How to Get 80% of the Results with 20% of the Content

By Chris Garrett

When should you write?
How often?
How long should your blog posts be?
Should you have a schedule?

I get asked these questions and similar every week, between emails, Q&A calls/webinars, and clients.

Content is becoming super important. We used to talk about if content was king or not. Now, I see a shift.

The content creator is now king.

Keeping the crown is getting tougher than ever, though.

The problem is, people get caught up in thinking they don’t have time, are not good enough, not creative enough. People who have a lot to share are giving up out of frustration, feeling like they are just not cut out for this whole content business.

And that’s not true in almost all cases.

Business as usual is not helping. The old dogma is causing frustration. There are a few challenges here.

1. First, while there are standard answers that have grown around the blogging world, that doesn’t mean those answers are right for you.
2. Next, it could be that giving yourself a bit of flexibility means you are more likely to succeed, and too rigid an approach causes you to be less productive.
3. Finally, it’s really not about the writing, but about what the writing does that counts.

Let’s start with a discussion of the options …

The benefits of more content, more often
It’s fair to say, if you can, then producing more content has certain advantages.

Each piece of content is potentially another soldier in your promotion army. More content, in general, means more traffic, links, engagement, opt-ins, and so on.

Posting more articles, more often, also sends strong signals to your audience and also search engines that you are still around. When you don’t hear from someone for a while, you forget or wonder if they are still relevant. I know I have had questions about if I am still blogging here or not!

Writing schedule
In some niches the expectation will be that not only do you have something new daily, but maybe multiple times per day. I am thinking niches such as tech and gadgets.

If you write about breaking news then you need to get your content out immediately, because the early bird catches the worm. If, though, you write editorial, how-to, or anything not on a super strict timescale, then take a pause. The second mouse gets the cheese.

So does this mean you should write on a schedule? Perhaps starting with weekly?

Not necessarily, but we will get to that in a moment. There can be a significant audience benefit if they can start to anticipate new content on a regular basis, however.

The benefit of fewer articles
If you have to write less often then you can spend more of your time on those few articles to get them just right.

• You can spend more time researching.
• You can polish and edit more.
• You can source better graphics and links.
• You can repurpose your content into different media.
• You can spend more time promoting your article.

What about content length? If you write less often then you can write longer articles, right?
It’s difficult for me to tell folks to write short articles because I tend to write quite long.

In fact, in this article, I made an effort to write less than I ordinarily do, but it still ended up over 1,000 words.

There is no right or wrong answer about content length. Write as much as it takes, and then stop!

Usually an article will benefit from editing. Trimming down will aid consumption, especially in these distracted times. Attention spans are stretched, but that does not mean you can not write in-depth articles. They just have to capture attention and be worth it.

Which brings us to the main point.

Don’t judge content on length or frequency!
The most important question is not “when” or “how much”, but “what”.

Only write when you have something to share.

If you have to force your writing, because you haven’t written enough, or you have a schedule to keep, then your writing will suffer.
It’s more important that you have impact than a tick in a box.

Agree? If you write for people and not page views or search traffic then you should at least consider it.

So how do you write with impact?
Writing for impact rather than page views
Writing for impact is an art rather than a science, but there are certain things that you need to do:

1. Write with a goal – what is the outcome you intend to create? If your writing does not have a purpose then it is difficult for you to know if you have succeeded or not.
2. Mine the emotion – if you want to get people to think a certain way or do a certain thing then you need to move them. Inspire, motivate, tell emotional stories, reveal your inner truths and vulnerabilities. Share your challenges and struggles.
3. WIIFM – most of human interaction has an element of “What’s In It For Me?”. If the reader doesn’t grasp what’s in it for them right away, well, then you have failed.
4. Consumption – I am not super strict on grammar (as you can probably tell), but I do attempt to edit. Editing for brevity is great, but also edit to make things crystal clear and remove any road-blocks to consumption. If your audience doesn’t consume your message all the way through then they won’t take action on it, and they won’t spread it. Make it skimmable, engaging, and easy to get through.
5. It’s not what you mean, it’s what they understand – Closely related to the last point. I know for a fact there will be people who read this article and will take away a message I never intended. It always happens. Sometimes people take what you say out of context intentionally. Sometimes people hallucinate whole phrases you never wrote. People will second-guess your intentions. You can’t help that, but you can work on your message to get it across as well as you can. It’s your responsibility to communicate with as few chances of distortions as possible.
6. Get agreement – If you want to persuade then you need to be on the page. Get agreement early and often. Build up to your main point with sound arguments. Don’t just bludgeon people with ideas or facts. Can you see where I asked questions in this post?
7. Link back – Linking to your older articles gives them new life and also gives strong hints to search engines. If you do nothing else, make sure you always link back to your older gems from your archives.
8. Link out – Not only will linking out help your audience, but it is great for search engines too. It might get you noticed by other bloggers if you are lucky.
9. Images – You must have noticed with Facebook and Pinterest that people LOVE images. I like to use my own photographs because they add some unique personality to my pages, but you don’t have to be an artist or photographer, as the images on today’s article prove!
10. Call to action – Go back to your goal. Tell people what you want them to do, what’s in it for them, and what to do next. Make it easy to share. Make headlines and URLs work in social media.

Best of both?
Now you know why so many sites like Copyblogger, Social Media Examiner, and so on are multi-author blogs. It’s difficult to sustain quantity, schedule and quality on your own. For the solo operator, you will probably have to make a choice.
What you have to keep in mind if you go the team route is the audience still needs you to captain your ship. Don’t lose your voice by creating a crowd.

Bottom Line
What do you remember from this article? What would you take away?

If I have done my job correctly then you ought to remember that it is the impact you have that counts, not how much you write and not how often.

There is a good reason why my list has continued to grow despite not writing for weeks!

That said, you have to take into account …

• Niche expectations
• The kind of content you are creating
• Your intentions behind the content
• What you are capable of

I write in order to gather a smaller audience of people who grow to want to hear what I have to say, not for page views, ad clicks, or to break news. It’s better for me to write a few more impactful articles than try to write four times a day, even if I had time and energy for that.

You need to look rationally at what you can produce, and what you are likely to be able to produce in future, and keep the quality and impact of your content top of mind, as well as things like traffic and search results. If you can post four top-quality articles per day and keep that consistency, then go for it. I know I tried before and nearly burned out.

Chris Garrett is an online business consultant, teacher, coach, new media industry commentator, writer (some might argue that point), speaker, and all-round web geek. Chris has been involved in several startups and has written for some of the web’s best-loved blogs.