The folks that come to GBW looking for blogging help are usually out of time.
Business owners, managers and marketers are some of the busiest folks I’ve ever met other than moms who are simply the most amazing people ever. The more I meet the more I can’t figure out how they find time in the day for all they do.
But business owners are busy. There is always something going on, but as blogging has become more effective at bringing in new customers these businesspeople have wanted to invest in it.
If you’re busy and if you want to start blogging for your business, but you’re busy then we have a process that will get you one great blog post with only one extra hour of your time.
Can you find one extra hour per month to commit to blogging?
Most of us can find an extra hour in the month and if pressed we could probably find two hours a month or even one hour per week to commit to blogging.
The trick here is the time spent blogging. It can take many hours to write a good post with the research, writing and publishing. This process cuts out a lot of the time and still gets you a great blog post in the end.
Here is the process.
Step 1 – Use One Hour To Compile A List Of Customer Questions
This will be the first hour of your blogging efforts. It won’t involve any blogging as far as writing is concerned, but it does include coming up with blogging ideas.
A major part of blogging is coming up with an idea and researching that idea. That’s where people can get bogged down along with the writing. We’re going to eliminate that step with one hour of your time.
Simply grab a pad of paper or type it on your computer; list the questions that customers ask you every day or questions that you’ve been asked as it relates to your business over the years.
Coming up with these questions cuts out the time it takes to come up with ideas. It also cuts out the time you need to research because with your years of experience and knowledge you don’t need to research especially when it comes to questions you’ve answered hundreds of times.
Step 2 – Write With A Stream Of Thought Like You Would In Person
Now, when you have another free hour, go to your list and find a question. Take that question and type out your answer just as if you’re answering someone in a conversation. Don’t worry about grammar. Don’t worry about all that stuff. Just type it out stream of though as if you’re having a conversation with one of your potential customers.
Step 3 – Go Back And Segment And Edit The Post One Time
You’ll probably surprised with how many words you can fill out answering a question. Go into a bit of detail. Shoot for 500 words or even a thousand words if you can. It’s not as hard when you know the topic so well.
Once you’re done, take a breather and go back and read your post. See if there are any glaring errors. Again, don’t fret over every grammatical detail. Yes, you want it to read well and avoid glaring errors, but you’re not writing a term paper.
Also, when you go back, add in a few headings to break up the content. Each time you reach a new section give it a heading. This makes the content easier to scan and read.
And if you can, but the sentences up into short, snappy sentences. You might be able to speak in long sentences with people understanding, but it’s difficult to read long sentences. Cut them down and make a long sentence into two or even three.
Step 4 – Outsource The Formatting And Publishing Of The Blog (Or Step 5)
The final step to publishing a blog post is getting it on the website. We use WordPress here at GBW and so do many of our clients. It’s relatively easy to use, but it’s one of those things that you have to use a couple times before the light bulb goes on and you can publish a post in a few minutes.
You can outsource the publishing of the post. Have someone on your team be in charge of publishing the post. Give them the directive to figure out WordPress. Here are the instructions.
Each month or week or whatever, send your post to this person and have them upload it. Over time, they’ll learn and they’ll be able to get it done in minutes.
One recommend I would give would be to schedule the posts. Don’t publish them when you finish it. Schedule it for a couple days after and always on the same day and same time.
For example, if you do monthly posts, publish them at 7 AM on the first Monday of the month. Aim to get it done 5 days before that day each month. You’ll go to your list of questions and do your writing.
Step 5 – Have Someone Document The Procedure For Publishing The Post
Now, if you want to do the publishing on your own you can do that. However, to optimize your time I suggest having someone that knows WordPress or whatever blogging platform you’re using go through and create a procedure for you.
Tell them to document the procedure step-by-step in a Word doc or Google Drive doc so you can quickly learn the process. Tell them to document every step with a screenshot for every step. This will make the learning curve easier and faster. After a few times you’ll know it by heart and will be doing it in minutes and if you ever get stuck, which does happen, you can refer to the procedure document.
Think about the number of conversations you’ve had with customers over the years in regards to your business. There have probably been hundreds of times when a customer has asked you a question and without thinking you’ve provided a great answer.
You have incredible knowledge and experience and you can use that to your advantage with blogging. Many of us simply get bogged down in the idea of “blogging” or creating the “perfect blog post”. Forget about that stuff and get back to answering questions and your blog will do just fine while attracting new readers and new customers through search and social.