Pick three blogs you respect and introduce your readers to them. Three links to three different posts, followed by a sentence for each explaining why your readers should go read them and subscribe to these other blogs.- Go to the main category page for one of your categories, copy and paste five of your best posts from it, then paste them into the Visual tab of the new post screen in WordPress. Pretty it up a little bit, and write a couple sentences at the top to introduce the idea.
- Ask your readers to ask you questions, which you’ll answer in future posts. You can’t hardly ask for a better reason for a short post that still helps your readers immensely!
- Answer a question from your readers, either from questions which have already been asked, or from doing what I mentioned in item number 3 above. Another super high-value/time-starved tactic.
- Ask a question of your readers and have them answer it in the comments. Ask the question in a somewhat polarizing, either-or way, such as: Mac or PC? Blogger or WordPress? Chicken or Pork? (well OK, maybe not that last one.) Your readers do all the work on this one. Don’t do this too often, but once in a while, people will love it.
- In the same vein, put together a poll and post it. People love to give their opinion and you’ll learn more about your audience, which will help both you and them in the long run. Total win-win in ten minutes or less.
- Google for the top ten sites in your niche and post them as, literally, the top ten sites. These kind of posts are highly linkable. Just copy and paste the search results page into your post writing window, pretty it up, write an introductory couple sentences, and hit “publish.”
- Record a video at YouTube. Use the feature that lets you record directly to YouTube so you don’t have to upload or edit anything. Talk for five minutes about a very focused topic. The other five minutes, you’re copying and pasting the embed code and writing a headline and a couple of introductory sentences. This one combines well with some of the other post ideas in this list.
- Embed a video from a video site such as YouTube or Viddler about your blog’s niche topic. Five minutes to find, watch, and embed the video. Five minutes to write a brief bit of commentary on the video (no need to watch every second of the video).
- Write something nice about the coolest new person you’ve met, recently. Link to their blog and “talk them up.” It’s good for you, good for the other person, and good for both your audiences.
If you guys can come up with even more ways to write killer posts in ten minutes or less, I’ll do another one of these that will be made up of your ideas with links back to you.
Hi Michael,
Some really interesting ideas in this article. Indeed this techniques only take few minutes to set up an article. Thanks for sharing.
@TomaBonciu
@Toma – Thanks! If you try any of them, let me know.
Gosh darn it, I just cranked out a boring post in 45 minutes before seeing your post. You owe me 35 minutes, Michael…
@Patsi – You had your flux capacitor in backwards. That’ll do it every time…
Thanks for the great ideas. You got my brain percolating:
Post a favorite resource and link to it. “My favorite source for photos/keyword research tool/WP themes or plugins/whatever…”
Post a photo, with or without comment. A number of bloggers do “Wordless Wednesday” posts with only a photo.
Take a list post you did in the past and expand on one of the list items. Give more how-to and/or link to a tutorial or other resource. For example, what do you use to set up a poll as suggested in item number 6? Tips?
Post the results of the poll you did in suggestion number 6. Include commentary on the poll results, and comments submitted by those who responded to the poll.
Top 3, 5 or 7 tips for doing something.
Kick ass post here!
I post Foto Friday – simply a photo of a girlfriend getaway memory
with a brief description.
These are great tips, thanks!
Great ideas, thank you Michael! I’m really behind on blogging because I always think it will take too long. I’m definitely going to try some of these approaches. @cherylwkrass
[...] Ten Ways to Crank Out Killer Posts in Ten Minutes or Less [...]
Great post and ideas! Thank you very much!
I loved this post. So much value for such a short post. Thanks very much. I’m going to try all of these things. Will RT, Digg, and Stumble. Great stuff!
When my company puts out press releases (often survey results), I link to the press releases, summarize the results/finding, and then ask readers a question about their reaction – whether the results surprise them, where they think they fall in regards to the majority/minority opinion, etc.
Thanks for more great ideas!
Glossaries: Define a buzzword for your target audience, then back it up with links to practical examples.
