13 Simple Tips to Write Blog Articles Faster

Introduction

Tips to Write Blog Articles Faster  I’ve found that sometimes I sit on blog articles for far too long. Not only can this be frustrating. But it’s also bad for the blog business. After all, time is money! That’s why I’ve tried various techniques and strategies over the past few weeks and months to be able to write blog articles, newsletters or e-books faster. And with great success! The following strategies and tricks have helped me to write blog articles almost twice as fast (!) as before without having to accept any loss of quality:

1. Constantly gather inspiration

In order not to have to think forever about what I should write about, I’m constantly on the lookout for ideas. I read a lot on other blogs and when I see a topic that interests me and that I would like to write about, I add it to my inspiration list. I use Google Sheets to make a list where I always jot down potential article ideas (along with reference links). I also collect ideas on the go with the Notes app on iPhone, and I bookmark articles I like and inspire in Chrome. When I have time to write again, I just look at my lists, choose a topic (don’t think too long) and start writing.

Reduce distractions

Distractions are a massive problem for me. Instead of writing (or doing other things that are important) I often check Facebook, Twitter, read the news on heishe or the Tages Schau. The Focus app helped me reduce distractions . I have currently set this so that all social media sites (except Pinterest) and news sites that I frequent to distract myself and distracting apps such as WhatsApp are switched off from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. This allows me to focus on writing during the times when I’m most productive. If Focus is on and you’re browsing a website that’s on the blocked list, you’ll see a motivational quote instead: What also helps me is reducing distractions away from the computer, e.g. e.g.:

• Turn off your smartphone or put it on silent
• Work in a quiet place
• Tidying up and cleaning (clutter in the room often creates clutter in my head)
• Eat before or after work, not during it

3. Improve your concentration

You can only write faster if you are really focused.

I can recommend the following to clear your head:

• take breaks in between (e.g. using the Pomodoro technique )
• keep yourself physically fit and eat healthy
• Make sure you get enough sleep
• eliminate negative thoughts (e.g. through meditation or targeted mindfulness breaks)
• Avoid drinking too much coffee (or other caffeinated beverages) and use them more purposefully
• Listen to music on the side (that doesn’t distract you)

4.Do one thing at a time

If you’re writing while doing a thousand other things like formatting, proofreading, image editing, or keyword research and optimization, your blog post will take ten times longer to complete. Instead of doing everything at once, do everything one at a time. While you write, you write. While you edit, you edit. While you edit pictures, you edit pictures, etc.

5. Combine the same tasks (batching)

Let’s say your blog article has 10 paragraphs and you want to insert an image for each paragraph. Then you probably do the following:

• You write a paragraph.
• You search/create a suitable image for the paragraph, upload it and insert it.
• You write a paragraph.
• You search/create a suitable image for the paragraph, upload it and insert it.

That’s totally inefficient.

It is better to group the same tasks together. This means:

• You write 10 paragraphs.
• You search/create 10 pictures.
• You upload all 10 pictures at once.
• You add the 10 pictures to the appropriate places in the article one after the other.

Through this:

• you don’t lose your concentration because you often switch back and forth between different tasks and your mind may already be on the next task.
• you save a lot of work steps because you only do them once instead of 10 times (e.g. you only need one step to upload all 10 pictures)

6. Always follow the same routine

Routines ensure more productivity.

Not just blogging, but pretty much everything in life. When writing blog articles, I always stick to a similar process with the following 4 steps whenever possible:

Step 1 (first day):

• keyword research
• Define the outline (create an outline with H-headings directly in WordPress)
• Find research sources

Step 2 (second day):

• Write down the first draft

Step 3 (third day):

• Proofreading and finishing touches
• formatting
• Find/take pictures (feature picture, pictures in the article), edit them and insert them into the article
• Insert citations and links
• keyword optimization

Step 4: (third day or later on second day)

• Final proofreading
• publication
• Share on social media, via newsletters, etc.

Day 1 and day 2 or day 2 and day 3 do not necessarily have to be connected. But it makes sense not to let too much time pass between each day. Splitting it up over several days ensures that you don’t become blind to your work, but too long a time interval can mean that you get out of flow and have to read your own article again. Sandra Holze uses the 3-day technique to find a similar approach to overcoming writer’s block and writing blog articles more quickly. For my detailed tutorials, however, a total time of one and a half hours is far from enough…

7. Use wildcards

In order not to be distracted in my writing flow and to look for suitable images, sources, quotes or things that require research while I am writing, I use placeholders. When I’m done writing the article, I search for my placeholders with CTRL + F (or CMD + F on Mac) and gradually add the missing content. I use XX for this because there are no words in German that contain this sequence of letters and I can thus ensure that only placeholders are marked in my placeholder search. For more extensive blog articles I also use other abbreviations, such as B. XTD (for extend ).

8. Be brief

I am someone who likes to write sentences that are too long and go too far. Meanwhile, I’m trying to make it a habit to be brief and focus on the essentials. This saves valuable lifetime. Not only for me, but also for you, my reader.

9. Set a time window for each task

You can save a lot of time if you concentrate on the essentials when writing. But it works the same way the other way around: By limiting the time you can use for a blog article (and the individual work steps) from the outset, you tend to concentrate on the essentials. For this article, for example, I had three more points, but they weren’t that important. By setting myself a deadline to finish it today, I just skipped the points. This technique is part of Parkinson’s Laws , named after the British sociologist  Cyril Northcote Parkinson :

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

10. Click Publish faster!

I tend towards perfectionism.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but more often than not it causes me to start dawdling and not finish a task, taking twice as long as it needs to. You usually achieve the same results with imperfect blog articles. Maybe a comma isn’t enough here or there, or something isn’t expressed quite as clearly as it could be, or the exposure in the featured image isn’t top notch. But most readers don’t notice that anyway. For example, I just caught myself thinking about whether dawdling is actually a good choice of words. But I ignored my perfectionist brain and just let it be…

11. Use templates

Templates help you avoid doing the same work over and over again. This includes, for example:

• HTML and CSS templates for tables, message boxes or buttons
• Templates using Canva or Photoshop for featured images or Pinterest images
• Plugins for inserting Amazon product boxes or tables (such as AAWP or ASA 2 Pro )
• Using WordPress short codes (either coded in functions’ yourself, via theme-specific short codes or a plugin like Short codes Ultimate )
• Insertion of affiliate links, e.g. B. with  Thirsty Affiliates

For example, one of my Canva templates for Pinterest images looks like this:

12. Learn to type faster

If you can type faster, you can write faster. It took me a lot to learn to type with 10 fingers at an early age. You don’t even have to take a course for it. There are numerous computer programs or browser apps that you can use to practice this at home on your own PC. At that time I used the TIPP10 program , which I still open from time to time even after several years, to increase my speed a bit. It is now also available in different languages ​​and offline for Windows, Linux and Mac as well as online.

13. Write directly in WordPress

I’ve been writing blog articles directly in the WordPress editor for a long time. This has a big advantage: I have the formatting I want right away. And doesn’t have to adjust them after I’ve written the article in Microsoft Word or Google Docs and copied it into the WordPress editor. Thanks to the improved preview in the Gutenberg editor , I can see how the article will look later.