The post 18 Lessons I’ve Learned about Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

In November 2002 I first heard the word blog after a mate e-mailed me a link and said I should consider starting one. Within 24 hours I’d created my first blog (a blogspot blog that doesn’t exist today). Since that time I’ve run 20+ blogs (most have survived, some have not) and I’ve also transitioned from hobby blogger to part time blogger to full time blogger.

Along the way have been many challenges, milestones and celebrations so today I thought I’d do some reflection and create a list of things I wish someone had sat me down and told me in the early days.

Here’s my top 18 lessons learned in my 20+ years of blogging. Write your own ‘lessons’ list and let us know about it in comments below. If you enjoy this list you might also like to subscribe to my newsletter to keep up to date on more posts like this on blogging.

1. Be Lucky

I’m increasingly becoming aware that despite the many hours of hard work that I’ve put into building up my business that many others work just as hard and are much more talented than I am but do not enjoy the success that I’ve been fortunate to have. While I don’t believe that luck is the main ingredient in my own story I am convinced that in combination with some of the other things I’ll talk about below it has been of real importance.

The luck I’ve had along the way has included just happening to bump into the right people at the right time (on many occasions), discovering ad systems that just happened to work well on my blogs, starting successful blogs quite by accident, getting links from bigger blogs that led to a snowball effect of incoming links from elsewhere through to choosing the right partners for different projects. I could write many thousands of words on the luck I’ve had but I’ll not bore you with the details except to say that I’ve been a lucky boy.

The key I’ve found with luck is to run with it and to make every lucky instance last as long as possible. So when you strike it lucky enjoy it but also ask yourself ‘how can I capitalise on my good fortune?’

2. Work Hard

Of course the saying that goes ‘you make your own luck’ has some truth to it. Gary Player once said – “The harder I practice, the luckier I get”

I’m a strong believer that to be successful you need to be willing to work hard. While there are plenty of people selling ‘easy money’ on the web I’m yet to find a method of money making that doesn’t have at least some element of work to it.

Success in many areas of life comes out of discipline and hard work. Getting your body in shape, having good relationships, succeeding at study etc all take some level of commitment and work. Work alone is definitely NOT everything (I’ve seen many hard working bloggers who have not had success) but it is one element that I think is essential.

If you want to get to places you’ve never been before you need to be willing to do things you’ve never done before. This sometimes means leaving one’s comfort zone and knuckling down for some hard work.

3. Use the Power of Exponential Growth

I’m not sure that that heading is the right words to describe this but I can’t think of any others that begin to describe the way in which blogging has the ability to snowball. Perhaps it’s a ‘Tipping Point’ thing but as I look at the last three years in terms of blog traffic, earnings, profile and opportunities I see that the first 18 months were very very slow. Growth was definitely there from month to month but because the numbers were so small it didn’t really feel like I was going anywhere.

The wonderful thing about exponential growth is that if you stick at it for the long term it’s a very powerful force. I look over at the poll I’m running this month and see that 27% of bloggers who responded are making $10 or less a month from Adsense and I know it sounds so little.

In reality it’s not that much but it’s more than I was making 2 years ago from blogging.

Here’s a calculation that I kept in my mind in the early days.

If that $10 a month increases by 20% every month in a year you’ll be earning $89.16 per month at the end of the year. Of course that sounds small for a year’s work and I’m sure many bloggers would give up at that point but lets take it further.

If earnings continued to rise by 20% per month for another 12 months and you begin to see the power of exponential growth with a figure of $794.96 per month. Do it for another year and the figure is $7088.01 per month.

Do those figures with the figure of 30% growth per month and the figure after 12 months is $232.98 per month, after two years its $5428.00 and after three years it’s $126,462 per month! You get the picture. Now I don’t want to promise you 30% growth per month for three years straight but as I’ve written before, the power of exponential growth in conjunction with hard work and luck is possible – it’s my story. I see each post I write as an investment in the future and something that has the potential to earn money for me not just today but over the long term.

4. Differentiate Yourself

Part of the ‘Luck’ I’ve had is that I started blogging three years ago and not three weeks ago.

