Churning out unique and engaging blog content on a daily basis is a challenge – especially if there’s only a small team responsible for it. At 2 Web Design for example, the majority of our blog posts are written by myself and my colleague Amanda. We meet once a week, discuss various topics, and then research what will work for our audience. We then decide who is going to write what and lock ourselves away for a couple of hours, and hammer out our weekly blog content.

But, what if we run out of ideas?

We’re lucky in that we have a big team here at the office. So, on the odd occasion when our creative juices hit an impasse we can rely on the other guys to suggest some ideas and chip in with the odd post themselves. However, what if it’s just you who is responsible for all the blog content for your business blog?

It’s tough, I know, but to help you out I’m providing you with 5 tips that Amanda and I use for creating our blog content.

1. Create lists

For any blogger, this is the ultimate way to create quick and easy blog content. Firstly gather some ideas and then create a list of each, i.e. just like I have done with this post. I thought “ohhhh, why not create a helpful list for bloggers on how to create better content.” So I scoured the Internet and complied the list you see here. And what’s great is you can then just write a short blurb for each point you make. Easy.

2. Educate your audience

If you’re the market leader in your industry and you have valuable information that you know your audience would appreciate, then tell them. And don’t be afraid to give away your secrets. If you’ve asserted yourself as the leader and continually provide the best information, you increase your credibility. This proven strategy results in new customers and a dedicated audience for life!

3. Newsjack

If an important news story is released that will have an immediate effect on your industry or with your audience, then create your own relevant spin on it. However, to be an expert “newsjacker” you have to be quick. Real quick – like Speedy Gonzales quick. I did something similar when Mark Zuckerberg launched his Internet.org campaign. I knew this story would be important to our audience, so I created my own take on this story.

4. Use a blog calendar

Something that has really helped us keep our blog organized and knowing what keywords we’ve used where and when, has been our blog calendar. It ensures we keep track of blog topics as well as managing dates and deadlines. Our goal, during our weekly brainstorming sessions, is to try and stay at least 2 weeks ahead of when we actually post. For example, this post was decided on around late December for publication this week.

A great blog calendar that you can download for FREE can be found on HubSpot’s website.

5. Ignore word count

There’s a ton of information online saying a blog should be X amount of length because it generates this amount of leads, etc. It’s true that creating more blog posts per month does in fact generate more leads, but that’s posts NOT word count. The fact is there is no optimal length for your blog content. What you should concentrate on is the quality of the content.

The last thing you want to be found guilty of is stretching a 300 word blog post that is awesome to read to 1000 words, just because someone said that’s what it should be. As it then goes from being great to just lame and boring. So if your post is 300 words long and you’ve made the point you want to make, then your blog is 300 words – the end.

So there you go fellow blog content creators. I hope them ideas will help you create better blog content and make the challenge of coming up with new ideas a little easier. However, do you have any other tips on how to create better blog content? If so, share them below!