Stan's new website is all up and running. He's really pleased with the look of it and he's already starting to get more orders than with his previous website. He still needs to improve his search engine ranking and he knows he needs to add extra pages and information on a regular basis. Stan's come up with the following schedule.

• Get to work half an hour early on Monday morning
• Spend half an hour to 45 min writing an article
• Publish the article on the website
• Job sorted!

So the first "Article Monday" arrives. Stan is at his desk half an hour early. Time to start writing.

But, "I'd better just check if any orders came in over the weekend". "Better get those processed now".

"There are a few e-mails that came in, better deal with those as well".

"Oh look! A new widget is being launched. I've got to read about that".

"Oh dear! No time left to do any article writing, I'll definitely do it next week".

I Don't like Writing Articles Either

I find writing articles hard. I can easily list you 100 things I'd rather be doing than sitting here writing this. But I've got to do it if I want to provide useful and interesting pages for my website visitors, build my online reputation and boost my search engine rankings. No ifs and buts, it's got to be done.

Top Tips for Writing Articles In 30 Minuites or Less

Lock Yourself Away

• Don't open your e-mail program. I mean don't even look at the e-mail headers.
• Turn off your phone.
• Make sure everyone knows to leave you alone for at least half an hour.

Gather Information As You Go

• Keep a list of article ideas. Whenever you think of one write it down immediately - you will forget it if you don't.
• Make quick notes of interesting information you find. These will provide research for your articles.
• Have lunch at your computer once a week and look at what other people in your marketplace are saying and talking about. Use these ideas to spark your own.

Getting Words on the Page

• Don't sit staring at a blank page. If the words aren't coming for one article title move onto another.
• Don't write too much. Keep to the main topic of the article and aim for between 400 and 500 words. You don't have to include every single idea and piece of information. You can always write a second article if you want to cover those points.
• Use lists. Lists break your article into very manageable chunks, and you don't have to worry about how to blend them all into a single article.
• Use lists. People love lists. They are easy to read and don't have all the waffle people add to make the points join together smoothly.
• Leave it till later. If you simply get stuck don't sit there forcing yourself to keep on writing. You'll end up wasting loads of time. Get on with some other work but make sure you come back to it when you're ready.

Keep Going

You've got to get into the habit of writing an article every week. There really aren't any excuses. For the sake of more business and orders I'm sure any business owner can fit an extra 30 min into their schedule.

Have a Go

I hope these few pointers give you some food for thought. Most websites that fail do so because they never have any useful information added to them. Don't let your website become another block of dead space on the Internet.

If you need any help getting your content together just give me a call and I'll do my best to sort you out.