How to write blog posts FAST & create a blogging habit You Can Stick To
I knooooowww - you WANT to be marketing and selling without relying on social media and launches.
One of the best ways to do that is blogging…
Sure, writing a blog post isn't the 'sexy' quick win that firing out an instagram reel can be...
BUT blogging is the long term, sustainable solution to building a Freedom Friendly Business…
And that sounds kinda sexy to me!
Wouldn’t it be lovely to cosy up and create marketing content that you know will be read for months and years to come?
Wouldn’t it feel fulfilling to nurture your home on the internet (your website) and furnish it with words?
The words you put on your website are like fertiliser.
The more words on your blog (I’m talkin’ about YOUR website, NOT substack 😉), the more reach you’ll get across Google. Especially if you’re optimising your blog posts for SEO.
And when you’ve got more visibility on Google, you get more evergreen traffic - FREE traffic, on REPEAT to your blog and website.
Once on your website, people can then naturally flow onto your mailing list, and check out your offers.
All without YOU having to be there hustling for every click, sign up and sale.
Yes pleeeease!
Blogging isn't dead - it's makin' a COMEBACK!
That chart 👇 shows how many clicks Instagram has driven to my client's websites over the the whole of 2022.
I don't have to tell you this... but just so we're on the same page.
Instagram reach & clicks have dropped MASSIVELY…
… and this is happening across the board. The data in that chart there 👆 is taken from accounts ranging from 250k to 3k followers.
It’s happening to us all!
This is WHY blogging is making such a comeback, as business owners look for more sustainable ways to grow and nurture their audience. WITHOUT having to dance to the tune of an algorithm.
That chart doesn’t need to be scary if you’ve got other marketing strategies and systems set up in your business, to help you grow your audience and drive sales.
I LOVE blogging because it’s the most introvert-friendly and sustainable way to grow your website traffic.
"do people EVEN read blogs ANYMORE?"
If you’re thinking “do people even read blogs anymore”?
You’re going to want to take a look at these cold hard numbers…
That's nearly 4.5 MILLION blog post visits from across just 4 brands I worked with last year...
Sooo ... YES people do read blogs, in HUGE numbers!
Sure we don’t subscribe to blogs or comment on blog posts in the same way we did in the naughties. (Bloglovin’ anyone? Throwback!)
But everytime you search the answer to something online… changes are you’re clicking through to a blog post that answers your question.
"but social media takes up allll my time!"
You’re probably thinking - ok this is all very well… but… Instagram takes up SOOO much time. There no time left for blogging, writing emails, sending outreach pitches…
I know a lot of my clients join my program Freedom Friendly Marketing feeling this way.
So, let’s play... Would you rather:
🧑🌾 Plant a seed every week, which overtime flourishes into an orchard of trees that keep bearing fruit year after year… OR…
💐 Buy a fresh bunch of flowers every week?
Sure, the fresh flowers is the quick win route ~ you immediately get beautiful flowers. BUT… it ties you into a never ending cycle of having to buy fresh flowers every week.
Same with blogging vs. social media. Blogging is planting the seeds, social media is buying the flowers every week - you get it.
If you’re spending all of your time and energy on social media marketing - leaving nothing left for your evergreen marketing. Let me tell you, you're in the same position as a large majority of business owners - so don't beat yourself up over it!
Instagram is the sexy marketing tool (although becoming a lot less sexy IMO) and it's where you can get a quick win.
You can post something on Instagram and instantly receive likes, DMs and comments.
Whereas with blogging, you can put a post on your blog and get nothing back for a few weeks.
BUT maybe a few weeks later google crawls your website and notices that you're blogging regularly and you've got some good stuff on there.
✅ Google starts indexing your blog posts so they appear in more search results.
✅ Google seems people are clicking and hanging out on your website - more Google brownie points
✅ Over the next few weeks and months your posts start to drive a steady trickle of traffic to your website.
✅ And that traffic starts flowing through to sign up to your mailing list.
🚀 And ohhh, HELLO… people are flowing through your value-led sales funnel and buying stuff ~ WITHOUT you having to be there hustling for it.
Social media is addictive, and that’s by no mistake…
Social media platforms hire the best psychologists and tech experts to make their apps addictive.
❤️ Those hearts flying up the screen
🔴 The red dot on your DMs
💬 The unread comments and DMs notifications
🤯 The FOMO
✨ The pressure to show the world you're not a looser that's always sat in their pyjamas at home, by sharing daily updates of your wonderful life
😅 The messaging you see online that tells you; you need to be posting every day, sharing 20 reels a weeks and 10 stories each day
None of these are a mistake. They are invented to keep you on the app for as long as possible and keep you in search of your next comment or like - AKA your next dopamine hit.
And what happens when you're on the app for longer – they get to show you more ads and they make more money.
Look… social media, it is a brilliant place to connect with like-minded souls and it's a free marketing channel for goodness sake!
BUT let’s be honest, it takes up way more headspace, time and energy than it really deserves. Especially when you consider that dropping reach.
So forgive yourself for getting sucked into the Instagram trap – but promise me this, you're going to change that habit, yeah?
Here’s the REAL reason you’re not blogging ~ it's OVERWHELMING AF
😅 You tell yourself your blog post has to be at least 2,000 words to be 'worthwhile'.
😇 You tell yourself you need to be able to write like a New York Times best selling author.
😍 You tell yourself your blog posts need to have beautiful Pinterest-ready images.
P.H.E.W! No wonder you’re not blogging. It's flippin' overwhelming. And there are so~many~'rules'!
And as a result, when you do blog, it takes HOURS!
