The statistics show that having a blog on your website can increase your traffic by as much as 400%. Around 77% of the 20,000,000 people who use the internet every day, read blog posts. Those are huge numbers that highlight why it’s so important for business owners to have a blog on their website.

But having a blog section is only half the battle. Finding the time in your weekly schedule to dedicate to blog writing can be difficult. Particularly if you don’t enjoy writing, or aren’t confident doing it. So, it’s not only worth setting aside time regularly to do it, but also learning how to do it well so that the posts work hard for your business.

Time blocking

Whatever we may think, humans can’t multi-task well. We can start something, then change to something else, and then go back to the original thing. But it’s almost impossible to concentrate fully on, for example, listening to a zoom training while you’re writing a business blog post. You could concentrate on the training while you’re ironing. But not something that requires you to concentrate.

Without a doubt, blocking time out in your schedule to write is the best way of creating a regular habit. Whether that’s first thing in the morning, just after lunch, or early evening. Schedule it in, stick to it and write. Don’t let yourself be distracted by anything else. Switch your phone to silent and ignore it. It might help you be able to do this if you have an alert on your phone if school or a loved one contacts you, you can still hear it.

Of course, life rarely goes to plan and there will be times when you simply can’t allocate the time. But if you’ve created a habit, it’s easier to get back to it the next day. Get into the habit of doing three lots of 20 minutes a week, and you’ll be well on the way to being able to create a blog post a fortnight. To start with, don’t aim to write a post. Just write about whatever comes into your head. But once you’ve started to create a writing habit, be more intentional about what you’re writing about.

Prepare on the go

Of course, it’s not just the writing that takes the time. Coming up with content ideas, sourcing images, thinking of a headline, and editing all take time too. But there are ways to make those things easier.

Instead of just scrolling on your phone in an evening, spend 20 minutes looking at a website like Unsplash and save images in a folder that you can use for blog posts. Or go through your own pictures and do the same. Then, when you’re editing a blog, you’ll be able to find images that fit with the post quickly and easily.

While you’re travelling, particularly if someone else is driving or you’re on public transport, think about content ideas and headlines. Record them as voice notes, in a notebook, or wherever is easiest when you’re on the go. Once you’ve got a topic, think about the keywords you could use and note those down too.

Reuse content to help you write your business blog

If you plan your social media posts, use the same content theme for your blog posts. For example, if you’re a proofreader, you might be giving tips about how to proofread a document over several posts on social media. Each post might cover one part of the process.

On their own, these posts wouldn’t give you enough content for a blog post. But if you add them together, they would. Save the posts somewhere electronically like Trello. Or even just a word document. Then the post is pretty much written for you as you can just copy and paste it into the blog page on your website. You’ll just need to add keywords, a strong headline, headings, and images and then edit it to make sure it reads well and is easy to read.

Make things as easy as possible for yourself by looking at pockets of time you have in your day that could be used to prepare for writing a blog post. You’ll be amazed at how much time you can find without really noticing it.

That doesn’t mean you can never spend an evening scrolling, or just let your mind wander to whatever it wants while you’re on the bus. Just be smarter about it. 20 minutes for enjoyment, then 20 minutes for your business saving images or jotting down content ideas.

How I can help business owners write better blog posts

Once you’ve created a writing habit, you need to make sure it works hard for your business. Blog posts need to well written, contain the words people are searching for, are easy to read and have a strong headline. Without those things, they won’t bring traffic to your website.

That’s where I come in. I can help you learn to create brilliant blogs yourself with my newsletter, downloads, editing service and masterclass. Or, if you want to outsource your blog writing, I have a range of packages that give you regular content without having to find the time to write it.