through from beginning to end, and even if you do make it, it may feel clunky and disjointed when reading it back to yourself.
When we write, there’s so much going on in our brains that it’s difficult to structure a piece effectively if we aren’t sure exactly how we want to layout our argument. To combat this, ensure you write yourself a clear plan before getting started.
Decided roughly on how many points and paragraphs you want to include. On your plan, give each point or paragraph a heading and bullet point the information you want to include in it. Decide on the most effective order for your paragraphs and points, and then you’re ready to write.
It’ll save you copious amounts of time when it comes to writing the blog itself as you’ll avoid all the back and forth and wrong turns an unplanned piece can throw at you. You’ll get the job done far more quickly, and its clear structure will be far more pleasant for your readers to consume.
Work section by section
When faced with an entire blog post to write, you may find yourself becoming overwhelmed. You’ll be writing one section while worrying about what you’re going to put in the next or thinking about your conclusion when you’re still ploughing through your introduction.
As you may imagine, this can drastically slow down your blogging process.
Instead, focus on one section at a time. You’ve already got your plan, so you know how your sections will link together. The most important thing here is to give the section you’re working on your full attention. This way, you’ll be far more efficient in actually writing it, reducing the time it takes you to complete the blog overall.
It’ll also give you that sense of achievement when you complete one section and you’re completely happy with it – you’ll then feel far more motivated to complete the next section, and the next and so on. Before you know it, you’ll have a completed blog post in front of you.
Write at a good time for you
It’s no good waking up to write a 2000-word blog at 6am if you’re the least morning person on the planet. Similarly, there’s no point sitting down to write at 8pm if you’re usually nodding off on the sofa by 8.30.
Choosing the wrong time to write can have a drastic impact on the time it takes to complete the blogging process. In fact, if you consistently write at the wrong time, you may start to feel that you’re just no good at writing blog posts and can’t get through it when, in reality, all you need is a change in time.
Sit down to write when you’re feeling at your best. Morning, night, afternoon, in between school pick-ups, on the train home from the gym – there’s no right or wrong time, as long as you’re feeling fresh, motivated and awake.
Pick a time that works, write and repeat – you’ll be surprised at how much quicker you’re able to get things done when you’re in the right frame of mind.
Minimise distractions
Distractions are the root of all evil!
Okay, not quite, but they are the root of procrastination.
We’ve all been there. Faced with a blank Word Document and the pressure to complete a piece of writing, we’ll do anything to avoid having to actually do the thing. We’ll just have a quick scroll on social media, just make a quick cup of tea, just pop for a quick walk.
Of course, none of these things are quick and they are actually just stalling tactics that we’re using to avoid the inevitable.
If you want to avoid procrastination when it comes to writing in order to speed up your blogging process, it really does come down to minimising distractions as much as possible. Just for an hour or so, turn off your phone and email notifications (put your phone in a different room if you have to!) and allow yourself to solely focus on the task at hand.
Once distractions are removed, you’ll be surprised at how quickly words begin to appear on the page. And when you’re done, you get the pleasure of having all your distractions back – if that’s not motivation enough, we don’t know what is!
Leave introductions until the end
As far as we’re concerned, getting started is the hardest part of blog writing. You know what you want to say in the main body of your argument, but how are you supposed to introduce all that in a clear concise way and hook the reader all at the same time? Que sitting and staring at your blank Word Document until inspiration strikes which, let’s be honest, may never happen.
It doesn’t have to be this way!
Instead of worrying about what you don’t know and not actually making progress, make a start on what you do know. If you already know exactly what you want to write in your first main body paragraph, write it! Start with writing the parts of your blog that you feel confident with and worry about everything else later. We promise it’ll speed up your blogging process dramatically!
And, chances are, once you’ve written out your other points, you’ll find it far easier to summarise them in an engaging introduction anyway which sounds like a win, win situation to us!
Speed up your blogging process by investing in a copywriter
While there are plenty of things you can do to speed up your blogging process, what you can’t do is magic up extra hours to add into your day. No matter how quickly you can write a blog post, sometimes you just simply won’t have time in between managing other aspects of your business and life outside of it.
That doesn’t mean you have to knock business blogging on the head, though.
There are plenty of business blogging specialists out there who can step in to produce valuable, compelling content for you.
Take our copywriting team at The Edwards Company, for example. Our clients simply provide us with the topic they want to blog about, and we take it from there. We complete everything from initial research through to final checks and edits. All that’s left for our client’s to do is publish it (and we can even do that if they want us to!)
Just because you’re pushed for time doesn’t mean your blogging efforts have to suffer. For support with your business blog, please do not hesitate to get in touch.