The struggles of blog writing and how to overcome them…

Having a blog for your business is absolutely essential. It lets your clients know you’re still active, and can increase visibility and organic traffic to your website! Check out my piece on the importance of a business blog here. It’s important to be uploading consistently, and whilst blog writing is enjoyable, there are some things that can get in the way when trying to write content, and keep up with your posting schedule.

Let’s take a look at some of the struggles of blog writing…

1. Thinking of content

Obviously, you can’t write a blog without content. But sometimes one of the hardest things to actually do is to think of the content. Especially when you’re trying to upload content consistently. I try to upload three blogs per week, on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. However, as I say, it can definitely be tricky trying to come up with enough new ideas to upload three blogs every week.

So, when I have a brain storm, I write down absolutely everything I can think of, and try and find some ideas. I make notes on each topic I come up with so when the time comes I’m as ready as possible to start writing and get the blog scheduled. You’ve got to consider quality as well, so if I end up finishing a blog and then deciding it’s not up to the same standards of the others, it takes even more time to read through and see what I can do to improve it. Sometimes it’s better to just forget about it and move on, then come back to it in a few days.

I find it helps to also look at other blogs related to your industry, and draw inspiration from them.

2. Writers block

I’m sure everyone struggles with this from time to time. Writers block is the devil of writing. It comes at any random point and can completely stop you in your tracks! For me, writers block just takes away my ability to think of something to write. It often happens half way through writing. It’ll come out of nowhere, and I stare at my screen thinking, how can I not finish this paragraph, or even this sentence? It’s a complete wordblock, and is so frustrating. I’m sure lots of you writers out there can resonate with this.

I find the best thing to do is to simply take five or ten minutes away from the screen. Get some fresh air, or just chill out for a moment and get your thoughts together. It can be quite stressful, especially if you’ve got deadlines or it’s a busy day. But like I say, take a few minutes away and just recharge for a moment. If you find that doesn’t work, try working on something else like a different blog topic! Make sure you save what you’ve got, so you can come back to it later.

Sometimes I even find myself having to forget about it and just come back to it the next day!

3. Being original

This is likely one of the hardest struggles of blog writing. If thinking of ideas in general wasn’t hard enough, what’s even harder is coming up with something original. Whatever industry you’re in, original content is hard to come up with. Most things have probably already been done. It’s not impossible, but it’s likely the ideas you have may have been written about in multiple places already.

It’s inevitable, but the thing you have to make original is the way you write. Be authentic in your style of writing, your structure, your perspectives, and the way you go about each topic. Everyone’s different, if I gave two people the same topic to write about, they’re likely to come out completely different, since everyone has their own styles and methods of writing. So write how you know, and use what’s unique to you to make that topic original again.

4. Having too many points

This one is the complete opposite. Whilst it’s never really bad to have too many ideas in general, what’s tricky is organising it into one whole blog. Sometimes I find that rather than not being able to think of anything, I find myself with a ton of notes and ideas that are completely unorganised. It can be quite hard and time consuming to organise all of your thoughts into an order where you can start writing about it.

What I do to solve this is, I take the topic that I’m writing about, and I break it down into all of the points that I want to cover, and then into my main subheadings. Next I read through my notes and on Word I organise each bullet point I’ve made under each subheading. This way I can go through heading by heading and fleshing out each bullet point as I move down the page. I find this works well and helps me organise my thoughts and ideas much more efficiently.

5. Staying motivated

Another struggle of mine is keeping myself motivated. Blogging is quite a self-motivational task. It’s all down to you to do the research, make the notes, and actually write the blog. So whilst it may not be tricky at the beginning of the day, it’s difficult to keep motivated if I’m writing three or so blogs per day.  For me it depends on what other work I have to do. For example, I’ve been writing less blogs over the last week or so, as we’ve been preparing for our  ‘No Longer Last in your Business’ 5 Day Live Mini Programme. However, when I’ve got more time, I’ll write more blogs in a day.

When I’m feeling demotivated, i find the best thing to do once again is to just take a quick break. Just a few minutes, have a quick snack or get some fresh air, and just recharge. I also find that sometimes it’s easier to come back to a blog if I focus on something else I have to work on for a little while. I’ll try and throw myself into something else that needs doing, and come back to my blog a little later.

The struggle is real…

Whilst we can’t always avoid the struggles of blog writing, there are ways you can go about trying to overcome them. Hopefully you can resonate with some of these problems, and know that we all have those days. Don’t be too hard on yourself! These struggles will crop up for everyone at some point, and as stressful as it can be, be confident in your abilities and get those pieces out there!