When you have an Internet-based business, you need to write. There’s no getting around it. You need to write:
Web page content
- Blog posts
- One or more free reports
- Sales pages
- Squeeze pages
- Emails
Plus you may want to write:
- Webinar scripts
- Video scripts
- Course scripts
- Course handouts
- E-books
That’s a lot of writing!
I’m a writer and I rarely have a problem writing. I’ve also noticed that most successful marketers find writing pretty easy.
But writing can be hard!
I’ve learned that my situation isn’t typical. Many people have difficulty writing, so if you’re in that boat, you aren’t alone!
Here are 5 reasons you may have difficulty writing:
- You can’t think of a topic to write about. This can be especially true after you’ve written 20, 50 or 100 posts.
- You have difficulty organizing your thoughts. Your writing may come out jumbled and some topics will be more developed than others. The logic may be incomplete.
- Your writing isn’t technically accurate. You don’t know much about grammar, punctuation, spelling or sentence structure. The result is that your writing is hard to read and gives an amateur impression.
- Writing is painful for you. Maybe a teacher told you that you were a terrible writer. Perhaps a parent told you that you wouldn’t amount to much as a writer or that writing was no way to make a living. As a result, writing might throw a lot of negative emotions in your face.
- You might be a procrastinator. You might put off all but the most fun tasks, so that they never get done.
Does one of these issues ring a bell with you? Perhaps several do.
Let’s talk about solutions!
You can’t think of a topic to write about
Do you sit staring at the blank page, not knowing what to write? This is sometimes called writer’s block. It’s pretty common, but has some simple solutions.
If you can’t think of topics, you can do one or more of the following:
1) Use a blogging calendar
This means that you plan your topics in advance, for the month or even for the year. For example, I could create a blogging calendar like this:
- January: Social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest)
- February: Blogging (what to write, WordPress techniques, where to find images, how to encourage comments)
- March: Automation (outsourcing, using Hootsuite, autoresponders, pre-scheduling blog posts and newsletters)
- and so on
Try creating a blogging calendar for the next 12 months.
2) Ask your subscribers what they want to read about
Create a survey and ask! I recommend SurveyMonkey or SurveyGizmo. Or simply ask people in your newsletter and have them reply to you.
3) Read what others are writing and expand on their topics
You can refer to another blog or source by linking to it and expand on the topic immediately. Or you can save the topic for some other time.
You can write about a topic that’s trending in the news. People like it when you help them understand current events.
4) Write down ideas as you think of them
When you think of a topic, create a draft blog post immediately. If the idea is for a sales page or e-book, write it in the proper place immediately and save it. You can always go back to it.
I can never remember ideas later. Right now, I have 17 draft posts for the Change the World Marketing blog, just waiting to get to you!
You have difficulty organizing your thoughts
Some people don’t organize their ideas well, so their writing is confusing to their readers. Or you may be fine when it comes to writing blog posts but struggle writing sales pages.
Here are some solutions:
- Write an outline first, then expand it.
- Use an organizing tool, like this one by Holly Genser. Holly angles it for an information product such as an e-book, but you can use it for a blog post, sales page, and so on.
- Hire an editor to review what you write. Read my blog post on outsourcing, “How to get help when you can’t afford it–or even if you can” for more information
- For sales pages, hire a copywriter or take a copywriting course. Here’s Karon Thackston’s course, which I’ve taken and found to be thorough and professional-grade.
After some practice, you’ll get better at it yourself.
Your writing isn’t technically accurate
It’s good to have a certain amount of technical knowledge, such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
First of all, your writing doesn’t have to be perfect. But you should reread everything you write. You should edit. I read my blog posts twice and still miss some errors. Remember that the spell check feature in WordPress and Microsoft Word don’t always pick up actual words used incorrectly.
If this is an issue for you, hire a proofreader. The proofreader can be anywhere in the world. He or she will help your writing a lot!
Writing is painful for you
Some people have painful memories of struggling to write when they were in school or at work. Others are simple more verbal; for them, speaking is easier than writing.
I worked with a colleague who was trying to write some web pages about career choices. She was struggling to write anything at all. Then she said, “In class, when I teach this, I can talk all day about it. But when I sit down to write, nothing comes out.”
I replied, “Speak it out to me then. Just tell it to me.” She did and I typed quickly as she talked. When we were done, we edited the page together and the result was excellent. And it was such a relief for her!
If you’re in this situation, a speak-to-text program can help. Another colleague of mine does a huge amount of writing and has wrist problems that make it difficult for her to type. She uses Dragon SpeakingNaturally all the time. She couldn’t function without it. You could also hire someone to transcribe your recordings.
You’re a procrastinator
We don’t usually procrastinate activities that we love to do. If you put off writing, think if one of the above problems applies to you.
A good way to get writing done is to do it the first thing in the morning, BEFORE YOU OPEN YOUR EMAIL OR CHECK SOCIAL MEDIA SITES.
Set up the situation the day before, by saving a draft blog post or sales page with the title and a few points. If you’re writing an e-book, open Word or your favorite word processing program, type the title, and quickly type an outline.
The next morning, you’ll be able to start writing right away.
Is writing difficult for you? What are the obstacles for you?
If you have found a solution not mentioned here, please share it!
And if you find a mistake in this blog post, please let me know! 🙂
Get started with this structured writing project
My Write Your Story worksheet will guide you through the process of writing your origin story, an important story for you to write for your About page, webinars, sales pages, and book.
This worksheet is a great way to get started with a structured writing project and you’ll find it to be a meaningful exercise.
It’s free, so pick it up here.
2 replies to "Are you having a problem writing? Here are 5 solutions!"
Very helpful information. Thank you.
[…] You could write a new post on what to do when you can’t think of ideas. In fact that’s one of the topics in my post, “Are you having a problem writing? Here are 5 solutions!“ […]