How to Overcome Writer's Block

Blogging is not just for “bloggers.”

Many people tend to think of blogging as simply a hobby online journal for mommy bloggers or lifestyle bloggers (though many mommy and lifestyle bloggers earn serious $$ from this “pastime”!)—but that’s simply not the full extent of what blogging is, or who it’s for.

Blogging is one of the best things you can do as a business owner (particularly an online business owner!) to grow your website traffic, audience, and, ultimately, sales.

Why blogging is so important for your business

I’ve shared an entire post on exactly why and how blogging helps to boost your website’s SEO, establish you an industry expert, and help put your products and services in front of your ideal clients—so head over to refresh on that if you’d like: Why Your Website Needs a Blog (& How to Start One).

Sadly, many entrepreneurs and small business owners don’t think they’re capable of blogging because they don’t think of themselves as “writers.” But even if you’re not the next Shakespeare, anyone who’s literate can write a blog post.

If you can talk to people about what you’re passionate about, you can write blog posts about it!

There are a few main reasons I find that people struggle with starting a blog or consistently producing content for it. (And, no, “being too busy” is not one of them—some of the most prolific bloggers out there are incredibly busy, but are able to regularly and efficiently produce amazing blog content.)

For the most part it comes down to “writer’s block”—and here are the top reasons I find people tend to struggle with it:

having no ideas (or, feeling that you have no “good” ideas)
having lots of ideas, but not knowing where to begin with them
feeling intimidated by “not being a good writer”

The good news is: All of these can be worked through!

How to overcome writer’s block

Here are my top tips for getting over writer’s block and consistently producing quality content for your blog:

Set up a blog template

I set up a blog post template for all of my custom web design clients, for a few reasons:

It helps to ensure they’re including all of the necessary (and extra credit!) elements in each blog post—a related posts reel, opt-in gift, newsletter sign-up, etc.
It establishes a consistent structure and branding for each blog post.
It saves time by allowing them to simply duplicate any custom elements of their post, rather than re-creating them each time.
And it serves as an outline for their future blog posts!

Having a blog post template and using it to structure future blog posts makes it much easier to get started on new posts with confidence.

Create a blog content calendar

I highly, highly recommend creating a content calendar for your blog, rather than randomly blogging about whatever comes to mind (that’s when you run into the “online diary” type of blog I mentioned earlier).

Using a content calendar for your blog allows you to strategically plan out the type of content you’ll be sharing—and ensure it relates your end goals for your business!

With a content calendar you can easily see and plan the categories you’ll be covering, the specific offers or promotions you might attach to each blog post, and keep track of when each post will be drafted and published.

Organizing your ideas and timelines in a content calendar is hugely helpful for making weekly blog posts a more manageable task.

Keep a running list of blog content ideas

Your content calendar is where you’ll store a running list of ideas for future blog posts.

A few tips to keep in mind here:

Add ideas to your list immediately when you think of them—assuming “Oh, I’ll remember it later” often doesn’t work out as planned. 😆
Add a category to your idea as soon as it’s added to your content calendar. This will help you to keep track of the ideas better, as well as ensure you’re only adding ideas that fit within the scope of your blog and business.

Keep blog content relevant to your audience’s problems

I’ve mentioned this as a side note in every tip above, but it’s worth being super clear about here:

Make sure that all of your blog post content is directly relevant to your business—in other words, how you can help to solve your customers’ or clients’ problems.

Alrighty, so those are some “pre-work” tips to set yourself with a strong foundation for developing high quality ideas for your blog.

Now, these next steps will set you up with turning your ideas into their written form:

Tips for easily writing blog posts

The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

(Don’t worry, we’re not eating any endangered species around here! But this sentiment is very applicable to writing a blog post as well.)

Here are seven simple steps to go from “idea” to “published” with as little pain and frustration as possible. 😁

1. Choose your blog post title & thumbnail image

This is my favorite way to start a new post because it’s an easy way to visualize and set boundaries for what you’ll be writing about.

Use a tool like CoSchedule Headline Analyzer to select an SEO-rich title for each blog post. (You may need to try a few different titles before finding one that gives you a good SEO score.)

Every blog post should be accompanied by its own thumbnail image, so select the image you’ll be using for this post. If you need to use stock photography, I recommend Unsplash, which integrates really nicely right from the back-end of your Squarespace website (and here’s more information about legally using stock photography on your website).

2. Outline your blog post

Organize your post into a logical “storyline.” Here’s a basic outline that works for many different types of content:

Intro: Introduce your topic (aka the problem your audience has and how you’re going to help them solve it). This can be one small paragraph or multiple paragraphs, but it better explain your post content, let your audience know what they’ll get out of it, and spark their interest to continue reading.
Background information: Is there any background context that would be helpful to introduce or cover before delving into the key information in your post?
Intro to your solution: Introduce your solution to the problem you’re addressing, including any particular information, “street cred,” or personal experience that supports why this is an effective and awesome solution.
List: This isn’t completely necessary, but it can be helpful to use a list to organize your primary points, ideas, or the specific steps to your solution. We humans just happen to like lists, and they make it easier for us to receive multiple ideas or steps all at once!
Next steps: It’s always a good idea to end your blog post with a call to action (whether that’s an action the reader can take in their own life, a link you’re offering to learn more about additional support in your topic area, or something else). Make it very clear what the next steps are the reader should take.

You can outline these blog post sections with headings (h2 or h3 in your Squarespace text editor), and leave space for body text below each heading.

3. Fill in your blog post outline

It’s easier to write one section at a time than to try to sit down and “write a blog post” on a broad and complex topic.

In this step, you’ll attack each section one at a time and turn your outline into complete sentences, with facts, quotes, statistics, etc. (If you don’t have the specific information needed, but know you want to add a quote or stat, just leave placeholder text for it and underline it to come back to later.)

Don’t worry about perfect wording yet! We’re working to get all the information on the page right now, and we’ll worry about style and form in the next step.

4. Review & polish your draft

This is where you’ll read back through your draft, editing grammar and spelling, making sure ideas are cohesive, perhaps even adding in additional information or explanation as needed, or deleting parts that don’t add value.

If your post is very lengthy or complex, or it took a long time for you to complete step 3, it can be a good idea to step away from your draft for a couple days (or even just a couple hours if you’re on a tight timeline) and come back with fresh eyes.

5. Add the bells & whistles

Add imagery, offers for content upgrades, etc.

At this stage you’ll also want to add the essential components of every blog post:

blog post excerpt
SEO description (you can use the blog post excerpt in most cases)
SEO title (in Squarespace, this should pull in your blog post title, but if your post title includes an ampersand “&” it will look funky, so best to update here)
categories + tags
blog post author (if you have multiple authors on your site)
clean URL

6. Proof-read

Read through your post again, reviewing for spelling, grammar, and overall clarity. It can be helpful to have extra set of eyes to help—ask a friend or coworker to review your post for you if you’d like!