August 1, 2008
For the Love of 2000 Words
I used to tell my coaching clients to ‘generate content on a regular basis‘ to build traffic and share their knowledge with others - but this spring one of my clients gave me a virtual blank stare and asked me to be more specific.
Just how much content should she be creating and how often is often enough to be considered ‘regular’?
This is what I love about my style of business coaching. I call it ‘client led’. That means that I do not come to coaching sessions with my own agenda - instead, I let my clients run the show. The questions they ask and the projects they want to tackle create our direction and keep things fresh.
In this case my client’s specific question challenged me to put a number on what is otherwise pretty fuzzy advice and to be honest, I’m surprised the question hasn’t come up before.
After some thought, I decided on a number: 2000
I told my client that I think she should generate a minimum of 2000 words per week to be making good progress in the area of content generation. I even challenged her to commit to writing 2000 words per week for the next ten weeks so that she could see what impact it would have on her business.
Having a number to shoot for gave her immediate focus and had an impact on her follow through. She wrote more in the following weeks than ever before. She’s about six weeks into her challenge and I can already see how it is effecting her website traffic in a good way.
So, I started to give other coaching clients that specific number to shoot for as well. The results so far has been quite good. Knowing that they need to reach 2000 keeps them on their toes and in most cases challenges them to write more than they were accustomed to.
Since Alice has given me this privilege of guest blogging here on Internet Marketing Sweetie blog, I plan to use the coming weeks to share ideas for how 2000 words can be ’spent’ to help you to buy the eyeballs (readers and subscribers) you need to build your business.
With that promise, let me challenge you- do you think you can write at least 2000 words a week for the next ten weeks? If yes, leave a comment and let me know that you’re in 
Free Marketing Course
YES Kelly, I can do it!
Kelly,
Wow, that seems like a lot to say:-)
I assessed where I currently am, and between my blog and articles, it’s between 500-1000. Are you counting emails sent out too?
Looks like I have to say a little more.
I’m committing to writing 2000 words too!
Hi Kelly,
I am totally in! Hold me to it everyone!
(having a “save my septic sale” right now at my website, by the way….visit www.joyfulmomma.org/bookstore2/zc/ and help me get some septic love…if there is such a thing LOL)
Sometimes setting a number limit causes writers block for me (or I become obsessed with constantly looking at the word count) but I’m willing to give it a try!
I’m definitely in! These are exactly the type of challenges I need. I’m the type of person that will take an assignment and do it, but if I’m left to my own devices, I rarely have the self-discipline to accomplish everything I set out to do.
This is a fun challenge. I accept and need someone to nudge me on twitter to keep me going. My twitter name is latarahamying. I am not trying to gain traffic. I just know I need to be accountable and meet the challenge.
Kelly, you always challenge people to stretch!
Excellent challenge Kelly and I’m totally in!
I love that you’ve put a number on it! So, that’s about 5 decent articles per week. Completely do-able
Well Kelly, this certainly is an interesting challenge. I will see what I come up with, within the next week, and that will tell me if I am up to it.
Thanks,
Teri
~
I am in. It is good to have something to work towards. I probably do more than that at the moment across all my blogs but I would like to try to concentrate that on one blog. Lets see how we go
This will be my new goal.
Great challenge! Let’s do this.
Oh, Kelly, you know me! I’m likely to do 2000 words in one post! LOL
Actually, that was the old me, before Kelly McCausey got a hold of me.
I think this is a great challenge - I’m up for it!
Thanks for calling me sweetie. That was sweet.
OK, 2000! I’ll be writting more than ever, but sounds like fun.
Great article, Kelly. Wish I wrote it myself.:)
Btw, I’m one of the guest bloggers here. Hopefully my articles can live up to the standard you just set.
Thanks Kelly!
I’ll certainly give this my best shot! Like Cassie, I work better with challenges like this to focus on.
It will be quite a big challenge for me, as I have FIVE blogs! The thought of having to write 10,000 words per week is a bit daunting. However, I reckon it’ll be worthwhile, as it’ll give me plenty of content for my website and my newsletters, as well as content for articles to submit to directories and to create e-books. The extra content will also be good for SEO.
When you look at the big picture, you’d be crazy not to give this challenge a go!!
