If you’re not writing as much as you’d like to, you have to ask yourself why? What’s stopping you from writing. regardless of whatever’s preventing you writing, you can in fact push past these obstacles if you really want to.

But that’s the crux: do you really want to write? If you have an excuse as to why you can’t start writing its okay. If you answered no, it just means that you really don’t want to write – writing is hard, difficult, fraught with obstacles, time-consuming and frustrating especially when your published draft doesn’t turn out as you hoped it would.

But if you answered yes, you just need to overcome the obstacles preventing you from getting started which sometimes is easier said than done.

Time

Time seems to be a big obstacle preventing you from writing. You don’t have time to write, your busy. Other priorities take precedence over your writing. You just cannot seem to find the time to sit and write out a blog post during the day, right?

The truth is that, if you really wanted to write you would find the time to do it. You can make time, it just depends on how motivated you are. The first step, is to acknowledge that other important priorities do take precedence over your writing. By doing this, you are taking huge steps towards your goal.

In fact, if I said that I didn’t have time to write a blog post I would believe it, thinking that other things are more important to me than writing. You can make time, you just have to find the time to do it. By making time for writing, or anything else your taking responsibility. And responsibility means that no-one can alter the situation but myself.

Overcoming Obstacles

Once you’ve acknowledged that you’re in control of your time and it’s not the other way around, you can start by taking action and writing more.

The thing is that you have to make writing or anything else you want to do a priority. This takes time, you don’t have to make it a top priority but you do have to set aside some time for it. If you can write at the same time every day and stick to it on a regular basis you will find that is gets easier as its become a daily routine.

When you do this, your developing a habit that sticks. It becomes easier and easier to do and not to do. On, most days I don’t go a day without writing anything. I’m constantly brainstorming ideas, writing notes to myself, hashing out ideas or writing blog posts. It’s become a routine where it become difficult to not write every day.

Give Yourself Permission

Another obstacle preventing you from starting to write or do anything is permission. From my experience it’s not something we grapple with consciously, it’s internal we often seek permission to do something from anywhere but ourselves. For instance, seeing others who are good at blogging can often be intimidating as we get held back by the idea that were not good enough so we don’t even attempt to try.

You have to learn to trust yourself and I think you have to at some point you have to let go of your need for approval. No one is going to give you permission to do something, you have to realise that you have to give yourself permission to start. On hindsight, waiting for permission is just an excuse from taking the leap and starting to write.

To overcome this hurdle, give yourself permission to start writing and stop worrying about what other people think.

Writing is an intense process. If you’re struggling to get started, try to reflect and figure out what obstacle is preventing you from starting. This will gradually help you to overcome these obstacles.

Writing a blog post is easy right? Open up your text editor, cursor blinking. Nothing can be more daunting than seeing a blank page waiting to be filled with your words. You take a sigh, and somehow muster the courage to write down some words and you keep writing but it doesn’t flow.  After an hour or so you look at your work with disgust as your staring at your screen, cursor blinking. There’s nothing more demotivating than seeing a blank page but the question is how do you get started?

Step 1: Research your audience

Before you start writing, you must have a clear understanding of your audience. What are they interested in? What do they want to know more about? Asking questions will help you to define your audience, and this will help you to tailor a blog post that they will find interesting and engaging.

Every time I sit down to write, I ask myself a question – do you want to read this. If the answer is yes, I ask why and what do you want to know. This helps me to write content that my audience really care about and would like to know more about.

Once you’ve satisfactorily answered these questions your ready to put fingers to keyboards.

Step 2: Create a compelling headline that grabs attention

Before you sit down to write you need to think about the topic for your blog post. For example if your a web designer, you may start out by thinking of writing about the design process. Then you’ll think of some suitable headlines (working titles) that will help you to narrow down your topic. As an example a suitable headline may be “A Beginners Guide to the Design Process” or “How to Borrow Design Ideas From Everyday Life.” A headline is essentially a guide which will help you to craft your blog post.