PLOT TWIST your blog posts don’t need to be…
📜 War & Peace length sagas or ‘long form content’
😰 Packed with 12 keywords in the opening paragraph
🫣 Written from scratch every time
Look... In the same way that a ‘bikini body’ is just a body-wearing-a-bikini. A ‘blog post’ is a just post-on-your-blog. Get it?
Here's some HARD FACTS... If you're writing Instagram captions - you're blogging!
The secret to getting consistent with blogging is creating a regular habit of writing and sharing content. A habit that helps you find the JOY in blogging, and provides evidence that this is a much more sustainable way of marketing.
When you've got the regular habit you can start getting geeky with SEO – but for now what's most important is that you create the habit of regularly sharing blog content.
Here are some pointers to help you write blog posts FAST & cultivate a joyful blogging habit
1 | Repurpose what you've already written
You’re telling yourself blogging is a massive ordeal - but have you seen your instagram habits? 😅
Editing images and creating graphics, researching hashtags and writing long captions.
A client told me last week ‘if I need to write some content for my blog I guess I can do that, so just let me know’.
So I dug into her most engaged instagram posts from the last year, I looked at her most engaged marketing emails and she had 52 pieces of content that could be very quickly and easily turned into blog posts.
That’s a year’s worth of weekly blog post content!
Guess what! YOU’VE already written a ton of blog posts too, without realising it! In your instagram captions and past newsletters.
The easiest way to get started with blogging is to repurpose what you’ve already got! So…
📱 Head to your Instagram stats and look at the posts from the last year that got the most comments.
💡 Have a look through the captions on those posts until you find one that you’d like to repurpose into a blog post.
🧑🎨 Copy and paste that caption into a blog post (or your notes - sometimes writing stuff in your notes, or even on your phone feels less overwhelming). Bulk it out a little if you need to ~doesn’t have to be long. 300 words is plenty - especially when you’re forming a habit.
🙅 Don’t let perfectionism stop you from clicking the LIVE button.
Simple!
2 | Release the perfectionism around spelling & grammar
I love blogging now, but it wasn’t always that way.
Picture the scene…
I’m sat in the hallway at my primary school, listening to my teacher tell my mum that I should drop back a year, or maybe even go to a special school for Dyslexic kids.
All through school I was told I couldn’t write or spell.
Fast forward about 20 years and I’m about to hit LIVE on my first free ebook.
I’ve procrastinated over it, I’ve ‘perfected’ the visuals and finally it’s live.
The next day, I receive an email… ‘You spelt ‘achieve’ WRONG!
It knocked me, I had a little cry. It triggered all of those [I’m thick and I can’t spell] stories I’d had to overcome just to hit live on that ebook.
But I picked myself up and kept going. Kept posting.
And now, when I receive messages 'enlightening' me about my spelling mistakes. I laugh, I hit delete and I leave the spelling mistake in my content. Because it's human dammmnit!
If you have blogging hangups - I get it.
The pressure to be perfect at spelling and grammar, please people with your content, not ‘rock the boat’ with your opinions or approach is real.
But each time you take a baby step (ie post a new blog) you’re closer to caring less and less about what people think, and more and more confident with sharing your true voice.
3 | Write to one person, and write fast
One of the reasons blogging can take ages is because you feel you’ve got to cover all bases and every nuisance.
Next time you’re writing a blog post, imagine one person in your head - perhaps a dream client, someone you loved working with or would love to work with.
Pick ONE pain point OR goal for that person (if you struggle with this or struggle to come up with ideas of what to write about, read this post on creating a never ending list of content ideas).
Tell yourself you’re just writing an Instagram caption. And write with that one person in mind, writing just to that one pain point or goal.
Turn that into a blog post. Again, it doesn’t need to be long! But often once you get into the flow it becomes more than an Instagram caption length.
Get it on your blog and hit live!
4 | Make it a priority
It’s not that you don’t have time. You’re not blogging because it’s overwhelming.
So you need to get into a blogging habit that re-trains your brain from thinking blogging has to be a long and arduous task.
A few ways to get blogging on the reg’:
Make it the first thing you do on Monday morning
Every morning spend 20 minutes on your blogging habit
Join a coworking group like The London Writer’s Salon
Challenge yourself to write a blog post a week, or a day
5 | Treat your blogging time like a flippin' spa day
If you think you’ve got to be sat upright, at a desk to get the best words on your blog – throw that limiting belief in the bin!
Right now I'm sat in my garden chair, in the sun writing this.
Make your blogging time the cosiest, most creative retreat for yourself.
Cultivate a ritual for your blogging time. Pour yourself a cup of your favourite tea or coffee. Light your favourite candle. Grab a cosy blanket to curl up in.
Treat your blogging time like an afternoon at the spa. Soak up that delicious feeling, so you can’t wait to get back to your blogging again and keep up your new habit.
And now, I’m begging you to get started with cultivating your regular blogging habit!
Continue nurturing this creative outlet, that enables you to do marketing in a gentle way. Because you really will start to see your evergreen traffic (repeat, free traffic) increase over time. And who doesn’t want more of that!?
So now you’re trying to figure out how to balance your social media marketing with making time for blogging.
For now, you may need to continue to use social media regularly if that’s what you’re relying on right now to nurture and engage your audience, and drive sales.
But perhaps you could do one or two fewer posts each week to free up time to focus on your evergreen marketing. As you strengthen your evergreen content, you can start repurposing your blog posts and newsletters into instagram content - so your focus is on creating evergreen content, and Instagram content is a product of that, rather than the other way round.
I'm excited for you to start planting those seeds each week that will create a more sustainable, Freedom Friendly Business for you.
Wanna tuck this in your pocket for when you fall off the blogging bandwagon? Pin it for later
