You know you need plenty of content to keep the search engines ranking you high, and your audience coming back for more. But, where in the world will you ever find the time to keep up with the demand for high quality content that your audience will find value in? The first thing to understand is what constitutes content, and then to realize you don’t have to do it alone.

1. Understand What Makes Up Content – Content isn’t just a certain type of blog post, or an article, or even always text. Sometimes it’s a video, an image, a PDF file download or even an app. When you open up your mind to realize that you can provide all types of content in many forms to your audience, it gets a lot easier to get excellent content fast.

2. Buy Private Label Rights Content – While you will have to rewrite and edit it, it can still be a lot faster than starting from scratch. PLR is content that you buy and use as your own. The trick is finding a reputable source to buy it from, to ensure that the research is accurate and the content is not difficult to rewrite to make your own.

3. Hire Several Writers to Help – You can use a service like Upwork.com to find freelancers to do the writing for you. Hire someone with experience of writing in your niche and realize that if you want the work to sound like you, you’ll need to edit it and add your own voice. But, you can get a lot of content written quickly relatively inexpensively.

4. Curate Content from Others – You don’t really always have to create scratch content. You can be the source for all things “your niche” that will make your business website or blog a one-stop-shop for your audience. Introduce, and provide a link to, important content that you feel your audience will enjoy. If there happens to be an affiliate link involved – even better.

5. Repurpose Content – If you’ve written books, or created other content, you can repurpose it. Even if you have already written a blog post, you can turn that post into a podcast or YouTube video. Change it up a bit but keep the facts the same, and the content will feel brand-new.

6. Keep an Idea File – One block that many business owners experience is simply having an idea. But, as you know, ideas come when you least expect them. If you start an idea file and keep track of every idea you have, you’ll be able to come up with and create content quickly when you need to.

7. Write in Bulk Ahead of Time – Using your idea file, take a couple of hours to create a lot of content at one time. It’s a lot easier to do four or five articles or several videos at once on a topic than it is to try to do it every single day, one at a time. When you’re working, you will get into a flow and be able to create more in a short period of time.

8. Keep It Simple – Try not to think too hard about each thing to the point where you cause yourself to have a block and be unable to create content. Trying to be perfect can cause procrastination. Procrastination can lead to not getting things done. If you want to get content fast, you’ll need to learn to keep it simple.

Getting content fast is a possibility. You don’t have to spend all your time pecking away at your keyboard all alone to get content for your website or blog. You can get help from others by outsourcing and curating content. You can keep an idea file so that when it’s time to sit down and create, you’re ready.

There are a lot of gurus who claim to have the answer about how long a blog post should be. But, the truth is, there is no real tried and true answer. There are good reasons for having long, short and in-between blog posts, so the best answer to this question is likely to have a combination of all types of posts.

1. Short Blog Posts

Keeping blog posts short is great for readers who have short attention spans and to update your readers on something exciting. Bite-sized content is great to read while waiting in line, at the doctor’s office, or when your reader has a short break. You get to the point quickly, so they can move on to your call to action.

Types of short posts:

* Curated – You collect the content you think is relevant that your audience should look at, and write a short blurb or intro to the content.

* Product Announcements – These don’t always need a long post. You may just say that the product is ready or that it’s a good product, and link to where they can buy it which is often a longer sales page.

Many people are very successful with this type of blogging. A real proponent of short blog posts that get right to the point is Seth Godin and no one can deny his success.

Link to Seth Godin – http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/

2. Medium-Length Blog Post

This is the type of blog posts many gurus swear by. You’ve likely heard it before and the thing is, it does work. Writing blog posts between 450 to 700 words long is considered fairly standard for the industry. Some blogging platforms actually suggest keeping blog posts to no more than 600 words because you’re being too long-winded and perhaps off topic if you go longer. That may be true in some cases. Confining your writing to a certain word count can help you stay focused.

Types of medium blog posts:

* How To – This type of blog explains how to do something that is very singular. Sometimes it uses images to get the point across.

* Informational – Sharing information with your readers is often done in the medium-length blog post. It’s a good length to transmit information without going overboard.

Most blog posts fall into this category. Nothing is wrong with that. These posts are the perfect length to tell a story, share information, and include a call to action – while including enough keywords without overwhelming the readers. HubSpot.com is a huge proponent of the medium-length blog post. Many people only use medium-length blog posts to great success.

Link to HubSpot – http://www.hubspot.com/

3. Long Blog Posts

Another type of blog posts that gurus swear by is the “long-form” blog post. This is a blog post that is more than 800 words long. These types of blog posts are often seen as more authoritative and the fact is, they are excellent for SEO. Google respects authority pages more than niche blogs with thousands of short pages of content. Therefore, creating some longer posts, even up to 3500 words, can be great for your audience and search engines.

Types of long posts:

* Case Studies – These by definition need to be long because you’re telling a story about something that is more in-depth. Case studies that are to short will not tell the whole story. People love knowing as much as they can about other people’s lives and stories.

* Annual Reports – If you have a large enough business that you can create an annual report, posting it for reading on your blog is an excellent way to put content that will interest your readers. They definitely want to know how you’re doing.

Neil Patel, founder of KISSmetrics, is a lover of long form blog posts and it works for him and many other bloggers. However, it’s important to stay on topic, not deviate and change subjects, and be able to actually write well enough to keep the interest of the reader.

All of these types of blog posts are important to have on your blog. If you have a mixture of the different lengths of blog posts, and more importantly ensure that each blog post has a reason for being on your website and is targeted and relevant, you’ll see good results from all three types of blog posts: short, medium and long.