Using folders for fresh, frequent blog content.
By admin | January 30, 2011
Everyone who is successful in blogging says that you need lots of fresh, frequent content. If you are getting started or feel stuck in your writing, this can be a big challenge. You can probably write 20 or so blog posts that represent everything you thought you knew about a specialized subject, but then what? After you have exhausted your initial brain dump you may be completely stumped about what to write next.
One way to help keep a steady stream of content is to make sure you are doing daily research on your topic. The quality of your research will make a remarkable difference in the final product. Writing follows naturally after research is distilled and organized.
You can structure your research and writing by doing it off-line. Yes. Off-line. The best writing is done in a word processor, not in a content management system’s web interface. If you write in a word processor, you will spend more time writing well. If you write directly into your blog, you are likely to rush the process and have content with misspellings and grammar errors that distract and turn away your readers.
Using folders in your computer can go a long way to help you follow a good writing process. Somewhere in your documents, create a folder for all of your blog content. Within this folder, create four folders. I numbered mine to keep them in the order of my writing process:
- research
- drafts
- ready
- published
I frequently fill my “research” folder with relevant PDF files, text documents, lists of ideas, and links to interesting web sites. When I am ready to turn my research into writing, I create a new document for the article in my “drafts” folder. This is where I apply my research by writing articles that have value to my readers. After writing, and editing, and editing, and editing my article, I move it to the “ready” folder. Next, I copy and paste the article into WordPress, and finally I move the document to the “published” folder.
If you are trying to create a lot of fresh, frequent content for your blog, give folders a try for a couple of weeks, and let me know what you think.