If you’re a freelance writer, you know that if your clients are going to succeed in their content marketing strategy, repetition is key. Regular, engaging content is what’s going to bring readers to their websites, blogs and social media accounts over and over again, building loyalty, strengthening brand and generating sales leads. Produce—post—repeat.

It is an inspiring cycle, and one that all freelance writers love to be involved in. For the vast majority of us, there is a sense of pride in helping to deliver a successful content strategy (not to mention that the more we write, the more we earn). Why, then, do we overlook the fact that we as entrepreneurs are the same as the businesses we write for? We need the same loyalty, brand strength and lead generation.

Here’s the main reason why: we’re so busy writing awesome, engaging content for our clients that we have nothing left in the tank to draw on when it’s time to write our own. Maybe some of us are so busy writing content for clients that we don’t even have our own blog. Who has time for that?!

I wrote last month about how important branding is for freelance writers in a post titled Building an Authentic Brand as a Freelance Writer. In it, I said, “As a freelancer, working at your business is the content you write for clients. But working on your business is the content you write for your own blog, the time you spend cultivating your own website, and the effort you put into what you curate to share on your social media channels.” Having a blog as a freelance writer is crucial for building your brand. No matter how sick of writing you are at the end of the day, you need to find more in yourself to continue to create your own content, to strengthen your own brand.

Repetition is key

It’s an oft-used phrase, but it’s worth repeating (pun intended): repetition is key. In a recent Forbes Magazine post, social media entrepreneur and CEO of Ausonia Partners LLC Simonetta Lein gives her top four tips for powerful branding in 2021. Tip number three is “maintain a dedicated following.” Ms. Lein says, “Brand power retains followings… Repetition is key. It’s key for creating engaging content, adding always-new elements to your brand.”

As a freelance writer, you need to be writing for yourself as regularly as you write for your clients. You’re not being paid per article for anything you post on your site, true. But it is not productive to think about blogging for your own website this way. Instead, remember that you are creating content that will bring new clients to you, strengthen the loyalty of your already existing clients, and elevate your brand so that you are more attractive to your current and prospective client base.

You know this already, of course. After all, it’s what you do for other businesses.

Make the repetition easy on yourself

It’s easy to say that repetition is key, but it’s more difficult to do when you are repeating a process that you make a living off of. An independent retailer or service provider who spends all day in his or her shop has the opportunity to switch gears when creating content. But for a freelance writer, there is no such gear-switch. There is no letup. It’s straight from one article into another. It can be daunting, draining, and overwhelming.

But it doesn’t have to be. In order to achieve the kind of repetition you need to strengthen your brand and your online presence, here’s what you can do to manage your time effectively so that sitting down to write a blog post is not such a brick wall scenario.

Identify how frequently you are going to create content.

Give yourself a reasonable timeline for regular content. What can you handle—once a week? Bi-weekly? Monthly? Repetition is key, but it needs to be realistic.

Create a content calendar

Begin to plan out what you’re going to write about a few weeks at a time. Planning ahead makes the process of writing content easier when you know what you’re going to write about. Add ideas to your content calendar as they pop into your head, include links to articles you read which inspired your idea, and include the dates you plan to post on.

Break your content writing into chunks

Sitting down for an hour to hammer out a blog post may be something you have to do for a client, but it’s not a demand you need to put on yourself. Because you’ve set up a realistic timeline for regular content posting, you have the luxury of spreading out the work to create a post over several days—more, even. Doing a little bit at a time makes the prospect of completing regular posts more palatable, and you can pepper these little bits in and around your priority content: the paid pieces you write for your clients.

Yes, repetition is key when you’re blogging to build your brand, even if as a freelance writer it’s the last thing you want to do because you’ve spent all your productive time writing engaging content for others. But if remember why you are doing it, writing your own content becomes less of a chore—especially if you have a system in place that allows you to portion out what you do and when. At the end of the day, writing regular content for your own website is how you’re going to build a following, encourage loyalty, and engage new clients. So keep at it. Repetition is key.

Produce—post—repeat.