Do you feel like writing blog posts is taking too much time?
If you want to start a successful blog and make money blogging, you need to learn how to write blog posts faster and increase your productivity.
The faster you write, the more content you can create and the more money you can potentially make. But is there an easy way to increase writing speed?
Some people can write up to 10,000 words per day, or even more, without spending every second of their time doing it.
And even though that’s an ambitious goal to strive for, it’s 100% realistic to achieve step-by-step.
Would you like to learn how?
That’s exactly what you’re going to learn about in this article. When you’ve started your blog and gathered a list of blog post topics to write about, you want to make sure you’re not wasting your time on writing.
Instead, you want to use your time wisely and promote your content to make money from blogging, right?
Therefore, in this article I’ll share with you my favorite tips on how to write blog posts faster so that you can dedicate more time to tasks that grow your blog.
You’ll learn how to improve writing speed and reduce the stress and frustration that often comes along with the writing process.
Keep reading!
Here are a few related articles you might want to read, too:
- How to Write a Great Blog Post (Every Time): The Ultimate Guide
- 4 Profitable Blogging Investments for Making Money Online
How to write blog posts faster: 6 speedy writing tips
Tip 1: Do your research
The first step to writing quickly is to gather as much of your research as possible before you start writing.
Even if you’re writing fiction, you may need some research before you begin. But regardless of your blog niche, your posts should be as accurate as possible, so research is critical.
Doing your research well is the easiest way to make sure your readers will engage with your blog posts and share them with others.
Your goal should be to offer your visitors the best, highest-value content they can find in your niche, every time.
Make sure you check out my step-by-step guide on how to find your blog target audience right now.
To get started with your research, here are a few helpful places to consider:
- Search engine queries and results
- Discussion forums and online communities
- Books, magazines, newspapers, etc.
- Notes you’ve taken and bookmarks you’ve created
- Blog comments and readers’ questions within your blog niche
In fact, research could be nearly anything as long as they pertain in some way to what you’re writing.
Just be sure you keep your research organized, as it can be distracting and unproductive to have to keep looking for the information you need while trying to write.
To see better results fast, check out these productivity tools I use for blogging.
You may still need to do some research during your project, but pulling together most of what you need before you start will help eliminate a lot of distractions that can take you away from actual writing.
Try to anticipate the information you’ll need before you start, and hopefully you’ll only have a minimal amount of research to do midstream.
Tip 2: Create an outline
Once you’ve found the perfect blog post topic and have all your research gathered, you can start outlining your work. This will help you remember all of the key points you wish to make.
An outline doesn’t have to be extremely detailed. Some people work better with simpler outlines, while some prefer more complex versions.
Find what works for you.
Start with a simple outline first, and if you find yourself constantly facing writer’s block, you may want to move on to a move complex outline.
Your outline will probably be much more detailed for in-depth work like long-form articles. They require you to gather that much more information to back up your main points.
You don’t even have to put it in a standard outline form. The traditional outline has tiered bullet point or numbered lists, but that isn’t necessary unless you happen to prefer that type. Instead, it can simply be a list of points you wish to make in the order you believe makes the most sense.
Related: 10 Instant Tips for Writing Better Blog Posts
Example blog post structure:
Remember to keep things simple here. There’s no need to overcomplicate your blog post structure and outline.
For example, you could use this as a rough guideline:
- Use a benefit-driven title – Promise a practical benefit to your readers from visiting your article (and make sure you deliver!).
- Write an engaging introduction – Address an issue your article will solve, highlight the benefits again.
- Discuss your main points in a logical order – Start with a strong opening about why this point is important, then show your promise by painting a pretty picture, include a data point, provide a practical example, and finally give an actionable to-do to your readers.
- List your top tips – Summarize the actionable steps you discussed to give your readers a good overview of what they should do next.
- Close with a solid conclusion – Include a direct “link” to your introduction, emphasize your main message and benefit again, and give your readers a final tip for acting on your solutions and promises.
You can always edit your outline later, but even a rough blog post structure will help you write blog posts faster every time. It’s important to write down all of the most important elements of your work before you begin so you aren’t as likely to experience writer’s block.