Step 3: Write an introduction

First of all, you have to grab the attention of your reader. If you lose the readers in the first few paragraphs of the introduction, they will lose interest and stop reading before giving your post a fair chance. There a number of ways that you can do this: tell a story, share a joke or grip them with an interesting fact or statistic.

Next you describe the purpose of the blog post and how it will help the reader. By doing this you’re giving the reader motivation to continue to read your blog post and it will give them a sense of how it will help improve their work/life  in general.

Step 4: Plan your content

Long before you sit down at your desk, you need to make sure that you have everything planned before your start writing. The trick is to break down your content into manageable chunks so that you don’t get overwhelmed by the task and then halfway through decide to quit. All you need to do to keep yourself organised is to write a brief outline of your blog post, think of it as a rough guideline that will help you to keep on track.

For example, this is the outline that I wrote for this blog post:

Title: [How to Write A Blog Post]

• Introduction
• Research your audience
• Create a compelling headline that grabs attention
• Write an introduction
• Plan your content
• Write
• Editing

The purpose of this is to make sure that I know what to cover before I start writing and to not ramble on, it’s basically a skeleton of the finished article.

Step 5: Write

Writing is hard, editing your work is even harder. Editing isn’t about fixing things grammatically or striking our words that you don’t think work. It’s basically seeing the piece as a whole and seeing how it fits together. You can ask a friend or a colleague to look over your work to see if you think it is as strong as you think. Having another sets of eyes looking over your blog post can help you to hear their thoughts on whether the piece flows and makes sense.

Blogging looks easy that is until you go ahead and write a blog post. With time, practise and practise it’ll get easier and before you know it you’ll be blogging like a pro.

Why should I stick to a regular blogging schedule? One of the main reasons of blogging on a regular basis is that it develops trust, new readers of your blog will keep visiting on a regular or a semi-regular basis to see what new posts. Blogging on a consistent basis is important and if it is done with some planning and thought, it can attract new traffic and leads for your business.

Nowadays a blog is no longer just a page of images and text chronicling your daily life. A blog is now seen as a base station for your expertise or knowledge and this is something that we’ve already discussed. Consistent blogging is important and here are some tips that will help you to manage your blog and stay on top of your blogging schedule.

Write on a regular basis

I try to write every day, I keep a set schedule and try to stick to it regardless of the ups and downs of daily life. Even when I can’t write a blog post I note down every single idea that I have. You can do this by jotting every single idea that occurs in a notebook, post-it notes, a Google document or a note-taking application on your phone. The important thing is to keep the ideas flowing and get your ideas down.

Develop an editorial calendar

You can use a spreadsheet application like Microsoft Excel to plan and write out a set schedule for your blogging efforts for the next week or month. The benefit of this is that it will help you to manage your workload and as a result you will publish blog posts more often if you stick to a schedule. You have to commit to this for it to work. What topics or material do you want to cover in the next fee weeks or months? What do you want your audience to know about you?

Rehash old content

You can consider rehashing old content that didn’t get a lot of attention when you originally posted it. As any blogger knows it can take an awfully long time for a blog to get new subscribers and it may be in your best interest to show new readers of your blog some of your old content.

Your audience expects it

As your blow grows, you will have new visitors that regularly visit your site looking for new content. As long as you keep writing your audience will grow, that is as long as people are searching for content content that helps them somehow. You have to a blog on a regular basis as regular subscribers will expect new content every fortnight and by doing this you build up a community. Blogging on a regular basis gives you a platform from which to spread word about your business or services you offer. Think about what you want to say, and consider how you want to communicate this to your audience and get writing.

If you need help with blogging then do get in touch with us. We can help you to get blogging on a more regular basis.

Writer’s block is frustrating. As a content marketer your main job is to come up with new ideas and topics for blog posts. You open up Microsoft Word, you have a great idea for a blog post, you open a new document and your staring at a blank screen, cursor waiting for your input. But where do you even start? How do you organise your thoughts and start the process of crafting that elusive blog post?

