I know your type…
You’re just like me. You want fast ways to create blog content—and you don’t have all day to do it.
You’re busy!
But even though you have limited time, you still want to create great content for 3 big reasons…
- Keep your email list happy and warm (nothing keeps a list warm like good content)
- Make offers from within the content (Native advertising style)
- Retarget visitors to your content with relevant offers (More on this here)
Well, I won’t waste any more of your time with this introduction—I know you’re in a hurry. 😄
Here’s 5 fast ways to create blog content your audience will love…
1. The Embed Reactor
This post is dead simple, but the content is fantastic.
Go to YouTube, Facebook, or any other social site and search for a high-quality video from an authority in your niche.
Then, embed it on your blog.
Below the video—write an analysis or a reaction to the video.
HubSpot used that strategy for this post…
Read the entire post here.
After a brief introduction, the post just shows clips from YouTube video ads and then follows them up with a short analysis of why each one is effective.
The cool thing about this strategy is that it gives you something to write about. And as long as you add something meaningful to the content in the video, the video can actually make up the bulk of your post!
And that makes this an extremely fast way to create new blog content.
2. The Content Aggregator
The Content Aggregator is so darn simple because you aren’t creating any of the content.
You’re simply aggregating great content from around the web.
This post works great when creating a list post, like this one from Unbounce:
The post shows snippets from well-designed landing pages, followed by a little bit of text explaining what makes each page effective.
See the entire post here.
This is another strategy that allows you to leverage someone else’s content, making it a fast way to create a blog post. Unbounce didn’t create any of these landing pages—they just found 20 great examples, aggregated them, analyzed them, and linked to the original sources.
That last point (linking to the original source) is a biggie. Make sure you are giving credit where it is due—link back to the source.
(BTW, did you notice that this post you’re reading right now is sort of an aggregator post? Obviously, there is original content, but many of the examples we’re referring to are blog posts created by other people.)
3. The Interview Post
This post type needs little explanation, except to say that you would be shocked at the level of expert that will agree to do an interview with you.
Ask an A-list expert to write you an article and they’ll laugh in your face.
But ask them for an interview, and you might be surprised by the answer.
There’s a big difference between asking an expert to write you something and asking them for an interview—it’s an ego thing.
Here’s an interview post we did with Dennis Yu, CTO of BlitzMetrics and an expert on Facebook marketing:
In this particular case, the interview was conducted via video and then transcribed for the blog post.
But you can also conduct an interview post by simply emailing the questions to your guest. They’ll reply back with their answers, which you can use to craft your article.
PRO TIP: The easiest way to get a busy expert to agree to an interview is via recorded audio over the telephone. They don’t have to write anything. They don’t need a webcam. They don’t even need to comb their hair. You can then take that audio and have it transcribed or converted into a text interview… or you can simply put it on your blog in audio format.
4. The Quote Post
I love the quote post because, once again, it leverages the authority of outside experts while creating outstanding content for your audience.
Pick a topic and find relevant quotes from authorities and arrange them together.
As a bonus, you could write a reaction or analysis of that quote—but it’s not necessary.
Here’s an example of a post made from blogging quotes…
Read the full post here.
Also, notice how each quote is both written out and portrayed in an image. This helps beef up the post and make it look a little more substantial.
The Quote Post can work great as an infographic as well.
Here’s an example of an infographic post made from 10 inspirational writing quotes:
See the full post here.
Organizing your post as an infographic takes a little extra time, but infographics tend to get a lot of social shares and can bring even more traffic to your site.
(Make sure to include your brand name and URL on the infographic itself. That way, if anyone embeds the image on their own site, visitors will still be able to find you.)
5. The Crowdsourced Post
This is one of my favorite ways to create fantastic blog content quickly.
The idea here is to tap into a network of experts or colleagues that can give you their response to a single question. Then, pull the answers together into a single article.
Here’s how to get it done…
Create a quick email that looks something like this and send it to between 5–20 experts or colleagues:
“Dear Russ,
I’ve always been a big fan of yours and I’d like to get my audience access to your way of thinking.
I promise it won’t take more than 10 minutes of your time.
I’m creating an article for my personal finance blog about getting through college without racking up a huge amount of debt and I’d love to get your take.
Could you answer the following question in 3–5 sentences?
‘What is the #1 mistake a college goer makes that lands them in crippling debt after graduation, and how could they avoid it?’
I’ve already got an answer from [RECOGNIZABLE EXPERT or COLLEAGUE] and I’d love to incorporate your answer into this article as well.
I would be truly honored if you would participate.
~ Your name”
There’re a few things I want to point out about this email script.
- Feel free to tweak the copy to fit your circumstances and the relationship you have with this expert or colleague
- Send this email personally
- If you don’t know them well, be sure to flatter them in the beginning and let them know they’ll be getting access to your audience
- Ask them 1 question about which you know they’ll have an opinion
- If you’ve got other experts or colleagues on board (particularly recognizable ones) be sure to mention that in the email. No one likes to be the first one on the dance floor. 🙂
- When you get a reply that indicates interest, thank them and give them a deadline that is 3 to 5 days in the future. Follow up with them the day before and the day of the deadline.
Then, repeat. Send this email to as many experts as you like—I recommend 5–20.
Lastly, pull the answers from these experts into a single post.
At the end of last year, we got 17 digital marketing experts to give us their predictions on how digital marketing was going to change in the coming year. Then we turned that into a big Crowdsourced Post:
Read the full post here.
The beautiful thing about the Crowdsourced post is the amount of social sharing you’ll get from these experts. If you notify them when the article goes live via Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc…. they will share it.
(RELATED: 14 Digital Marketing Experts Share Their Marketing Home Run of 2018)
If you do it right, you’ll have an outstanding article full of expert opinions that you can put together by sending a few emails.
I love all 5 of these post types because they are a win/win/win…
- You win because you didn’t have to spend hours creating a blog post that will keep your list warm, lead readers to an offer, and build your retargeting audiences.
- Your audience wins because they get a great piece of content
- The expert wins because you embedded their YouTube video, linked to them, interviewed them, or quoted them.
Go forth busy entrepreneur and put these blog post ideas to work for you.
The only thing left to figure out is how you’ll spend all that extra time.