The Blogosphere has changed in many ways – some for the better (the technology and tools these days are much more advanced) and some for the worse. The downside of starting out now is that for every topic there seems to be many blogs already – the web is becoming more and more congested as people discover personal publishing. It’s also become a more competitive business on some levels and in some segments some of the co-operative spirit of blogging has begun to fade as people build their empires.

All of this means that if you want to build a blog that is a runaway success you need to consider how your blog will differentiate itself from all the others out there. While not every blog needs to reach ‘runaway success’ status for you to make a living from blogging (20 reasonably successful blogs can do just as well as 1 amazing one) even lower level blogs need to find ways to stand out from the crowd.

5. Provide Value

This almost goes without saying but I’ll say it none the less. A key question every blogger should ask when starting out is around the idea of what value their blog will give readers. As I look at the year ahead I’ve been asking this question about some of my own blogs. It’s easy to go a bit stale and so reviewing the value that you’re adding is an important part of keeping things fresh.

Value can be about many things including entertainment, education, community, information, companionship etc Without it you’re not likely to get people returning to your blog, linking to it or participating in it over time.

6. Target a Niche

I remember after about 6 months of blogging having a discussion with my readers (I only had the one blog at the time) about whether I should continue to write a blog that was very general in topic or whether I should start a few new ones. I took a poll and they were pretty split over what I should do. I wish at that point I’d started new blogs but out of fear of losing a few readers I decided to plough on with a blog that covered incredibly diverse topics and that increasingly frustrated more and more readers who shared one interest with me but who were not interested in the other things I was writing about.

Moving to a niche approach where I developed blogs around more tightly focussed topics was where my blogging went to another gear and it was probably one of the most defining moments in my business.

Read more about the benefits of niche blogging.

7. Diversify

This connects with my niche blogging point well but goes beyond just having multiple blogs on different niches. It’s really about taking the age old advice of not putting all your eggs in one basket.

While there is some real sense in focussing all your energy on one excellent blog there is some risk involved in this approach.

So much of blogging is out of the blogger’s control and there are numerous problems that could lead to a one blog strategy ending in disaster (these include search engine re-indexing, hacking, loss of data, character assassination, competition, the topic becoming obsolete etc). All good financial planners would advise not to invest in one type of investment but to spread the risk – I’d advise the same with blogging.

Diversification is not just about starting numerous blogs. It’s also about exploring a variety of income streams. i.e. if all your income is from AdSense it might be worth looking at other ad systems, affiliate programs, consulting work etc.

8. Don’t Spread Yourself too Thin

Of course take my points on hard work, niches and diversification to the extreme and a danger is developing so many blogs that none end up being remarkable enough to develop a readership and profile.

Balance is important so diversify to the point where it won’t decrease the value that you want to offer readers. This will vary from blogger to blogger depending upon many factors including available time, interests, personality, topic chosen etc. For some of you it will mean two blogs, for others it will mean 20 or more.

9. Have a Backup Plan

I’ve written on numerous occasions about the e-mails I regularly get from people telling me that they are quitting their job to become a full time blogger without much thought to how they’ll pay their bills in the year or three that it might take to build up their blogging to pay a reasonable wage.

The moral of the story is that it does take time and in the mean time you need a back up plan and some sort of way to help you transition into your blogging business. Very few bloggers are able to go full time quickly – you might need another job (I had numerous other jobs for over 2 years) or some other form of income to keep you going for a couple of years. In fact the fact is that some bloggers work their butts off for a couple of years and still don’t have anything to show for it at the end. So be responsible and see ProBlogging as having amazing potential but as being something that has no guarantees.

I strongly recommend having a backup income while you transition into blogging and to have in the back of your mind a backup plan for if things go wrong. I’ve been developing a number of other skills and interests over the past year simply because I don’t know how long blogging will last as a full time income. While I hope and expect it will continue to work out for me I know I have a few different options at hand to down the track if it all goes pear shaped.

10. Be Light on Your Feet

One of the things I love about being a solo-entrepreneur is that I have a business that is flexible enough to take opportunities very quickly as they come up. When a wave of luck kicks in after all your hard work you need to be able to position yourself to surf the wave. If you’re too cautious or have a model that is too rigid you might just miss the opportunities as they pass by.

