You know you need to create content for your website or blog in order to build your audience and promote your business, but you’re stuck because you think you can’t write. Well, don’t give up yet, because you don’t need to be a great writer to create compelling and effective content. Try a few of these ideas.
Hire a Writer – You can hire writers at reasonable prices on sites from Fiverr.com to elance.com. Whether you need an article or two to post while you are on vacation, or you want someone to create weekly blog posts, you can find someone who can help with your content needs.
Talk, Don’t Type – Can you talk? Use voice recognition software and speak your content. One of the best programs is Dragon Naturally Speaking, but voice recognition is even built in to Windows. It takes a little practice to get used to dictating, but it isn’t hard to do. After dictating, be sure to edit to catch any errors.
Create Videos – Another possibility is to record videos. It doesn’t have to be a big production—just turn on your webcam and talk. Upload the video to YouTube or another video sharing site, and embed the video on your website. Get a transcription of the video, too. Edit it for flow (we do not talk exactly as we write) then post the transcript to your blog to give the search engines content to index.
Borrow Videos – Many of the videos on YouTube may be embedded on your website without obtaining specific permission. See this tutorial about how to embed a YouTube video.
Host a Podcast – If you are not comfortable putting yourself on camera, how about an audio podcast? The podcast can be just you speaking, or you can interview guests. As with videos, have the podcast transcribed and make text content out of it.
Share Images and Memes – Visual posts can be powerful, even with few or no words. Share a favorite photo, or an infographic. A note about rights: Do not grab a photo from Google Images or someone else’s website and post it. Images are copyrighted, and you may not just use any image you find. Use photos you shot yourself or licensed from the copyright holder. Most infographics creator want to get graphics in front of as many people as possible, so they may give blanket permission to use the infographic. Look for the original source (usually a website on the infographic) and see if they give permission or provide embed code you can use.
Curate Content – Become a resource for your audience by collecting content they will find useful and sharing it with them. That doesn’t mean copying the content. Just write a sentence or two commenting on the original content, then link to it.
Attract User Generated Content – Encourage your audience to get involved. User-generated content can take the form of forum posts, social media comments, blog post comments and more. Post a question to Twitter with a hashtag, gather the responses and share them in a blog post.
Open Your Blog to Guest Bloggers – Make it known that you will accept guest posts. You get the advantage of fresh content for your blog, and the guest posters get to be seen by your audience. Only publish posts that are consistent with your blog’s topic, and don’t link to poor quality or spammy sites. Work with other bloggers who, like you are creating excellent content and looking to grow their audiences.
There are lots of ways to create content without writing all of it yourself. If you struggle with writing (or even if you don’t), these ideas will give you lots of fresh content for your website.
