How To Create Great Content
Post by Blog Manager, Robbi Hess
It’s Monday. Yay! It’s back to work and back to blogging. That’s great, right? It’s not? Why? Are you finding it harder to create great content? You’re in luck! I have five tips to help you do just that. This quick and dirty list will (hopefully) jumpstart your creative juices and get your fingers flying over the keyboard.
Ready! Set! Go:
- Write down every idea for a blog that pops into your head. Even the dumb ones! Actually, there are no dumb ideas. If it popped into your head, chances are it did so for a particular reason. It was something that is niggling away in the background of your thoughts, it’s something you heard a fellow blogger mention, it’s a conversation you overheard in the grocery store line that had you thinking, “I should blog about that.” I have said it before and I will say it again. Never, never, never be without a notebook or a smartphone with a note-taking app onto which you can capture your great idea. I always have Evernote available for my brainstorm or braindump times. I love it because I can capture ideas, tag them and then actually find them when I need them later! (Yes, that is an affiliate link that I use for Evernote)
- Write what you know. If you’re struggling to be innovative and freakishly off the wall, maybe you need to stop. Evaluate what your readers like and then give ’em what they want. Being edgy might work in some instances, but if you’re right now, banging your head against the keyboard because you can’t think of ANYthing to write, then stick to the tried and true. Repeat past successes.
- Give yourself a deadline. If you meander along and don’t tell yourself, “this post must be written, published and shared on my social media by X o’clock” then chances are you will watch the clock tick the day away and all of a sudden it’s quitting time and you haven’t written word one. Set a deadline. Set a timer. Tell yourself that, “if I don’t get this post written by the deadline then I just won’t publish one.” Hopefully that will be the kick in the pants you need to get it done!
- Be in the moment. If you’re distracted by a messy house, email pings, Facebook messages etc. etc. etc. guess what? You will remain distracted. Why? Because you’re already apparently struggling to finish this post and are looking for any excuse, any reason to not write it. Take away those reasons and get to it!
- You knew it was coming… use an editorial calendar. If, today, you simply cannot get that blog post out of your head and onto the Internet, then take the time to write an editorial calendar. Grab your idea notebook (see number one above) and put those ideas down in an actual editorial calendar. WordPress has a great editorial calendar plug in. I can pretty much guarantee that using an editorial calendar will make the actual writing process so much easier. Let me know if it does.
What’s stopping you from writing today?
