Why there is no easy button for writing

Some writing you do will come together quickly and easily. For example, I suspect I’ll push my easy button, and this post will be done inside of 30 minutes. Other posts can take hours and hours spread over days to get right. Let’s explore why that is.

First, the easy ones

Blog posts like this one I have been thinking about for days. I added the idea for this post to my editorial calendar last week after writing “How a content campaign increased visit duration by 79 percent.” For a week, my subconscious has been thinking about how to write this post. So when I sat down this morning the words simply started to flow.

Your “easy” posts typically won’t contain lots of facts and figures or how-tos. Instead, you’ll share the insights and wisdom you’ve gained from performing a particular task over an extended period of time. In a nutshell, the easy posts are the sharing of your thoughts, feelings and opinions. It’s the sharing of your unique you.

These posts feel easy to write because you’ve put the thinking and experiencing time in up front. You’ve spent days, weeks or even years collecting the thoughts, feelings and opinions you require to present your unique perspective.

Now that we have easy out of the way …

Sometimes it will feel like your easy button is broken. Typically, that is when the writing you are working on requires the collection of facts and figures. You need to source your information and/or write a detailed how-to. Sure, the actual writing time – from the time you sit down and start to write – is far greater than with an easy post but there is a reason for that. A great deal of your time is spent gathering those facts and figures or the screen shots you need to support your how-to.

I find that with posts like “How a content campaign increased visit duration by 79 percent,” I spent very little time thinking about the post before writing it. I had the basic concept in my head and simply needed to collect the appropriate facts and figures to support my assumptions.

The collection of facts, figures, screen shots and the like is a time-consuming activity. The facts and figures become the results that you report and people love to read about real world results. It’s worth the time to collect those numbers, but don’t forget to make the blog post human by including the story that led to the results.

In the end …

Just like there is no such thing (other than in certain commercials) as an easy button, there is no such thing as an easy blog post. Writing is hard work that takes upfront thinking time and/or research time. Either way, posts that matter represent hours or even days of labor. Content marketing, like any other marketing strategy that works, is hard work.

(Author’s note: Twenty-five minutes of typing time from start to finish prior to any re-reads and edits.)

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