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This is a guest post from Hendry Lee. Hendry helps bloggers overcome technology challenges in starting and growing their blogs. Get daily tips, techniques and strategies by visiting his blog at blogbuildingu.com.

Articles are the building blocks of every blog and most web sites. In fact, they are one of the most important factors that will make or break your blog. People visit your site for the first time expecting to get good quality information.

If they find your content interesting, they may subscribe to get updates from your blog via RSS feed or email. As a blogger, you need to keep delivering fresh articles and meet the readers’ expectation. Otherwise, they may lose interest and unsubscribe.

The Importance of Content Creation

I always recommend that everyone who wants to start an online business to begin with a blog. That puts content creation at the highest priority. And content is a great business asset that can be leveraged for a wide variety of purposes later.

Just as an example, most bloggers miss the fact that they can re-purpose their content into articles and tap into article marketing to drive qualified traffic to their site.

No matter what you do, content production should account for 40-50 percent of the time you spend to build your online business. Blogging helps you get better in this critical business and marketing activity.

Note: We’ll avoid getting into audio and video content production. That is certainly an option for people who prefer talking rather than writing.

The Challenges

Blogging requires that you update your blog with fresh content regularly. For many people, this can be daunting, especially if they haven’t been writing an article for years.

When I first got started with blogging and article marketing, I couldn’t imagine myself doing this for the long haul. It took a few days to write a 500-word article, not to mention the hours I spent to make the article perfect.

Ideas were also hard to come by. It was so frustrating to stare at a blank screen for 15 minutes.

Even after I was finally able to finish my writing faster, still it was almost impossible to do that regularly because I was struggling all over it.

I am certainly not the only one.

7 Blogging Tips for Faster Content Production

The good news is, you don’t have to be a perfect writer before you can start publishing to your blog. If you can get across your message well to the other party, you have more skills than necessary to blog. Writing conversationally can help convey personality better than if you adopt academic writing style.

With that said, here are a few blog writing tips that I’ve learned over the years:

1. Write a clear and compelling title. Don’t be afraid to make bold statements to grab the reader’s attention and make them read the rest of the blog post. Title is the first and perhaps the only thing the readers will see if you don’t give a reason to your blog visitors why they should stop and read.
2. Make your content valuable and worthwhile. It is worth repeating that people visit your blog the first time to get information. They seldom come with credit card in hand. If they like what you have to offer, still it is content that makes them come back or subscribe to your content feed / e-newsletter.
3. Research your keywords. If you are able to get traffic from organic search just by integrating your primary keyword in the right location and including secondary keywords, synonyms and other thematically related keywords, there is no reason why you should leave the strategy unused.
4. Provide content structure. Subheadings, bulleted and numbered lists, and text formatting are there to help readers to go through your content easily. Most people are scanners. It helps if you make your content easy to scan. With this list, for instance, you don’t need to read the whole thing to understand what’s in it. The bold statements already give you the big picture.
5. Link to internal and external pages. Links are the currency of the Web. Pointing to external resources builds your credibility and positions you as an expert in your topic. With trackbacks and pingbacks, other bloggers will notice those links. Those can often be a start of a profitable relationship.
6. Know your audience. While long articles have higher perceived value, they are not always appropriate. Some people prefer concise and to the point articles. If you can deliver the same message within 3 minutes, don’t waste more of the readers’ time. They will appreciate it.
7. Proofread to ensure professionalism. Spell check your blog post before you hit the publish button. Make your content clean and professional. You will never do business with people who wear dirty jeans and a checked shirt. It gives a bad impression. That doesn’t mean you have to write in perfect grammar. Starting a title with a number is not proper grammar, but it is effective and bloggers use it. What’s not optional is the impression you make with the content.

Last but not all, keep in mind that the readers always tune in the WIIFM frequency (What’s In It For Me). You will build your credibility by providing great information instead of talking about yourself and your business. Broadcast with a signal that matches the receiver helps get the message across effectively.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 8:48 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.