Blogs Don’t Write Themselves: take control of your content in two easy steps
How do I get my site to rank on Google?
But, I don’t know what to write about…
These are two phrases I hear uttered (almost) daily. You want your content to rank but you don’t want to work on producing content (consistently). In regards to the second statement, I think in most cases, you know what to write, you’re just hesitant because you’re scared of how it might sound (after all, you’re throwing your content out there for the world to read). When you put your information out there on the web for the world to see, it’s there and it’s permanent. Some people are going to like your content and some people aren’t. But the bottom line is, a successful blog dependent on your ability to develop fresh new content consistently over time.
We’ve shared content ideas for your real estate blog in a previous post featuring @Nik_Nik from Agent Evolution. Today, we want to share a sample work-flow for coming up with content consistently…
First: Take Control of Your Content
First things first, you need to take control of your content by using an editorial calendar. Having an editorial calendar (like the WP Editorial Calendar plugin) will allow you to do a few things…
- See all of your posts in a monthly calendar view (easy reference to when they’ll be posted)
- Drag and drop feature to move posts from one date to another
- Quick-Edit feature to make changes to titles, categories, etc.
- Easy publish
- Easy way to manage posts on a multi-author blog
It’s a pretty neat plugin and it’s free! I definitely recommend you check it out. It’s useful to have a full picture view of what content you have scheduled week by week so you know where you’re lacking so you can pick up the pace. Once you’ve gotten organized, it’s on to the next step…
Second: Come Up with 10 Post Ideas
Ever sit at your computer and find yourself just staring at the computer screen like you’re in a trance and don’t know what to type next? Yep, me too. I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there. In fact, one of the biggest challenges most bloggers face is coming up with fresh new content consistently.
What should I write about?
I don’t know what to say…
It’s ok, we’ve all been there. So this next exercise is a bit of a brainstorm that involves coming up with a few post ideas. Here’s what you do…
- For every category, come up with (at least) 3-5 blog posts.
- For each blog post, try brainstorming new post ideas to expand on the post.
The idea is to come up with a list of post ideas based on each of your categories. If you can’t come up with (at least) 2-3 post ideas for a specific category, well, you probably don’t need the category then. Here’s a few questions for you to help you get started…
- What are some of the questions your readers and/or potential clients are asking you on a daily basis? Blog your response…
- Is there a question you’ve been asked more than 3x’s in any given day/week? Blog your response…
- What’s your specialty? Maybe you can write a “How To” post for your niche…
The list can go on and on…
What about you? Where do you get your post ideas from?
Where do you get your content ideas from? How often do you publish content on your site?