Whenever I talk to people about how to improve their websites, I almost always say they need to create more content.

Which normally gets a scared “deer in headlights” look and the comment of “I can’t do that, I’m not a writer”.

Here are 5 simple tips to get over that:

1. Don’t write

Just write an introductory paragraph – which can be just that, two or three sentences introducing a video or an audio.

The video below is maybe 25 words long.

Most of that is the headline.

Then the 5 tips are a few words each.

I “wrote” the slides in a few minutes and then switched on my screen recording software, pressed the record button and talked about each slide for around 2 minutes.

If I hadn’t done this lots of times before, I’d probably have written a few bullet points on each page to remind me what to talk about.

2. Chat with a friend

Almost everyone I’ve ever met is able to make conversation, even if it’s a bit shaky and nervous.

Talking with a friend is normally the easiest (although I freeze if someone just says “talk about something”) so do that.

Treat your readers and listeners as friends you haven’t met yet.

Chatting with a friend (but in public and on your website) is a great way to soft sell a product – you’ve got every reason to talk about the negatives as well as the positives in exactly the same way as you’d do in real life.

3. Comment on things

Pick on something as a hook – it could be the traffic on the school run, it could be what you cooked recently, it might be a television show that you shouted at.

Then weave that in to the main topic of your website.

Your personality will come through in this. Which will either attract or repel people – either reaction is fine and either of them is better than someone sitting on the fence and not caring either way.

You can’t please all the people all the time – that’s not possible and it’s not something you should be aiming for anyway. It’s far better to have a small but fiercely loyal group of followers rather than an amorphous mass of people who really don’t give a hoot either way.

4. Use other people’s writing

Obviously with their permission!

This works better for email campaigns than the web – a lot of affiliate products will have email swipe files that you can use.

Ideally, take the time to re-word the emails. Even if it’s just turning words that they’ve written in capitals back to regular case and swapping double hyphens for single ones.

But ideally you should read their words out loud and tweak anything that doesn’t quite sound right.

This will help to engage the people who’ve signed up to your list as a result of getting content from your site and will help keep everything in line.

5. Just do it

Yes.

Doing things is far and away the best solution!

Your first efforts won’t necessarily be fantastic – nor was the first plane or car or light bulb – but you’ll get better over time.

This applies to almost any industry – it’s not something that is just for the internet – and before long, you’ll be an order of magnitude better than you ever thought possible.

Make a commitment to yourself to create new content for your website every single day for the next 2 months.

Even if it’s just a short one or two minute video.

Then you’ll be a writer, even if you still don’t think you are, because you’ll have to put at least a few words onto each page to introduce the video.

Try it and report back in the comments below how you’ve got on!

And you can get help writing content here and help creating videos here.