Part of the guide: Blog Traffic
Let’s face it, most of us don’t really enjoy writing…
…unless it’s for recreational purposes. When it comes to writing for business, time is what matters.
When you have a goal set for the number of articles you want to publish per day or week; you can’t go off on 2 hour tangents or sit for hours pondering about each sentence.
I personally don’t like to spend more than 20 minutes. Yes, I know it’s pretty fast. But writing quickly doesn’t necessarily mean compromising on the quality of the content.
It’s all about writing strategy. Over the next 25 minutes I’ll reveal exactly how anyone can write blog article quickly in 25 minutes or less (really).
1. Note Down Ideas At All Times
The problem with writing quickly is coming up with stuff to write about; plain and simple. The easiest way to avoid long hours or “pondering” is to write down ideas at all times. Just be aware of the fact that you’re gonna have to write about something very soon, so ask yourself for ideas.
They will come to you at all times, think about blog article ideas when you’re outside. You’ll find that it’s much easier to come up with great ideas when you’re not on the spot under pressure to write.
2. Stop Procrastinating
It’s easy to procrastinate with writing, because you can always just write twice as much tomorrow, right?
I’m thoroughly familiar with the thought. If you do put off writing, it’s only going to be twice as difficult the following day. If you hit a brick wall and you literally can’t write a word; go outside.
Exercise is critical for writing. Writing is a famously sedentary activity; exercise stimulates the mind and makes you able to think faster, better and be a whole lot more creative.
3. Create A Basic Plan/Structure
Once you’ve come up with an idea for an article. The first thing to do is structure it. This means writing an extremely basic plan. The plan should consist of a title, intro and a list of bullets.
Your title should shape your article, which is why I generally edit the title after I’ve written the article. In your basic plan, it’s best to write your full intro. Introductions should only be one to three paragraphs in which you introduce the subject of the article and what’s to come in the body.
You can write your article body in three ways; via a structured list, just paragraphs or a paragraphs and lists. If you want to write articles quickly inn 25 odd minutes, use lists. Numbered lists work very well. People love reading them and they are the easiest to write.
For example this article here, the title is “6 Blatant Tips To Write Blog Articles Quickly”. After writing that title, I wrote a brief intro and listed the 6 tips to write blog articles quickly. Each step one sentence in the plan.
After planning out the numbered points or list; you can write a conclusion or leave it as is. Once the plan is written, start writing and don’t stop until the article is finished. Never edit sentences as you go along.
As long as you have the intro, conclusion and a list of points/bullets, you can complete the article.
4. Write Faster
Obviously; if you want to write articles quickly; you’ll need to type quickly. Typing quickly takes practice, the more you type the faster you’ll become. A great little resource for accelerating your typing speed in a short amount of time is TypeRace (checked as of July, 2024). From time to time when I’m writing slowly I’ll run through a couple of races to warm up.
You were never meant to do this alone
Reading this changes nothing. Doing it with people who show up changes everything. That is the whole difference between the people who transform and the people who keep starting over.
Start free →5. Edit Once
Editing is generally what consumes the most time. Which is why professional authors have their own editors. The key is to edit once after you’ve finished writing the entire article. Editing sentences and paragraphs as you go along is a waste of time. You’re going to run through the content at the end anyway, so editing during is a waste of time unless you’re attempting to produce some kind of novel.
Editing should be kept minimal. Start reading the content from the title as if you’re a normal reader who stumbled upon the article. Ask yourself these questions:
- Does the content flow properly?
- Is the article structured well?
- Is it easy to read?
- Do I get across my main points?
- Is it written well enough?
- Is it informative?
- Did I learn something new?
You can add to the list of questions, but you want to keep it as basic as possible. Whilst editing, run spell check to make sure you don’t make any idiotic spelling or grammar mistakes. Lastly preview the article, make sure it looks nice. Change the format slightly, add an image or two and another form of multimedia if it fits.
6. If Stuck – Come Back Later
Writers block, it happens to the best of us. If you’re struggling to come up with anything…
…and I mean you virtually can’t write a word without getting a massive headache in your frontal lobe.
In that case, get out the house. Find some stimulation. Whether that be taking a stroll in the park, grabbing a quick frappucino at Starbucks or what works best for me; rigorous exercise. Clear your head, stimulate your mind and body; come back later.
In Prosperity,
David Wood
P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments and questions below.
Comments (carried over from the previous site)
DaveHawk1, August 23, 2012, 10:15
Great bunch of tips. If you do it everyday, I have found, that you get into a habit. It takes a while to acquire a bad habit and it takes some time to get a good one. Just do it everyday.
dmhall, August 23, 2012, 12:30
Procrastination is my problem. I have read many ads, spent lots of money on products and have had no results. This has caused me to stop blogging. I am depressed and don’t know where to go. I guess I could write about that but not sure people would enjoy reading that type of blog. When I do blog I write it all in one go in about 25 minutes. I do enjoy blogging but have not seen any results from it. It is time to stop complaining and procrastinating and write another blog. Thanks David for the info.
veganlogy, August 23, 2012, 15:45
Yeah, you are right. Editing is time-consuming. I can say HUGE time-consuming. I am thinking of writing a perfect article with zero mistake. Because, when I found out some changes such as “tag” “title tag” “title description” and so on, due to the search engine responds is takes about 1 week, and when my page detail is already appear in google. Have to wait for it to change back to perfect detail. Right? Correct me if I am wrong.
TyronneRatcliff, August 23, 2012, 18:00
Leaving the house and getting some fresh air is an effective way to cure writers block and makes it easier to come up with ideas to write about. Ideas usually come easier when you’re out and about running errands and doing things like that, but like you said, when an idea comes to mind, make sure you write it down for future reference, thanks for the helpful writing tips.
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Twenty minutes a piece is fine as a discipline, but I kept coming back to the six editing questions near the end. ‘Did I learn something new’ is a decent test of whether you respected the reader’s time, not just your own deadline.
Sorry if this is obvious, but the plan says write the intro first and then never touch a sentence until you’re done, so doesn’t the intro end up out of date by the time the body’s finished? I always end up sneaking back to fix it anyway, which sort of defeats the whole edit-once idea.
Twenty minutes stuck out to me because it’s roughly how long a proper bike fit takes if you don’t second-guess every measurement. The stuff that ruins a fit isn’t lack of skill, it’s re-checking the same adjustment four times because you don’t trust the first pass. Same thing here I think — the writer’s block section is really about trusting the plan you already made rather than negotiating with it sentence by sentence. I used to rewrite the same paragraph six times before moving on, and the finished piece was never actually better for it, just later. The ‘edit once at the end’ rule is the same discipline as not touching the saddle height mid-ride. Adjust once, ride the rest of the way, and see how it actually feels before you touch anything again.
Twenty-two years in an insurance office taught me the corporate version of ‘edit once’ was called sign-off, and it took eleven people and three weeks to approve what this post describes doing solo in twenty minutes. There’s something to the bike analogy Declan raised — most of what we called quality control was really just diffusion of responsibility wearing a rigour costume.
TypeRace won’t fix a paragraph that didn’t need writing. Speed was never the bottleneck most days.
If speed isn’t the bottleneck, what is, in your experience?