Photo by Joel Montes de Oca
We’ve told you before and we’ll tell you again how important regular blogging can be for your business. But good blogging isn’t mindless. To create meaningful content takes time and thought. Hubspot recently ran a piece about staying on top of a daily blog, and it inspired us to share more tips.
As a regular blogger, it’s important to latch on to all those half-formed ideas that flit through your mind, whether it’s on the train, in the middle of another writing assignment, over dinner — you get the idea. Always carry a notebook. It takes some practice to jot down all of those half-baked ideas, but you should get in the habit. Later, when you are sitting down to plan your content for the next month, you will already have a brainstormed list of ideas to use, develop or discard. You’ll have a head start on the first step of the content-generation process.
In addition to collecting these thoughts throughout the day, go on a quest for ideas. This will include browsing what others in your industry and audience are writing about, as mentioned in our post about using a blog to develop your expertise. When you find a hot topic or inspiring post, notice where you can add something to the conversation. Don’t repeat what others are saying, build on it. One option is to survey the conversations you find and write about trends you have noticed.
Let yourself go beyond your industry, too. Read the news. Stretch your ideas of what is relevant to your topic and you may surprise yourself. If you learn about a current event that sparks your interest, see a film that has started discussion online, or try out a new technology that gives you an idea for a piece, consider how you could use that as a springboard for your post. Draft something. Even if you decide to scrap the part of the post that references your original inspiration, you may through it find your way to a relevant topic.
Don’t be afraid to write something up and read it over later. Be mindful of the time you spend, but often it is in fact more efficient to write a draft, set it aside and revise later. The time in between, whether spent on another blog post, other work or a break, will allow you to view what you’ve written with fresh eyes when you come back to it. Sometimes this is all the help you need to get past a sticking point or find the perfect work around to an awkward sentence.
As you blog, you will develop your own strategies for finding topics, staying interesting and working efficiently. When you’re just starting out, don’t be afraid to ask for feedback and advice. Now start blogging!
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Want to build relationships with other bloggers? Learn to do it the right way with our posts on blogger outreach.
