I was chatting with a friend last week, who said he was getting back to blogging: it was making money for him. Although he hadn’t updated his blog in seven months, his ClickBank checks were increasing steadily each month. It was nice “free” income, and made him wonder what he could earn if he made a few posts each week and focused on affiliate blogging.
Here’s the process I recommended to him to create fast, painless blog posts:
1. Make a list of broad topics you’ve covered in your blog. For example, if you’re blogging about dogs, perhaps you’ve covered house and obedience training, dog food, and taking your dog on vacation.
The list doesn’t have to be extensive. It’s just a memory jogger. I keep a list in an MS Word file that I sync with my Palm PDA, so I can review it when I’m out shopping, or at the library – I tend to get ideas when I’m not at my desk.
Ask yourself Who, What, How, When, Where and Why about each topic you’ve covered – this often leads to a stream of inspiration. Jot down any ideas you get, right in the MS Word file.
If you’re affiliate blogging, visit your vendors at least once a month, to check out new products and offers they’re making. These new offerings make great blog posts.
2. Aim to collect five ideas for blog posts each week. You’ll often collect more than five, of course. Look on these ideas as your Blog Idea Bank.
3. Carve out a slice of time on the weekend to work on your blog – at least an hour or two. Create five draft posts (load them into your blog, but don’t publish them) – more if you’re on a roll.
This gives you five posts which are just about ready to go. Polish a post each day, and then publish it. The polish/ publish shouldn’t take you longer than five minutes. Hey presto – you’ve got a blog post a day.
4. If you visit forums regularly, collect the replies you make to forum posts. Often a reply you’ve made to a question in a forum makes a great blog post, with just a little tweaking.
I know many people who spend an hour or more on forums every week, and keep no record of posts they’ve made to forums, or replies they’ve made to forum posts. This is a waste. (I used to do this too, now I make a copy of everything.)
5. Watch your blog’s comments. Respond to people leaving comments on your blog, and if someone leaves a comment to which you write a long response, post it on your blog.
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