Another great idea is to take what happened during the day/yesterday and relate it to your medium. It’s amazing how many parallels I can draw between making money online, say, and my mooses, Twitter Budgies, kids and the rest.
Data points, Barbara
Brilliant ideas, Michael!
I particularly like the idea of making a YouTube video – I may give that one a shot soon.
Reddited, Stumbled, Tagged, and Tweeted!
I’ve found that requests for clarifications can make great posts. This is especially useful when you don’t fully understand a sentiment or concept you read, say in a book. Sort of an excerpt-based question, part info, part question. But you really have to be wondering. Also, the more controversial, the better.
Also, this is lame, but I had an interview fall through on my blog yesterday (I’m not giving the blog address because it’s a separate, highly unprofessional identity) but anyway, I slapped up some pet pictures and it was a freakishly popular post.
Michael, these are gooood. Like quick recipes with a few simple ingredients–not junk food, but quick and satisfying. I love it.
Another idea… create a quick post of “famous quotes” on a specific keyword in your niche, then ask readers if they have any favs (for future posts, of course!)
Thanks for getting my thought process rolling!
Wow, some really good ideas here. My blog has over 1500 readers and I find myself getting nervous when I can’t think of anything useful to blog about so this list will help greatly!! You’ve got a new subscriber here.
[...] Â Ten Ways to Crank Out Killer Posts in Ten Minutes or Less [...]
Great post! It’s amazing how easy it is to crank out quality, useful information in such a manageable amount of time. Here are a few more suggestions:
1) Review a product/service/website in your niche that you are already familiar with. Develop a ‘review rubric’ and you can streamline this process.
2) Similarly, create an interview template and send out emails to those you would like to interview. It takes ten minutes to write an introduction and format the post.
3) Copy/Paste any interesting email exchanges you may have. Hate mail? Question and answer sessions? Philosophical ramblings?
4) Link drop! If you are a heavy bookmarker, pick 5 of the most interesting sites you have bookmarked in the last week/2weeks/month, and write a few sentences about them.
Hope this helps,
Alan
At many a times, I feel the need to post something quickly. This post has given some wonderful tips on how to do that.
Thank you for sharing these ideas.
Thanks for these very doable tips. I frequently spend entirely too much time churning out my blog posts.
Hi Michael, this is an excellent post.
I recently started doing a Friday roundup of interesting articles I’d read in the past week. It’s a simple, effective way to post something worthwhile.
Total time to write? Less than 10 minutes.
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Really good ideas there Michael.
Considering most of my blog posts are done during the lunch hour these tips come in very handy!
Thanks on the tips in order to uselessly dilute the blogosphere. Your post seems more focused on creating content for contents sake, or at least for the sake of said content generating revenue.
Typical ‘pro blogger’ type post, complete with pavlovian ‘great post!’ comments from other wannabe pro bloggers. Thanks for the tips!
Way to go there Anon. I really admire people who have a stab at good blog posts but are too chicken to leave a URL.
I have one! How about a list of 10 ways to crank out top 10 lists about how to crank out blog posts in ten minutes or less? That seems pretty easy.
10 PRINT OLD NEWS
20 GOTO 10
I was thinking ‘Wow, huge claim’ as I clicked on the link posted by problogger on twitter and wasn’t expecting specific ‘to-do’ ways. As always, I’m impressed
Going to try all of them out over the next couple of months and post up a report on how it went.
Great, now I can post a new article and still see my TV shows.
ahhhhhh … I have really done a lot of hard work for nothing!
Well I think it’s important to balance your postings … some original quality posts, and some fast posts.
Content is King
[...] Michael Martine at Remarkablogger, one of my favorite bloggers on blogging, has 10 suggestions for you on his blog. In a nutshell, Michael [...]
