At An Impasse.
Two weeks into lockdown and I am at an impasse. I thought having all this time on my hands I would be able to write quicker and with more clarity than before. I have nothing else to do right now other than the daily 'Boris Allowance' walk. So I do write every day. I have so many things I want to acheive and to some extent I am moving forward but not at a very great speed.. a bit like a glacier in motion....
The problem is that I take so long to write an article. It takes me 2-3 days and thats probably spending much of 4-5 hours a day on it. Take my latest article
What Is The Best Social Media Scheduler?
Its over 3000 words long, all graphics done by me in Illustrator. I think this is the sticking point - the fact that I do the graphics myself. But I dont have funds to enlist anyone else and I feel they are needed to fully explain the details of the blogs. Most blogs are like this and I probably only write at best 3 a week.
I am also trying to learn Adobe Premier Pro so i can add in a video a week AND write a paid course on the Divi Theme. A lot on my plate.
But the bottom line is that no matter what I say to myself when I start the blog, that this one will be written in a day and I wont be so volumious with the graphics, but it never works. I always end up doing the same thing.
I suppose its not the quality of the blogs that bother me, I think they are good quality. Its the fact that I am sooooo slow... Now I know you all will say this is a marathon not a sprint and that time is immeterial but it is... I have no goals because I am as slow as a glacier........
What can I do to make myself quicker?
Recent Comments
26
Helen,
It may take you longer than some, and less time than others, quality posts do tend to take longer, especially the pillar posts. I have no doubt they will stand the test of time and are quality.
I think 3-4 per week is outstanding, stop berating yourself.
However 3000 words is a very long post, maybe break up the posts with shorter ones. Sometimes the attention span of both reader and writer (currently) is short.
Also with all this extra time we have been given look at your original goals, what did success looked like for you, did you just want financial freedom or did you want to help others, to be kind to yourself, to give more to your family. Perhaps go back to basics. Meantime I found a you tube vid from the “Income School” boys, it was teaching “how to write a post with good content in an hour” . They actually did it for us from scratch and it was invaluable. It’s only 10 mins long but really worth a watch, particularly for the 1200-1500 word posts...
Xx
Thanks Cordelia.. my goal is ultimately to make referrals.. in SAC there’s a time factor for the tasks.. over the last 2/3 months one not been making them because my articles take so long to post. Sometimes I only get 1 a week 😓. But I will go watch the YouTube you suggest.. anything to get insight into increased productivity will be good.
Go for it, Ricky & Jim are so incredibly watchable and also highly respected in the Affiliate Marketing world.... xxx
That was super helpful Cordelia.. it reminded me of a step in the process I haven’t been doing, one that Kyle told me about in SAC.. spending time setting titles and keywords for a bunch of potential blog posts.. saves time later on and also not treating every blogpost s a pillar post but some response and staple posts. I’d forgotten that. And maybe I should write an article on that ... embed the information for myself too. Thankyou for your help.. it really has helped!☺️
For me, I am quicker following the a formula. Starting with the template in the Content section and then creating an innovative thought that I play with throughout the article. I then break the 4 main topics into;
- Topic sentence outlining first component
- Sentences giving explanations & providing evidence to support
- Concluding sentence – link to next paragraph
This may or may not help you but formula works for me. Thanks Jen
Thankyou Jen.. I don’t used the template here but do have one if my own. I write in Divi so I’m sectioning, adjusting, designing the post as I go along.
Nowadays it takes me longer. I can't seem to keep my mind on it. My mind tends to wander. But I keep moving along by writing a bit at a time. I take a break and come back to it. I must say I don't write 3000 word posts though.
I wish you all the best,
Mickey
Quality content often doesn't come quickly. It takes however long it takes to generate a good article. It's not hard to write a crappy article, which is what I suspect is the case for the people claiming "10,000 words in 10 days!" I have been a professional writer, averaging 6.5 million readers/newspaper article. Mine were 1200 words and often took me a couple days to write. But they were good and they were worth that time. So don't let it bum you out if it takes a few days to create something of quality.
Now, about a 3,000 word article. While Google may like them, readers don't. My articles were 1200 words because newspapers knew that was an optimum length. Personally, my longest article online was 1500 words. Consider writing shorter articles. Google will never buy anything from you. Your readers will. Write for your readers, not for Google. Time on page and other factors will help your articles rank in Google and stay there.
Thankyou Jeannine, that does make me feel a little better... I will try to keep them shorter or maybe do them in two parts if it needs longer. I wonder if you would do me a favour and take a look at the article I mention in my blog? Do you think I should have kept it shorter? I am trying to make more visual blogs too, so that there is interest kept through the article.
See more comments
Hi Helen, I had a look at your article and I can see you put a lot of work into it, and you must be proud.
AT times I find challenging myself to finish a job on the day does work, with a little bit of effort.
Try writing shorter articles and link to other articles of yours to keep the reader on your site.
This lockdown (been nearly 4 weeks in Madrid and we are not all'd to go out for a walk) is not helping me at all, I also thought I'd work harder if I had more time on my hands, but no, I'd rather have my crazy life back, being out and about doing a million thing and find the time to work on my blog.
Good day. Marisa
Thankyou for your suggestion and you are right, I do need to try to write shorter, more response style blogs and posts.
I am just the same as you, I would do anything to be able to go back to what I was doing before. I will never moan about anything again.
Stay safe in Madrid, we will make it out soon.
You too, take care, and hopefully they find a solution very soon.