Writer’s block keeps you from being productive. Many small businesses hire bloggers to maintain their blogs because writer’s block causes them to be unproductive. Staring a blank page can be frightening. However, it does make you wonder as to how authors can write books with material that fills 800 pages. Some of the most successful authors have struggled with writer’s block? So the question remains: how do I get rid of writer’s block?

How Do I Get Rid Of Writer’s Block?

As a blogger, I always struggle with writer’s block. Normally, it starts me staring at a blank screen wondering as to how I’m going to fill it with content. The trick is to face it, and power through it using an outline. An outline provides a way for you to structure your thoughts before the process of writing begins. So for instance, once I have an idea for a blog post I research the topic to get facts and prepare accurate and useful information for the intended audience.

To do this, I use outlines, to think things through before the actual writing begins. Essentially, an outline is a bare skeleton to which you will add the flesh. It breaks down the steps of writing and helps you to articulate your message for your audience. An outline is a list of headlines, at the start you have to write down your heading title, the next step is to break this down into smaller sub headings. It doesn’t have to elaborate, a few simple sentences will do. Once you’ve started this process you’ll find that the article or blog post has been written. Suffice to say that you still have to write the blog post.

So for example if I’m writing a blog post about never running out of blog post ideas, my writing outline would be as follows:

1. Intro
2. Brainstorming Blogging Ideas
   • How to never run out of ideas again
   • Read on a daily basis
   • Come up with an alternattive angle to a popular blog post
   • Be open to inspiration from anywhere
   • Re-purpose existing content
   • Keep a notebook to jot ideas down
   • Think of one idea per day
3. Your next steps
4. Conclusion

And that’s it. Once you’ve got your outline, writing the actual blog post should be effortless and easy. The trick to writing a blog post ‘filling in the details’ from the initial outline is to type as fast as you can. Don’t think about grammar or correct spelling just write…blog as if your writing for a 5th grader. That’s it, hopefully this should help you to write your next blog post effortlessly.

It’s a given fact that competition in any industry is fierce and standing out from others can be difficult and stressful at times. Your always looking to gain a competitive advantage over your rivals by getting potential customers to select your business over others especially if you have competitors all over the place. A great way to do this is to provide quality Blog content that targets your intended market and audience. By doing this it shows that you are knowledgeable on consumer needs and industry trends. Your then acknowledged as an authority in your industry.

The key to gaining authority from your Blogging efforts is to consistently post a new blog article every week – at least once a week, if not more frequently. You may like the idea of becoming an authority in your industry but due to your busy schedule you just don’t have the time to do this. The best way to do this is to partner with a blog writing agency.

What is a blogging service?

A blog writing service is a team of professional experts who can help you to increase visibility and gain exposure with well written articles on your behalf. In this day and age it’s important part of any marketing or sales strategy. A concise, well written blog post can maintain a level of professionalism and clearly articulate interest and generate traffic or leads to your website. Each blog post helps you to increase your visibility, be seen as an expert and become an authority in your industry. A professional blog writing service can do this for you.

How does blogging help me?

If you are looking to become an expert in your industry, you need to create quality content that is valuable and of help to your particular audience. For example if you do decide to do this yourself  and write a blog post every week and it lacks quality you’ll fail to become an expert or authority in your industry. Your website visitors will see no reason to engage with you on a personally or financially (by this I mean the products or services you provide).

A blog writing service understands the need of creating orignal content that meets your goals and provides value to your website visitors. Essentially, they will provide quality pieces of  articles that help you to become an expert in your industry. This is done by providing content that helps your audience with some of their problems and provides value to them. Thus, your audience will then see you as someone who goes the extra mile to enhance their life.

We understand that transferring knowledge into written communication articles is not easy and it can be quite difficult. That’s why you can greatly benefit from outsourcing your needs to a professional blog writing service, so consider investing in The Blog Writers to help you with your needs, and contact us today!