Some great ideas I’ll use. Here are a few more:
1. For a local or community style blog, post a diary of upcoming events. We do a ‘what’s on next week’ post every Sunday evening for my husband’s blog. We can prepared them all at the beginning of the month and just tweak and publish in minutes each week (www.masseysfinefood.com – doesn’t sell anything online so hope nobody minds my showing an example)
2. Keep your mind open to something that happens in your day that illustrates something relevant to your audience. A couple of days ago, Hayley posted an item about jelly beans and employee engagement – when we filled up the office jelly bean jar.
3. Book reviews – if you keep them short they can be quite quick to write when the book has a really powerful message.
Hope these are useful.
Vandy
Michael,
This is a print-and-keeper. You’ve got a few ideas here that I hadn’t thought of.
Mine: Once a week, every week, I post a quotation related to my blog’s subject (and I usually tie it into whatever theme I’ve loosely been writing about that week). I write a paragraph or so discussing the relevance of the quote or the author, and poof!
It’s good for me because most of my articles, I labor on forever. Knowing I’ve got one “poof” per week is a big relief.
Regards,
Kelly
Similar to idea #10: talk up one of your favorite small businesses, included their website, and hopefully drum up some business for them during this recession. Ask your readers to do the same for THEIR favorite small businesses.
Best,
John
“4. Go to the main category page for one of your categories, copy and paste five of your best posts from it, then paste them into the Visual tab of the new post screen in WordPress. Pretty it up a little bit, and write a couple sentences at the top to introduce the idea.”
is another way of saying copy and repost your old stuff??
[...] more content development ideas? Check out Remarkablogger’s “10 Ways To Crank Out Killer Posts In 10 Minutes Or Less“ (hey – it’s a list! whadya know?). Followed by 12 more from his readers. [...]
Howdy Michael,
I find that so few people have a sense of humor nowadays. My idea for a 10-minute (or less) blog post is to create a …
“Monday Morning Chuckle”
Smiling and laughter cause the release of endorphins in our bodies. Endorphins are natural pain relievers and wonderful mood elevators. Perhaps the title of the post could be …
“Monday Mood-Elevators”!
Write On!
MELANIE
[...] Ten Ways to Crank Out Killer Posts in Ten Minutes or Less (tags: writing blogging inspiration howto blog) [...]
[...] provided inspiration and encouragement. He lists ten ways to crank out “killer” blog posts in ten minutes or less. Obviously, that’s not something I’m accustomed to, but it did provide the inspiration [...]
Great tips! I’m going to start with a few of these ideas right away. Thank you!
Google for the top ten sites in your niche and post them?
Hmm this one in interesting?
[...] it. Oh wait, there’s one more: Remarkablogger’s “Ten ways to crank out killer posts in 10 minutes“. Yes, I know quality is better than quantity but sometimes short blog posts are OK too. Have [...]
Thanks for the great ideas. I’m working on one of these today; sharing links to various blogs/web sites shared by followers on Twitter. (In fact, that is where I found your blog post!)
I also reserve my Monday post for a quote (Monday Reflection) and sometimes use Wednesdays for unique words/definitions found in CH Elster’s book “There’s a Word For It.” I create these posts in one sitting and publish them individually at a later date.
@Amy – Those are some great ideas, thanks for sharing them!
[...] Ten Ways to Crank Out Killer Posts in Ten Minutes or Less Pick three blogs you respect and introduce your readers to them. Three links to three [...]
[...] Ten Topics in Ten Minutes (or less!) [...]
[...] Ten Ways to Crank Out Killer Posts in Ten Minutes or Less [...]
[...] – This post is an example of how you can create a quality post in less than ten minutes! This entry was written by Michael Martine, Blog Consultant and posted on March 16, 2009 at 10:09 [...]
[...] posts with suggestions about how to create blog posts in ten minutes or less. The first one is Ten Ways to Crank Out Killer Posts in Ten Minutes or Less. Then came TWELVE MORE Ways to Crank Out Killer Posts in Ten Minutes or Less where he collected [...]
Great post Michael, I’m definitely going to give number 3 a try in the near future!