Blog Exercises: Post-Op Care Content

I recently had some minor surgery and received an extensive list of post-operative care instructions. I was amazed at the in depth detail they went into, so I asked about it. The practitioner told me that they spent a year collecting all the questions people had about each surgery and treatment and created a paper supplying all of the answers to the most commonly asked questions to save time.

“You created a FAQ!”

A FAQ is a list of Frequently Asked Questions with the answers.

Some sites require a FAQ Page if they offer services, products, or specific information visitors and readers may need. We’ll cover that later. However, let’s dig deeper into the concept of post-op care instructions as part of this blog exercise.

When you publish a post, do you consider the post-op care it might require?

Think about it.

In a month, year, or several years, will it need to be checked and updated? Will the content or its purpose have changed? What if it talks about your hunt for a job. Once you have the job, should you update the post? If it will need attention at a later date for any reason, make a note in your calendar to revisit the post and update it.

If you made a promise to cover a subject in a later post, have you? Is it on a to do list or your editorial calendar, scheduled and ready to go? I just made a commitment to add a blog exercise on creating a FAQ…and now it is on my to do list, not forgotten in the scuffle.

Was the response to a post worth of a follow-up? Did you learn more or get good feedback from your readers to make it worthy of a follow-up article? Maybe one response with a question or compelling comment is enough to inspire you to write more on the subject.

Did you cover enough of the topic or should you revisit the subject and add more in a new post for your follow-up? Did you answer all the questions?

Was the response worthy enough to start a series on the subject?

Our content may sometimes stand alone without help or additional information, but sometimes it requires some post-operative care to continue the conversation or expand upon it. One post can often inspire more, but you need to follow-thru on the post to see it through its life cycle.

Your blog exercise today is multi-fold.

Begin by checking your task list and editorial calendar for articles you added as follow-ups to previously published articles. Write and publish those or make a plan to do so in the near future.

If you do not have such a list, go through your articles in any order you wish and look for unfinished business or feedback that may compel new posts and information, expanding upon the topic.

Make your own FAQ list, the questions your readers may have about what you do and how you do it, and blog those one at a time.

Listen to the little self-nags we all have, topics we would like to cover, answers to questions readers often have concerning your subject matter, the left-undone blogworthy topics buzzing around in your brain. Have you answered them all? What is nagging you that is unfinished, unpublished?

Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.