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The other day someone told me she enjoyed reading my blog posts and asked for tips to make her writing more interesting. Needless to say I was flattered because sometimes I think I’m the only person except for my mom, who reads my posts. Before I replied I had to stop and think about how I actually keep my writing interesting week after week. Coming up with fresh content for your business or personal brand can be tough.

Here are some helpful tips to make the blogging process less stressful and dare I say it, enjoyable.

Use Available Resources

Sometimes I forget just how much information I have at my disposal when it comes to finding inspiration for blog content each week. The Internet is obviously the first place people gravitate to when they need ideas for a blog posts, but don’t forget about the resources you have right in your own office. Use your coworkers to bounce ideas around with. Do you already have an idea for a post, but need some direction? Ask your coworkers or your boss for their thoughts and opinions. They can help you round out your ideas to give your post direction. Your competitors are also a valuable resource to tap into. What are they posting, tweeting and liking on social media? It’s completely acceptable to stalk your competitors online and this post has some great tips. Don’t forget to look at your web analytics either. Your website analytics will show you pages or blog posts your visitors are most interested in. Once you learn what information has piqued their interest you’ll be able to tailor your content to those topics.

Would You Read Your Own Post?

After you have come up with a topic and written your post, give it a once-over before you hit publish. Do you find yourself getting distracted and not reading it all the way through? Are you bored? Do you feel the need to keep reading, or have you had enough after the first paragraph? Don’t look at your post as the author. Look at it from your audience’s perspective. Would you want to read this post? If you wouldn’t even read your own blog post, no one else will. What makes the information worthwhile to readers? What do you offer your readers that’s beneficial or different from other companies? Answering these questions takes your drab blog post and turns it into something of value for your readers.

Scheduling is Key

Starting a blog isn’t the hard part, the real challenge is maintaining it. Sticking to a schedule can be difficult because life gets in the way and it can be easy to push writing blog posts aside. The only problem is, once you stop it’s even harder to start back up again. Create a content calendar and stick to it. Content calendars will help you map out ideas for blog posts for the next month, two months or even the next year. You can always download our Content Calendar to help you get started. Hold yourself accountable to the schedule you set and if possible, work ahead! Got some free time on a Sunday afternoon? Start working ahead and write posts for the next few weeks. You can go back and edit them later, but at least you have done the heavy lifting ahead of time. When your blogging is sporadic, visitors won’t know when to expect new content from you and will lose interest. Sticking to a schedule lets visitors know when they can look forward to reading your next post and continue to visit your site over and over again.

There isn’t a marketing firm on the planet that will tell you you shouldn’t be blogging. At times it will feel like inspiration is in short supply, but you have a lot of useful information at your disposal to keep things interesting. It’s up to you to use it.

Speaking of useful information at your disposal: download our Blogging for Beginners Guide to make the transition into blogging full time an easy and enjoyable one.

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