How to create a writing routine for online business content
The art of writing, some say challenging, others say fun and exciting. Whatever way you look at it, writing is critical when it comes to working as an online business. Whether you outsource your content writing, or you do it yourself, understanding how to write with flow and how to write for your online channels will help you go a long way in the content marketing world.
From a writing routine to the structure of a blog or social media post, knowing the ins and outs will give you the knowledge you need to create consistent content online for your aligned audience.
So here I want to share with you a few things:
Writing for social media
Writing for a blog
Writing for clients (for the freelance writer)
Finding confidence to write
Tools and techniques for writing
My writing routine (for those interested)
But before we get stuck into it, I want you to make sure you have a few things in place that are critical for your writing and content creating.
You want to make sure you have a plan and action on what you will be discussing in your content! With that plan, you will have an objective with your content! This will ensure you have an end goal and purpose around what you create!
When you are producing content, you also want to ensure the topics you are writing about are aligned to what your target audience wants! This is where market research is SO important.
Listen below!
How to write for social media
Writing captions for social media doesn't have to take you 1000 years, but they also need to have depth so you can attract an aligned audience. You don’t just want to be producing fluff for the sake of creating content.
When you start to produce a caption, ask yourself the question… “what is the objective?” The objective can be as simple as brand awareness or building connection. But always ask yourself that!
If you are using themes, your captions can reflect your weekly theme as well! So, if you are creating one social media caption, look at where you are repurposing the message.
When it comes to writing your caption for social media, write for two types of audiences. Of course, you have the people who will read the whole caption, but then you have the ones who skim read!
Having an engaging hook will lead people into your content, and the bottom section of your caption will give them the call to action. In your posts, you want people to think and feel, but you also want them to do! Make sure you have an action, even if it is asking for thoughts and opinions.
So, if you were sectioning out a social media post, look at it like this:
HOOK (engaging, mention the audience with “you or your”) - think
CONTEXT (tell a story here, explain your hook) - feel
CALL TO ACTION (give the action) - do
Once you have your caption written, you want to do the cosmetic stuff. Add your emojis (these are important to give more emotion, fun AND to break up the text. Then you also want to make sure there is white space (on IG this is harder than the rest), so you can use an app called Space, which will work to space out your content!
This is an easy step to writing out a social media caption. My one word of advice is, have a theme for the week, have a certain type of post you do each day (form of quote one day, tips the next), so it will:
Keep you consistent
Stop you from feeling stressed because you have nothing to write about
Once you put the systems in place, you will find writing is a LOT easier to do! Then you can look at batching your captions, this is where you choose a day to write out your content, then it is done for the week!
Tip: if you are writing for IG, also batch your 30 hashtags! I use this amazing website to generate mine!
How to write for blogs
Now writing blogs, the process is a lot similar to social posts, BUT also different! When writing a blog, research is always key (just to add more credibility to your content). Although you can add research into your social media posts (for stats or the like), but in blogs, you might want to add other pieces of content into your articles.
If you want to know how best to research for your content, send me a message, OR you can learn more in my eBook around content writing (there is a whole piece on research).
So again, with your blog, you want to have the objective AND look at where you can repurpose. Can your blog be turned into a few social media captions? Yes, work smarter, not harder!
In your blog, you also want to have a call to action at the end AND provide actionable steps for your audience. As you can see, my actionable steps in this blog are around the structure of your pieces of content! If you action these, you will find it a lot easier to write content.
Alright, let’s go through the routine of writing a blog shall we:
Set your objective for the blog, for this one mine are to educate you on writing AND to tell you about my eBook
Research your keywords, headlines content etc. (Ubersuggest and Answer the Public are great for this)
Set out your subheadings (can you see I have 7?)
Once you have the subheadings, you can choose which ones you write to first
Bundle it up with a good intro and conclusion
First draft written, if you have time, leave it
Proofread (I have some GREAT techniques coming up)
Add bold text, space, images and dot points to make it look easy to read)
When writing a blog, you want to aim for 500-1000 words for SEO purposes, but of course, you want the content to be valuable!