After all, writer’s block is one of the worst blogging motivation killers and an outline can significantly reduce it. And yes, we’ll look at how to overcome writer’s block in a minute…
Recommended: 4 Powerful Blogging Strategy Tips for Beginners
Tip 3: Improve your typing speed
It may seem like a no-brainer, but a lot of people never even try to work on improving their typing speed, and that’s a real shame.
How would you like to potentially double your writing speed? Yep, that’s possible if you learn to type fast.
So, how to type faster, then?
There are a lot of programs you can use to assess your typing speed and improve it. Any program will work fine as long as it also takes accuracy into account. You need to learn to type with both speed and accuracy, as typos can really slow you down.
It’s actually recommended that you write without editing and go back and do your editing later. Editing midstream can actually cause writer’s block in some people, but if you are a persistent midstream editor, learning to type with both speed and accuracy can reduce the number of times typos distract you.
Recommended: How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed With Blogging
Do this: Practice often
Even if you think your typing speed is up to snuff, it can probably still be improved. Even if you have a brain that works quickly and the ideas flow rapidly, it won’t do you any good if your fingers can’t keep up to get those words down on the page!
Keep practicing your typing and measure and track your results. The more you improve your typing speed and accuracy, the faster you’ll write. And that means you’ll have more time to spend on planning and marketing your content.
Tip 4: Try dictation
Oh yes, dictation! For some reason, I always think of James Bond and Ms. Moneypenny when this writing tip comes up.
And it’s a powerful tool, believe me! Dictating is an amazing way to boost your writing speed.
Why you should try dictating:
In short: most people speak faster than they type, simple as that.
It’s more natural for many users to speak what they want to write instead of having to type if. Some people double their words per hour, or even more, once getting the software trained to properly understand their voice.
Another valuable benefit of dictating is that your tone will be more natural. One of the fundamentals of succeeding as a blogger is to write as you speak. It gives your blog posts a natural, flowy structure.
Also, “spoken” text is much easier to read and follow. It’s like having a conversation with a buddy! You can connect with your readers on a more personal level by letting your personality shine through your articles.
What to keep in mind when dictating:
Keep in mind that text written with dictation software will often need heavy editing to fix any mistakes the software makes and improve the punctuation and grammar, but editing is generally easier than the initial writing.
A few people find they do better when typing because they feel self- conscious speaking aloud even if they are alone. You might be one of those people, and if you are, don’t worry about it. You can either keep trying—training yourself to work well with dictation software—or just keep typing.
Remember, though, you’ll never be able to type as quickly as you speak, so learning to use dictation software is the best way to dramatically increase your writing speed.
Tip 5: Eliminate all distractions
Distractions are an enormous problem for any blogger or writer, and sometimes we don’t even notice they’re there. Thus, if you want to write blog posts faster, it’s time to do a little check-up and see what’s happening in your surroundings while you write.
Depending on where you like to do your writing, distractions can come from many different sources:
- Family, children, and pets
- Facebook, Instagram, and what not…
- Netflix, news, and radio
- Cell phone, cell phone, cell phone!
- (Loud neighbors?)
The list of potential distractions just goes on and on. All of them are pure poison for your writing process. They slow you down, undermine your focus, and cause frustration when you’d just like to write blog posts faster.
Related: How to Stay Motivated When You Start Blogging
Here’s what you should do:
The key is to train yourself to eliminate these distractions so you can concentrate on your writing without letting anything take your attention away from it.
One important thing to keep in mind: you don’t have to write constantly all day long.
Instead, it’s a better idea to break up your writing into smaller chunks during the day. Whenever you can eliminate most distractions, you can improve your writing speed the most.
In-home distractions:
If you live with other people or even animals, those around you can definitely hinder your progress. You’ll even have to deal with phone calls, random visits, and other distractions.
The first thing you should do is make sure you have a quiet place you can go hide when you want to write. This may not always be possible if you live somewhere without any privacy, such as a one-room apartment with multiple people, but if at all possible, find that private place to write, even if it’s a closet or bathroom!
