Batching Content – The Secret Time-Saving Hack of Successful Bloggers

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We’re guessing that blogging isn’t your full-time job. It’s probably something you’re fitting into an already tight schedule and any productivity hacks would be awesome, right? Well, we think you’ll love the idea of batching content on your blog then! It plus an editorial calendar are must-haves for professional bloggers.

What is Batching Blog Content?

You probably are beginning to see the different pieces of blogging through our lessons in the blog series. The idea of batching is just lumping together similar tasks. So you could essentially “batch” any part of your life – errands, chores, meal prep, etc.

Batching content has become really popular in the blogging world because it helps you create better content and in less time! You lump all of the similar tasks together and get them done in a block of time. This has honestly helped our brains focus in and get more done so much!

For example, instead of coming up with a topic, writing the post, editing it, creating a picture, and promoting it all in one setting you’d come up with ideas one afternoon, then write a few posts another, then another day would be for the other pieces like editing.

Benefits of Batching Content

You don’t have to “switch gears” from creative to editor in a split second
You’re able to create a list of blog ideas for a month or more in one setting – no more worrying about what to write about!
It offers you the flexibility to get as much content created as you want – so you can publish pre-done content while on vacation!
If you struggle to plan time to do complete a full blog post a week, this batching content system & editorial calendar help you to make time.
You’ll be able to see overarching themes you’re blogging about and how readers’ are responding
By reducing multitasking and switching gears, your focus and productivity soar.

How to Start Batching Blog Content

Today we’ll look at six steps to start batching content. The same idea can be applied to your social media amplifications and email marketing. You’ll just want to outline the steps of each project you want to batch and group similar tasks together.

1.Brainstorm Keywords

Once you know how often you’ll blog and have your niche narrowed down, you’ll want to brainstorm ideas to write about in each of your categories.

So your first hour or 90-minutes of batching will be just coming up with keywords or topics to write about later. If a headline or something hits you, write it down too!

We suggest planning out keywords for 1-2 months and placing them on a specific date with an editorial calendar.

Example: If you know you’ll blog 2 times a week, you’ll want to come up with 8 keywords for the month and place them on your calendar.

2. Next Outline or Write Your Post

Depending on your writing style, you may choose to outline each of the keywords or free-write about each one. There is no right or wrong.

We personally like to have a headline in mind like “9 Tips to WordPress Security – How to Keep Your Blog Safe” because it kind of sets the approach we’ll take to writing it.

You can always set the number like 9 to be how many you come up with when you’re writing.

If you choose to outline, ask yourself:

What is the point of this post? (educate, entertain, email signup, affiliate link, etc)
What does my reader need to know to get from point A to point B?
Do you need to include a story or the 5 Ws? (Who, What, Where, When, Why)
What are some frequently asked questions about the topic?

If you prefer to just write – just write!

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3. Editing

Now that you’ve gotten the content written out, you’ll want to proofread, add in and check links, and take a look at your wording. You may find you can edit something to be shorter, clearer or just less boring.

Our favorite program to use to check for edits and grammar issues is Grammarly. There are free and paid versions of it. It helps with phrases, spelling and more.

Editing is probably my favorite thing I have batched. I hate going from a creative mindset of writing about a topic and then having to nitpick it apart. Being able to edit 3-4 blog posts at once is much more enjoyable, and I know we both do a better job at it.

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Hopefully, you’ve installed Yoast SEO on Wordpress after reading our plugins guide. If so, it makes improving your SEO an easy step right after editing. On the right-hand side of your Wordpress draft, you’ll see if you are ranking in the red, yellow or green for Readability and SEO. You can also see the breakdown of how your post is scoring below where you’re writing in the Yoast tool.

As you can tell, I am more in the “writing phase” when this picture was taken. When I go to edit the post, I will add in things like an appropriate meta description, alt tags on pictures, and whatever else it suggests.

It’s a free tool, too! You really just need great keywords, content and to follow this plugin to see your search engine optimization go up in my opinion. No need to pay an “SEO Expert” which is usually a scam.

5. Creating or Hiring Out Images

For most images, including all of the images in the Start a Blog Series, we use Canva. It’s a free service to use, and then they also have stock images you can buy. We love the flexibility it offers, and you don’t have to know Photoshop or graphic design to use it. We have a few templates we created one time, and then we just keep duplicating and editing them to fit a new post or page.

Having a template saves time in having to create something visually appealing, and it also gives your blog and social media a branded look.

6. Social Media Amplifications and Extras

Social media shares have been shown to help a blog’s traffic as much as 31x if it’s done consistently. For that reason, we include it in our batching process and editorial calendar.

We also take the time to link to other blog posts we’ve written that relate to a new post. This helps a reader dig in deeper to what they are learning. Plus, the longer they stay on your site the better it is for your analytics.

We also will go ahead and schedule or draft up the social media wording and picture for new posts for the day it goes out and about a month after in case someone missed it the first time.