How Is Your Blogging? A Plan that might help.
One month ago I started turning my attention more to building my MMO site and content creation. My aim was to write 2 posts a week for my new niche for a target of 96 for a year. I took a glance at my stats for my 1 month, ending today and I have completed 14344 words for 8 articles. I was happy with my production however I noticed a statistic that said I had posted more than 97% of the WA members this month.
I thought back to when I started and recalled how hard it was to properly string together sentences let alone try to make interesting content. I looked at a suggested average word count of 1500 like free climbing a rock face with no rope in the snow. And if you have not guessed I am not fond of the cold.
Given that I am no longer a Newbie by WA standards I thought that I could share a simple formula that I have utilized.
1. Set up a blog post calendar.
You can start with a simple planner in hard copy, Google Calendar, or Word, whatever makes you feel most comfortable. The intention is that you would work out a posting schedule for the next month meaning that you would designate certain days for certain types of content. If you are able to this could extend as far as 3-6 months.
As an example, you could start by designating
- Monday a 'How To' day,
- Wednesday a Top 10 List' day,
- Friday for 'Reviews' and
- Sunday for 'a Vlog'.
Of course, it could be far more exciting when you bring some personality to it.
- Mad Scientist Mondays,
- Who, What, Where, When Wednesday
- Find Your Fortune Friday and so on
2) Generate Ideas
The next step is to start brainstorming topic ideas. It is often difficult to know where to come up with inspiration. However, it is all around us. Let's utilize affiliate marketing as our keyword. I have identified three areas that you can look at:
a) Use Quora which is a question and answer site. Pop in the search term affiliate marketing and the results come up as shown under. When you mine that site like this you get a good sense of the type of challenges around a topic that people are searching.
b) Secondly you can use an Idea Generator like Portent
You pop in your search phrase and Portent will spit out different titles. Some are going to seem really weird while others you can take as is or with some modifications adapt a topic.
c) Well we all know about using Google - type in for instance learn to make money and Google will provide you with extensions as shown
3) Writing
Sometimes even with title suggestions, it can be very difficult to come up with content. There are many sources that you can look at. Remember however that the content you find should fuel your research or help with the basic 'skin and bones' structure of a blog post. Just copying content is a no-win strategy and one which you will be penalized for.
Sources for your blog post content could include:
- Other blog posts
- PLR - Private label rights is a license where the author sells most or all of the intellectual property rights to their work
- Blog content generators - there are AI tools that automatically generate content
- Outsourcing it to a writer
- Public domain - creative works for which the copyright has expired and thus is now owned by the public.
If you have found this post helpful hit me up a like and let me know how else you are doing generating your blog post content.
Take care
Hugh
Recent Comments
61
Hi Hugh
You are so my prince here in WA community really !
I will pin and follow right now as this is where am I at to make blog post content as you said, your layout plan is a gold for me, yes!
I am in my content and plus doing all my social media!
BTW i want to thank you personaly for sending me to help from Hanneke!
You are not only prince of WA here but the simply the best for newbie like me Hugh, really appreciate your human touch my prince!
Very grateful for your help and you should peak on my website ha ha ha you will be proud of me for i learn for you all best been there done that, LOL
xO
joce
Great advice Hugh. I must start using quora as it seems a good way to find potential topics. I start by reading a few blogs in my niche to gain inspiration for ideas. I then use google suggest, then jaaxy. I've found plenty of great ideas this way, and keep a list of future blog post titles in notepad.
That's right Kathy once you hit on a workable formula, as you have, it usually keeps on delivering.
Some very helpful ideas in your post, Hugh. Thank you.
I've struggled with ideas for posts over far too many months. When 800 words were acceptable, writing posts was simple, With a much greater number of words now required, it is challenging! I think it depends on one's nature and just how talkative they are. Why waste effort on delivering a plethora of words when fewer words are adequate and fit the bill!
Of course, I do realize that those additional words now required must provide quality information and advice, and that is the tricky part. Research, and research again and again.
So, before signing off I thank you for sharing the idea generator 'Portent'. I have never been aware of that tool and will make good use of it.
Finally, I love the images in this post. May I ask if you are the creator of these images? The reason I ask is that I'm aware that Canva provides some form of tuition in design such as your images. I've been a Canva premium member for a few years but have not taken advantage of all they offer.
Thanks again, Hugh. You've provided so quality food for thought.
Valerie
Hey Valerie for longer blog posts I try to break it down into a few mini blog posts of 350 words each. This way the challenge does not seem so daunting. Then link them together. All I can say further to that is just repeatedly writing makes it eventually easier.
Regarding photos, I have access to a Shutterstock account. It does have a monthly charge attached to it however. I have used Canva and recognize that my skills need sharpening in this area to achieve the designs I prefer. A short course I am sure could help us both
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Good morning Hugh,
Thank you for another helpful and very informative blog post, it's appreciated. I trust that you are doing well.
I always think it's great to have a plan for everything we do online. You have made some very good points Hugh, I must admit I hadn't heard of Portent, it's amazing what is available online to help us with many tasks.
I will often use Google Keep to keep notes on my smartphone, Google Keep can also be used on a PC or tablet. So notes are always accessible from any device, which is highly useful. There are many times when I will be working on my off-line business and an idea will come into my head! The problem is that I have to write the idea down, otherwise I will forget! This is where Google Keep proves to be very useful!
To be fair, reading blog posts on Wealthy Affiliate can often bring ideas and can cause me to write a blog post.
Wishing you all the best Hugh.
Roy
Never heard of Google Keep and now finding out about Keen from Stephen (Zoopie). I use Notion to keep track. Something Roy put me onto a while back.
It's amazing what is available on the Internet to help us with our various tasks. I know there are many similar notepads for example; Evernote, I think they're all fairly similar. I like the fact with Google keep, I can use it across my devices.
I must admit I hadn't heard of "Keen" until Jay mentioned it. I want to watch Jay's webinar at some point. You may have already seen the webinar, Hugh, I will put the link below.
Sorry, the system is not allowing me to put the link into this comment, so I have put the name of Jay's webinar below.
Dominating with Keen (Google's Answer to Pinterest)
Have a great day.
Roy