How to write for clients - FOR THE FREELANCE WRITER
Now, writing content for a client is very similar to the above for social media or a blog. What you want to always make sure is:
You know what their objective is for the content
You know the tone they want it written in
You are both on the same page
You price accordingly to the amount of time you will spend
You have a great attention to detail
You have a research plan (again my eBook will help with this)
The difference when writing for a client is, you will have a deadline you have to write to, and your proofreading WILL be critical. When you are writing for a client, remember that your writing style will always reflect! Yes, you can change and alter your tone, but your writing style is your style.
How to build confidence
Confidence is a HUGE one! I have a whole podcast episode on that (and blog), which you can see here. But some of the things you need to remember is, confidence comes with practice! If you want to become a confident writer, give yourself a challenge to write every day for 30 days!
When I wanted to become better at writing, I did this, I wrote a lot, but you can start small! In the eBook, there is also a great challenge in there for you!
If English isn’t your first language, that is okay! I have a client who writes all her content and English isn't her first language, but she told her audience this, and really, I love reading her content! Her English is great and the confidence she has in her message outweighs any little grammatical errors she might have!
Be open and honest with your audience and just deliver the value!! You can’t not write to create an online business, but you can pick your strengths and work on that! But if you do need some help with English, my best friend can definitely help out with this! Check her out here!
If confidence is holding you back, either let’s chat OR use some of these techniques to start having a structure around your writing. When you have a plan and a strategy, you will have more faith in your content, which we know brings on more confidence!
Tools and techniques to get you writing
Let me share a few techniques and tools you can use to get you writing more consistently.
Getting started:
Do the 20-minute timer challenge. Set yourself a timer for 20 minutes and give yourself that 20 minutes to get started. Once the timer is up, you can have a 10-minute break!
Getting confident:
Do a 30-day writing challenge, write every day for 30 days (just 200 words) and get some content on the page
Download my content template or brand voice guide and get some plans in place
Attention to detail:
Once you have written some content, do this:
Leave it for a few hours or days (depending on how much time you have)
Put the content into Grammarly (it is free and amazing)
Get Siri or your voice command to read the content back to you
Now, how good is that?! These will get you writing better content, you know how I know? Because I DO THESE ALL!!
My routine
Okay, do you know what I do for each? Well, pretty much everything I have discussed. But let me break it down for you!
Social media:
Now I already have a content strategy so I no longer have to stress about what I will talk about.
But here it goes, on a Monday I:
Set the objective
Based off my topic go in and create all my captions from Monday to Sunday (with the hook, context and CTA)
Add the hashtags
On the day of posting:
Have time reminders when to post
Plug the caption into space and add the emojis
POST!
Easy!
Blog
Again, the topic already established
But on a Monday, I:
Set the objective
Research my headline, keywords
Do any other research needed
Set my subheadings
Write my content with actionable steps
DONE
Day of posting:
Use my “attention to detail” techniques above
Add images and all the creatives to the article when loading onto my site
EASY, DONE!
Client work
When I get a piece of client work, I will:
Ask any questions I need to get started (objective, tone etc.)
Research the topic
Sit on the idea
Start the above routine for blog writing
Leave it
Proofread and edit
SEND TO CLIENT
During this time, I will have conversations with my clients to keep them updated and ask any other questions I might have!
Final thoughts
Writing content… it doesn’t need to be hard. It doesn’t need to be daunting. It just takes the following:
A strategy/plan
Practice
Implementation
You now have the tools and formulas to get started! If you are wanting to write for your business more, you do need to implement a strategy, so you have intention with your content.
So, my message to you is:
Use the formulas above
Get a strategy in place (my plan will help)
Get to know your writing style (this guide will also help)
But of course, I am here to continue to help you! That is why I have the eBook for those looking to write for their business more! It is just a small taste of writing for your business, but it is a great tool to get started!
Of course, if you need any other help, you can message me on Instagram OR check out some coaching packages I have that may help you!
My objective is to get you writing for your business and creating the content you feel good about, so never hesitate to reach out!
