(#WorkloadWednesday) As I look over the upcoming blog post pitches on our content calendar and quickly guesstimate time needed to perfect these posts, I foresee some tight deadlines ahead. As busy time-strapped business owners or social media managers, we sometimes run up against tight deadlines and need a few blog post ideas in our back pocket.

Quality Blog Post Ideas when Faced with a Deadline

We use a variety of techniques to craft quality content on a deadline. The following three blog post concepts will help you in your quest to engage your customers especially when turn-around time is tight:

1. Infographic Opinion Post: Find a compelling infographic, cut it up into pieces and add your commentary in a blog post. We all have an opinion! Search for relevant infographics in your area of expertise on Flickr, Google Image search, or Pinterest.

2. Just the Facts: Compile stats to make a case for any topic that your audience will find useful. For example, ask a question and use 3rd party data to back it up. “What drives readers to click headlines in a social media stream?” See an example.

3. Piggyback Post: Find competitors top linked posts and make them better. What content of your competitors attracts high quality links? Here’s how you find out:

Step 1. Enter a competitors URL into Open Site Explorer

Blog Writing Time Savers

Step 2. Click on the Top Pages tab

Blog Writing Shortcuts

Step 3. Look for pages with at least 100 Linking Root Domains

Blog Writing Shortcuts

Four Bonus Ideas to Save Time Writing Blog Content

  1. Set a timer. Are you good under pressure? Often, I set a timer on my iPhone. It focuses my attention during the time period. As a side note, we often set the timer when brainstorming headlines. It forces us to come up with quick answers.
  2. Focus. You’ve likely seen research showing posts starting with a number in the headline work and the longer the post, the better. For example, 1 Billion Simple Copy Writing Techniques. Those take time. Not all your posts need to be 2,000 words.
  3. How-to. Who knows your product or service better than you? Write a quick how to post that helps your customers. Some of our top posts contain less than 300 words to quickly demonstrate a task or a how-to.
  4. Just-write. “Don’t get it right, get it written.” Just start writing. I often write down a string of ideas, close WordPress and come back hours later or the next day to put it all together. This technique works for me. I get the basic outline down and fill in the blanks later.

Now it’s your turn. In the comments, share you best blog post ideas when under a deadline.

Featured Photo by: Ramunas Geciauskas