It’s also important to sit down with the people around you and let them know how important it is that you aren’t disturbed while you’re writing.
Bring up the fact that they wouldn’t interrupt you at a traditional job to ask where their jacket is or point out something on television, and that they can’t do it to you while you’re working at home, either.
Helpful software:
There are a number of different programs you can use for eliminating distractions during your writing process. Use them to disable all other features on your laptop apart from writing for a certain period of time.
Of course, it will still take discipline to avoid being distracted by your phone, the television, the refrigerator, etc. But these programs will help with that by giving you set time limits for writing.
And hey, if you get in the right mood, you can always keep writing after the timer expires!
Tip 6: Overcome writer’s block
What should you do when you experience the dreaded writer’s block?
When you’re thinking about how to overcome writer’s block, the solution depends on your personality. Some people prefer to just step away from the work for a while, while others find it useful to do some free writing as a way to recapture their mojo.
Whenever I feel a block, I find it helpful to head out for a moment. I leave my cell phone inside and take a short walk – even when it’s freezing cold or raining! A quick walk around the block is perfect to clear my head and to get some fresh ideas.
However, if you find yourself forgetting where you were when you step away from your work for a while, and it takes you a while to get back into the groove, then taking a break is probably not right for you. Instead, you might want to do what is known as free writing.
Try free writing:
Free writing basically means you write about anything you feel like writing.
You don’t need to write on the same subject you’re currently working on. The best way to find out what works for you is to try a couple of different approaches.
First, see how you feel about free writing about the same topic. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, or even about making any sense. You just write whatever comes to mind, and keep writing without stopping for 5 to 15 minutes or more.
Free writing can help you break through a writer’s block by freeing your mind from whatever is blocking it. This could mean writing in a separate document on the same subject you’re trying to complete, or it could be some entirely different subject—whatever works for you.
Here’s a quick example of a short free writing session just to let you see how completely nonsensical and useless it may appear to be:
I feel like writer’s block is keeping me from writing anything meaningful so I’ll just write about whatever comes to mind… The first thing I think of is a sunny summer day out in the park and the sun feels nice and warm. I’ll just write about this summer day for as long as I can and even if I feel blocked I’ll just keep typing random words on the page until my 15-minute session is over. I feel like we should just lay here for a while, perhaps I’ll get my notebook out and start drawing a picture of the trees swaying in the warm wind…
The point is not to write something useable, but to kickstart your brain and get the ideas flowing again. So you truly can write about anything as long as you keep those words flowing.
Switch subjects:
Sometimes you can clear writer’s block simply by switching to another topic for a while before going back to the original one. This could mean writing a different fiction story, choosing a different subject to write about, or even just researching your next project for a while.
Often, writer’s block happens because of a small creative burnout. Needless to say, you should make sure writing and blogging is something fun and enjoyable. Even though you should think of your blog as a business, remember to focus on being passionate about your topic.
Thus, if your mind burns out on a particular subject, sometimes taking a step away to write something else will help clear the block so that when you return to your original work.
This may not work for those who tend to quickly forget what they were working on before, but I usually find this method really helpful.
Final thoughts: How to write blog posts faster
Coming up with new topics and writing great posts for your blog is never a simple task. It takes a lot of planning, hard work, and heaps of time.
Fortunately, you can significantly reduce the time (and potential frustration) by following the tips we covered in this guide.
Summing it all up, here are the main points you should keep in mind to write blog posts faster:
- Gather your research before you begin writing
- Create an outline to help you stay on track
- Work on increasing your typing speed and accuracy
- Use dictation software to write quicker
- Eliminate as many distractions as possible
If you use these techniques and consistently practice you will be able to write blog posts faster and faster until you reach a point where you’re more productive than you ever thought possible.
Needless to say, you’ll save a ton of time that you can use for other tasks like marketing your blog or monetizing it. Seeing your productivity improve will help you stay motivated and focused on achieving your blogging goals faster.
Here are a few related posts you might want to read, too: