A lot of bloggers make what I believe are unrealistic claims about how fast they can write a post.
I see lots of people bandying about writing times of 20-30 minutes for a post. I’m a professional writer, and I seldom manage that speed of output.
Many people I talk to aren’t writers. If you’re in this category, don’t beat yourself up if you can’t rattle off an article in a few minutes. As I said before, that sort of time’s unrealistic even for me.
Why am I so slow?
I think simply because I don’t just rattle off blog filler. For some, their schedule has to be met by publishing something. Or was that anything?
I’m realistic that I need to go through a number of stages to produce and publish a blog post that’s worth you spending time reading. With Writing For SEO, they look like this:
- Think of a topic or consult my ideas folder
- Research it
- Look for key phrases that fit the topic
- Outline the article
- Write the first draft
- Put it aside
- Edit/redraft/polish
- Find an image for the post
- Write a link to the image owner
- Publish
Your process may be shorter, or less disciplined, but if you’re lucky you may be able to write a first draft in half an hour. The rest? I don’t think so.
Go for quality, rather than speed
If your blog or website is going to be successful, you need quality content – a good read, good at converting to sales, good at engaging search engines – and producing that quality copy must be your priority. Producing reams of drivel is a waste of your life, no matter how quickly you produce it!
Don’t just crash out stuff and publish it in record time. Do it properly. Even if it does take longer than some gurus claim.
Thanks to David Herrera for permission to use his image.
@writingforseo And I thank you for interesting post, David! Have a great weekend!
— Marcin Żółtowski (@MJZoltowski) March 8, 2013
@writingforseo great article. Amazes me that anybody could turn around quality content in 30 min – research is key!
— Digital Directions (@d_d_marketing) June 21, 2013