How Some People Can Write Great Posts Quickly
This is an experiment to see if you can do everything you need to to write a great post in 10 minutes
I starting writing this post with a stopwatch. I will stop at 10 minutes, but before then I will try to do several things necessary to write a great post. I want to ping at least 3 bloggers, make my text scannable, reference a post in my own site, write an interesting title, ask for comments, and use blockquotes.
1:28 Gone
Step 1 - write the title I used the 10 Tips for writing great titles from Problogger to come up with this, “How Some People Can Write Great Posts Quickly” It can’t be that bad, as it got you to read this post 
2:54 Gone
Step 2 - make my content scannable
The internet isn’t a book. You can’t expect people to read your information if you don’t make it easy for them. Make it easy for people and they will stay. Otherwise they will leave.
There are several things I need to do to make my content scannable
- I need to use small sections
- I need to use lists and blockquotes
- I need to highlight and bold important points
5:00
Step 3 - ping some writers
It is important to ping other bloggers in order to get their attention, now I will ping a site letting you know about the comprehensive list of different ping services you can use. 2 pings down, 1 to go.
Step 4 - write a good excerpt
I need to write a good excerpt for this page in order to attract search engine searches. Here are some tips for writing good excerpts
7:54 down, running out of time, better write my excerpt, put in keywords, spellcheck and go
Excerpt written - 9:07. Time to spell check. Luckily, since I use Google toolbar spell check, it goes quickly.
9:39
That’s all the time I have. How long to you spend on your posts? Did you find this interesting at all, or just a waste the 2 minutes you spend reading it?
on June 3rd, 2007 at 6:21 am
I just got finished watching Joel Comm’s video blog post about making great content. His ultimate point was that content doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming.
Your post is proof that good content doesn’t have to be an all-day project.
Keep it up. Love the blog!
on June 3rd, 2007 at 6:27 am
Thanks for the great article! There are some really good tips here.
I wish I could write a quality post in 10 minutes. I usually get terminal bloghorrhea and spend anywhere between 1 and 4 hours writing posts.
I guess it’s time to use a timer.
You have some good info on your blog. I’ve just subscribed. Thanks again!
on June 3rd, 2007 at 6:46 am
Yeah, I need to work on this stuff.. there are times I start to write a short, brief post but end up just writing and writing, I need to learn to keep things brief… I read somewhere that the optimum post size is around 750 words, any more than that you loose the readers attention…
on June 3rd, 2007 at 9:22 am
Thanks for the positive feedback, and especially for the backlink Kris.
I don’t think there is anything necessarily wrong with a longer post. I personally have found right around 750 words to be my sweet spot, but I can imagine it varies with the blog and what your readers are used to seeing. I do think shorter than 500 words can be a little brief. But mixing it up with a long post ( Maybe not StevePavlina.com long, but long ) can be good. For instance I have found that the longer a list is, the more likely people are to link to it. They would rather check out 103 Tools across the blogosphere than 5 Tips for Bloggers
I haven’t checked out Joel Comm yet. At least I don’t well him well enough to know him by his real name rather than his site, so thanks for the referal.
Donovan, better than a timer may just be a checklist of what you want to get done in a the time you have available. If you know you have 2 hours and you want to write an article, but also read some other blogs, comment on some articles, and fish for backlinks you won’t let yourself spend too much time on one given thing.
Alternatively someone who is good at programming, could write a little plugin which lets you set a clock when you start writing a post and then cuts you off and publishes it when time is up. I bet that would cause people to write a lot more series