I know that writing new content can be really hard and having to write it on a consistent basis is even harder! Trust me, I’ve been there and this is something that I really used to struggle with! I would often sit staring into space thinking – what on earth am I going to write about this week?! I’d waste hours trying to come up with different subjects and I’d turn into the queen of procrastination! It used to drive me crazy! So, how did I solve this problem? Well, after struggling for a year or so and doing lots of research, I came up with a plan to make writing content less painful and I want to share it with you so you don’t have to keep on struggling like I did. Follow these 4 simple steps and I promise you will find writing your content sooo much easier…
1. Break it down: Start off with a brainstorm of all the topics in your area of expertise that you could write about. Set a timer for 30 minutes and just write! What topics will your ideal customers find really useful and what will help them? Write down as many topic areas as you can and then break it down – so break your topics into sub-topics. To give you an example, one of my key areas is Facebook Marketing – but I would then break this down into sub-topics which could be Facebook engagement, Facebook ads, ideas for what to post, tips on when to post, how to create amazing images for posts etc. I could even break down some of my sub topics further – for instance Facebook ads could be broken down into boosting posts, setting up like ads, ads to grow your list, using audience insights… the list goes on! So see how this works! Now spend 30 minutes giving it a go yourself and you’ll be amazed at how many topics you come up with to write about.
2. Use a content calendar: Using a content calendar changed everything for me! Usually I’d sit twiddling my fingers for a few hours before coming up with an idea and sometimes I couldn’t come up with anything so I’d put it off till next week. But when I started using a content calendar, this made everything so much easier and I found that I was getting more content ideas than ever. If you have a WordPress website I highly recommend using their ‘Editorial Calendar’ plug in. It installs a content calendar into your blog section and lets you easily put in ideas and notes for future blogs which is great as whenever I get an idea now I quickly pop into this calendar and dump it there – whereas before I would never get around to keeping a note of my ideas and just forget it. Now I find that I have 6-7 ideas for future blog topics waiting for me to expand upon – this has honestly made my life sooo much easier! If you don’t have a WordPress website you can easily set up your own content calendar using Google Calendars.
3. Never run out of content ideas again: A way to make sure you never run out of content ideas again is to run a survey for your ideal customers. It doesn’t have to be complicated, you can use SurveyMonkey which is free and you can just ask them a few key questions about what they’re struggling with most or even ask them what topics they would like to see you cover. Keep it simple and once you’ve created your survey post it on your social media and send it out to your email list. The results will be invaluable to you and the amount of content ideas you will get will keep you going for a long time! To give you an example, here’s a survey I did last year: svy.mk/1hEpLT1 Feel free to fill it out while you’re there! 🙂
4. Re-purpose your content: A lot of hard work goes into writing our content, so why would we only use it once? Make sure you are getting every single drop out of your content by re-purposing it. So, the way I do it is I create my blog, then I share it in my e-newsletter, post it on my Facebook page and share it on twitter. I sometimes also take snippets of the blog and turn them into separate tweets or quick tips for my Facebook page. Although I’ll only send this content out once to my email list, I’ll use it multiple times for a few months on my Facebook page and twitter – remember a lot of your fans may miss your posts, so sharing it multiple times give it a better chance of being seen. (I usually leave a couple of weeks gap before re-sharing it)
Sharing consistent, really valuable content with your ideal customers is the number one way to build relationships and grow your business, as it’s this regular content that will position you as the expert in your field and will let your ideal customers get to know, like and trust you. But, this will only happen if you are sharing consistent content, whether that be weekly or monthly – you must be consistent to keep yourself at the forefront of your ideal customers minds. Then, when they are ready to buy, they will think if you first! (For more free tips click here!)
I really hope this helps! Best of luck with your content creation and if you have any questions just pop them below or stop by my Facebook page to ask me there! 🙂
