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Streamline Your Blog Posting

How long does it take you to write a blog post? An hour? Does the time depend on miscellaneous distractions at the moment? Developing your own methods to write posts efficiently ultimately help you to write faster. The hardest part of maintaining any blog is posting consistency, so it’s beneficial to learn ways that encourage faster writing no matter the size of the article.

Ways To Get Posts Out Faster

I’ve been blogging for two years, and throughout those two years I’ve practiced different techniques to produce faster posts. Now that I’ve had success with those techniques it’s beneficial to share the information with new bloggers. Here are some of the methods I utilize when writing any article.

Write and Only Write

First things first, relieve yourself of any distractions before sitting down to write a blog post. Turn off the tv, close Facebook, and remove yourself from the latest conversations on Twitter. What should be a one hour writing session could turn into a four hour bout with procrastination. I would also recommend that when you have an idea for a blog post to try to write it as soon as possible. By nature we forget daily and by the time you sit down the idea may not be as clear.

Many bloggers admit to carrying a small notebook around to quickly jot down ideas. Personally, I have a list on my computer of over 100 (growing) blog post ideas at all times. Some ideas may, however, take longer to write about then others, so section off which ideas produce faster or shorter posts.

Outlines and Form

Start off each post with a standard Roman numeral outline. Include brief descriptions of the intro, body, and conclusion for reference. Writing an outline ultimately helps you to understand the direction you want to go with each article. I usually create my outline first, then write each section in under the titles.

The great thing about incorporating a “blog series” into your writing schedule is that readers know what to expect for the general content of those posts. Because of this, keep a form of writing specific to an article series. For instance, if you write a “Weekly Round Up of Articles Around the Web” you can essentially use the same titles or headers. Change out the dates for that week and make the descriptions unique for that content.

Maintaining blog series also allow you to pre-draft posts for when you write them later in the week. In fact, as you finish one weekly round up, start the structure for next week’s article.

Write The Intro Last

Many writers in general find it difficult to start at the beginning. An intro is understandably one of the hardest parts of any article because you want to draw readers in to make sure they continue reading. If an intro is not coming to you as quickly as you’d like, move onto the body of the article and even the conclusion. By the time you’ve finished the bulk of the article you’ll realize what works best for the intro.

You can also take this moment to begin adding tags to your posts. Efficient writing is all about making the most of your time, so when you’re stuck, simply move on to the next task for you can always come back and finish.

Keyboard Shortcuts and Codes By Heart

I can navigate around my entire computer only using my keyboard. This may seem odd, but it’s actually a very beneficial tip when writing posts. Just like when you’re designing in Photoshop, utilizing keyboard shortcuts save the time it takes to move your mouse. Something as simple as highlighting text to copy and paste becomes a pain because of my laptop mouse, so instead I frequent the shortcuts CTRL + C and CTRL + V (copy/paste) for ease.

Memorizing HTML codes also works to streamline blog posting. For instance, when I begin inserting images as a gallery, I copy one code and paste it over and over for the amount of images I want to include. Then all I have to do is go back and change name of the image source and the “alt” tag.

I always edit a post last because I feel each component of blog writing shouldn’t interfere with one another to maintain efficiency. If I edit the code as I write the post, it’ll take longer to finish the article. The same goes if I look for images while writing. Ultimately, the faster you write the post the faster it will get out, so don’t worry about the other details until the end.

Quickly Name Images

By the time I’m ready to insert images into a post, I’m probably most impatient to wanting to see the article go live. So, I always stick to a specific method of naming my images for faster insertion. For each article, the images are named with the date the article will go live, two letters related to the post, and one number for the numerical order of the images.

For instance, if I write about web design inspiration on June 28th 2010, then the images for that post will be named 62810di1.jpg. All images after will continue in numerical order (i.e. 62810di2,di3,etc). For the main header image, I name it differently (62810head.jpg) to distinguish it from the rest.

By maintaining this format I don’t have to spend countless minutes looking for images because of forgetting the different names for each picture.

What Are Your Tips For Faster Posts?

Streamlining your blog posts allows you create faster and more efficient articles for your readers. These have been some of my methods used throughout my two years of blogging, and I would love to hear what yours are. Are there methods different from the ones above that you use?