6 tips for creating consistent content in your online business
If you’ve ever tried to consistently produce content online, you know that getting it out there without fail every week is tough.
There are a few key things which really have helped me stay the course and get now 2 pieces of content a week out to y’all consistently!
So if you’re struggling to be communicating regularly with your people, I’ve got a few really practical suggestions for you today.
Oh, and by the way, these tips don’t just apply to getting blog content out consistently, you can apply these to anything, including social media posts, YouTube videos, podcast episodes, etc.
How to stay consistent with content creation in your online business
Content creation Tip #1:
Pass the repeatable tasks to a team member
When it comes to creating content, there are certain tasks only I can do (ie. showing up as myself in YouTube videos weekly. Pretty hard to outsource that!)
But with every piece of content published on this site, I’m not the only one doing the work. When I first started outsourcing some of my business tasks to a virtual assistant, content was one of the things I could easily be passing on! I would still think up the ideas, write the posts or record the videos, but other than that, it was all handed off to my VA and I couldn’t have been more thankful for that, as it allowed me to focus on other more needle moving activities!
If you find yourself spending forever creating Pinterest graphics, finding related posts to pop into the end of each blog, editing audio or video or uploading and optimizing things correctly, then I have good news, ALL of those things can be handed off to someone else.
Often when we think of handing off tasks to others, the thought immediately pops up “but only I can do X,Y & Z” and not to be rude but … you’re wrong. I heard something on this Clockwork podcast way back that I laughed at and loved.
When people tell Adrienne, the show host, that “no one else on their team can do X” she responds with “oh, did you come out of the womb doing X?”
… Bam.
Nope, no you didn’t.
Whatever you’re doing now, you learned how to do. It just takes time to train someone to do the things you do.
And anything that is repeatable, should be given to someone else to make you as efficient as possible in the long-run.
If you have a process written out for whatever content you’re creating, ask yourself, what is a repeatable task? Thanks to this delegating mindset, most of the BTS steps in my blogging and YouTube processes are not currently done by me! (Just the super necessary bits!)
So if you’re struggling with finding the time to create consistent content, look at where you can get yourself time back by handing off some of the job to someone else. And bonus: because they have the bandwidth you don’t, they may even do a better job than you!
(If you haven’t hired on a team member yet, here’s a few posts to help you out with that.)
Content creation Tip #2:
Don’t do the little things
One my of favorite things Tim Ferris taught me?
That his favorite way to get stuff off his to do list is to cross it out and just not do it.
So if the little things are getting in your way, here’s your permission and encouragement to just not do them.
Amazon has been annoying me for months with emails to update some information in my affiliate account so they can pay me. But the amount they’ll pay is so little that it’s not a priority, so those emails automatically get marked ‘read’ and ignored.
My Square Secrets™️ & Square Secrets Business™️ Bundle (my online courses for web designers) didn’t even have a thumbnail photo in Teachable for 6 months, and instead Teachable’s ugly placeholder photo sat there. Why? Because I had bigger fish to fry, so I just left it. 🤷♀️
If you’re spending your time on small tasks that aren’t really moving the needle, it’s time to stop yourself.
A good way to figure out what is a small task? Think about your business overall. What are the ways in which it generates revenue?
What are they ways in which you market your business and make sales?
Those are the big tasks, the good uses of your time. All the other little stuff, just let it be, cross it off the list and get back to the important stuff, like making time to create consistent content!
Content creation TIP #3:
Batch create & schedule your content in advance
I was reading ConvertKit's State of the Blogging Industry report and noticed something which was massively valuable to helping me post consistently.
"In every case, the average number of posts published for all respondents was less than the intended number of posts published... Everyone struggles to meet their publishing goals, including the pros...
Of the respondents, 52% of bloggers write either the day before or on the same day as they plan to publish. No wonder there’s such a large discrepancy between how often bloggers plan to publish and how often they actually publish!
This data shows us very clearly that bloggers could unlock an entirely new level of consistency by increasing the gap between when they write and when they publish."
Bam!
Write your posts further in advance, schedule them, and then when life happens (which it always will) your content will stay consistent.
Content creation TIP #4:
Pre-brainstorm content topic and title ideas & write notes on the go
If I sit down to blog but don’t have a specific blog topic I like written down to work on, I won’t get the post done. I’ll just put it off, because the task of thinking up a new idea AND writing it feels too heavy.
(And if I DO happen to make myself do it, it will take me about twice as long as necessary and I probably won’t like the post because I didn’t do the necessary pre-work to set myself up for writing success.)
I need to have both the exact topic I need to be creating content on and actually like the idea in order to get myself to do it.
So what I do is write blog post ideas constantly. Every time someone asks a question in the inbox related to my topic, or asks a question in my course student Facebook community, or on a live group coaching call or webinar I’m hosting, I write it down. If they are wondering it, chances are, other people interested in your topic are wondering the same!
Usually my best ideas come to me while walking to Yoga or riding the train or really doing anything other than sitting at my computer thinking “Ok, Paige…you NEED to come up with some good ideas.”
So I use some sort of notes app on my phone or crack open my Asana to write down post ideas anytime they come to me.
Then once a month I stick my favorites into my editorial calendar. That piece of content from my editorial calendar appears in my Asana, and that gives me my marching orders on what I need to be creating that day.
So again, don’t sit down and think “I need to create content, what should I create?” Already have your content ideas down before you need to start working on them.
Suggested reading:
Content Creation tip #5:
Decide your content is a priority and work around priorities
Often we tick the easiest things off our to do list, not the most important things. (Uhh, guilty as charged. Can you relate?)
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) that will have to change if you want to produce content consistently. It’s not easy to produce consistent content, which is exactly why most people don’t do it. (And therefore why you have a hugeee business advantage if you can manage it!)
Consistent content is hard work, but it pays off immensely!
So back to priorities!
First things first is deciding that producing content is something very much so worth your time.
Take a moment to look at the major tasks in your business (serving clients, creating products, marketing, etc.) and arrange them in order of priority. Make sure content gets up there towards the top if you want it to be a priority.
Then when you go to sit down and work, arrange your tasks by priority, not how easy they are as we tend to automatically do.
That’s the way that you MAKE time for the important things!
Suggested reading:
The most successful online businesses all have this 1 thing in common (valuable content)
Content marketing vs. Social Media Marketing? Which strategy is best?
How I exploded my business using organic SEO (without spending a cent on ad campaigns)
Content creation tip #6:
Have a repeatable process in place & automate tasks
The easiest way to make sure anything gets done in life or business? Make it as easy on yourself as possible to get it done. The first hurdle is having a process in place so you don’t need to be forgetting steps and fixing issues later, and actually knowing what you need to do when you sit down to work.
The second hurdle? Getting as many things off your to do list by completely automating them!
Here’s an example from when I was Podcasting (before I made the move over to YouTube!). When I would invite on a podcast guest, I knew the process that each one needs to go through. I needed to invite them, schedule an interview time with them, get photos and a release form signed by them, educate them on how the episode recording software works, and then share their episode with them and the world.
I automated almost ALL of that process! I had a page set up on my website with all the information they need to join me on the show where they can then schedule an appointment, then submit their photos. I had it set up in my software systems to have the link generated automatically which would the link we meet at with the software Zoom, so I didn’t need to create it and email it to them. I also had it set up so that 24 hours after our interview, they’d get automatically sent a release form to be signed digitally.
I would have been spending significantly more time on each episode if I hadn’t put in the work upfront to figure out my process and then automate as much as possible of it.
This can be done in some form or another no matter what format of content you happen to be publishing!