Annette
I deffinately need to work on this area! I am so inconsistent when it comes to writing. I have articlephobia I think, LOL! Maybe it’s because I am an artist and I love pictures more than words
Like in books, there needs to be lots of cool pictures to keep my attention, ha ,ha! Anyway, maybe this challenge is what I need to kick me into gear. Thanks Kelly!
@Alice You better not be writing 2000 words a week for the next ten weeks
@Laurie Neumann I would include newsletters and autoresponders in this number but not individual client emails.
@Rose @Kimberly Welcome to the challenge!
@Christina Writer’s block stinks. I have a rule - I don’t write when I don’t have any good mojo going on for my topic. Fortunately, it doesn’t take long to find some mojo out there on the net
@cassie Accountability is powerful isn’t it?
@LaTara @Angela Good to have you on board!
@teri You can do it!
@A Maybus @dawntrenee @Stacey Hurray!
@Brenda
Yep, reaching 2000 is about quality - not quantity, amen?
@monica It will be fun!!
@jarod Howdy Fellow Sweetie Blogger!
@Annette I’m suggesting 2000 words to give one market effort a boost - I don’t know if I’d want to try to boost five sites at once - yikes!
@Kimberly I bet it is hard to think of things to write about when you’d rather draw it LOL!
Can do! I should probably get my pending project out of the way first, eh?
I can definitely meet this challenge. Seems like I’ve been bitten by the writing bug, because I am writing everyday:) I love it and of course love a challenge. Thanks Kelly:)
Well, this is perfect for me, since I`m taking your advice and scheduling myself as my own client . . . having a number to work to just makes sense. Count me in.
Ok good, I wasn’t sure if that 2000 words applied to every blog or if we should just focus on one. I have 4 blogs and a website and as much as I’d LOVE to be able to write 2000 words for each, I just don’t think I could do it without completely burning myself out.
I’m still loving what I do and I don’t want it to ever feel like a J-O-B!
With that being said, I think this will be one of the funnest challenges I’ve done yet.
Count me in. I need to do more of this: schedule yourself as your own client and I’m sure that this will help.
Kelly, you’re going to easy on Cassie.
Maybe not 2000 per blog, but at least 2000 per project. For example, I have two main projects/markets I’m working with right now….so I’ll do at least 2000 for each (but generally speaking, I do much more cuz it’s totally worth it).
Great to see so many people working on this. Keep us up-to-date!
Yes, I’d like to give it a try. 2000 seems like a lot in one week. LOL! I know that I need to write more for myself to get my name and website out there. So hopefully this is what I need to get that done. Thanks for the idea and the challenge Kelly.
What an incredible challenge. I dont write much but I do blog and have a few autoresponders. Kelly- will you be counting content that we outsource ?
Count me in as well. I haven’t been doing nearly enough writing for my main site. This challenge sounds like just the thing to get me back into the writing groove.
It is good to have a goal… So count me in.
I am in. I love to write, but need to be more focused. I am @neosoulsister on twitter. Feel free to give me a boot!
CeeCee
@Aurelia You sure can count what you outsource. Some folks do NO writing at all and outsource everything - they’re just as savvy!
@Susanne Welcome!
@meredith I know you’ll be keeping busy!
@CeeCee Welcome and boots will be forthcoming!
We’re (Crystal & I) in.
With all our blog writers I sure hope we’re hitting 2,000 words each week but, I’d like to see us stretch into newsletters & autoresponders, ebooks and the like.
Thanks for the challenge!
I’m done! My weekly content is scheduled for both major projects…and no, I don’t write all myself (guest posts and hired writers)…but for the Sweetie stuff, I have written about half of it.
Anyway, more than 2000 words for both is complete. In fact, I’ve completed scheduling content for the entire month of August for Schmoozins. August AND September are scheduled for Internet Marketing Sweetie. Of course, I have a reason (bun in the oven) to plan that far ahead, but when I put my mind to it, it wasn’t too difficult or terribly time-consuming.
Anyone else?
I LOVE this idea!
It’s almost like a writathon - tracking how many words we’ve written, having something to shoot for and making it feel really good when we hit it!
I’m going to make a graph chart so that I can do my next favourite thing, play with markers and give myself checkmarks every day :0)
LOL @ Jan, don’t get to into those markers and charts…you’ve got writing to do!
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