I’ve been caught napping a number of times in this way but have also had a couple of times where I’ve taken the opportunities and reaped the benefits. Of course I’m not saying one should throw caution out the window, but try to build something that has checks and balances that isn’t going to strangle the life giving opportunities that might come your way.

11. Relationships are Key

I was attracted to Blogging in the first place partly because of the way in which it enabled me (a shy guy) to connect with others interested in similar things to me. From the very beginning I enjoyed the relational nature of blogging but also the way in which it allowed me to retreat into my introversion from time to time.

As I look at the things that have been most successful for me in my blogging most of them have had the key ingredient of another person (or more than one) to either help me or partner with me. Most recent is my partnerships with Andy with six figure blogging and Jeremy, Duncan and Shai with b5media but the relationships go back much further than that and are many and varied. I try to put time aside every day to seek out and build relationship with key bloggers that I’d like to work with in some ways – it’s amazing how these connections pay off in many unexpected ways.

12. Establish Boundaries

One of the first blog tips that I ever wrote was on setting boundaries for your blogging. The post itself was pretty naively written at the time – as I reflect upon it I’m not sure I really knew what I was talking about – it was a nice theory at the time. In more recent times I’ve come to see that the point of those I was quoting in the post was incredibly valid and wise.

Boundaries are very important on a number of levels.

Firstly they are important on a security level and for your own well-being. I know this personally from recent events. Writing in the public domain can have it’s own risks associated with it. Work out ahead of time what information you will and won’t reveal about yourself, your personal details and those of your family and stick to those boundaries.

Secondly it’s also wise on a readership and niche definition level. Go changing what you will and won’t write about in terms of topics too often and you run the risk of disillusioning your readership. While variety in topic and voice can add spice to your blog you also will want some consistency in your approach.

13. Don’t Read Your Own Press

I recently saw an interview with Elizabeth Taylor who was asked if she read much of what people write about her in the media. Here answer was no – she didn’t listen to or ready anything any written or said about her good or bad. Her explanation as to why was (paraphrased)

‘If you listen to the good things people say about you you might just start believing them. If you listen to the bad things people say about you you might just start believing them’

While I wouldn’t go quite as far as Elizabeth Taylor in saying don’t read anything written about you (after all conversation and engagement with others is what blogging is built around) I would encourage bloggers to hold lightly to the opinion of others about you.

It’s easy to become big headed when people rave about how great you and your blogs are to the point where you end up being a complete jerk and think you’re the messiah but on the flip side it’s also easy to become disillusioned and depressed when they rant about and attack you. Part of the skill of being a good blogger that comes over time is that ability to know when to take on board what others are saying about you and when to leave it. It is important to listen to the praise and critiques of others but try to keep them in perspective or it could lead to your downfall.

14. Beware of Hype

Controversy, Sensationalism, Big Claims and Rants are all very useful tools available to bloggers. Many a new blog has found itself in the spotlight (either by design or accident) after a post where the blogger created a stir with one (or more) of these elements.

I don’t have an issue with using these types of posts myself from time to time but I would advise that it’s very difficult to sustain a blog built solely upon these elements. Blog readers are a fairly fickle bunch and will come read your post that generates a stir but unless they find something of genuine value in your blog over time they’ll probably not hang around too long.

By all means use these tactics to get your attention (but have thick skin because creating a stir can cause a backlash) but you’ll want your blog to have something else going for it to make a lasting impression.

Also keep in mind the story of the ‘boy who cried wolf’. Hyped posts might work once or even twice, but they tend to lose their impact over time unless you work hard to make them fresh.

15. Get a Life

I remember someone once telling me that ‘no one ever gets to their death bed and wishes that they’d spent more time at work’. I remember nodding and making affirming noises. You see at the time I was a lazy slob, didn’t enjoy hard work and never spent much time doing any.

Of course these days I actually DO enjoy my work and the temptation is to spend a lot of time doing it. I love blogging for it’s creativity, relationships as well as the good pay packet that enables me to do things for others and I could quite easily spend a lot more time doing it. As a result I spend considerable time working at my business.

But I’ve also learned that unless I take time off the rest of life tends to fall apart at the seams. Not only that but the quality of work I produce suffers after 16 hours in front of the computer and improves drastically when I sleep more than 5 hours and interact with real people or get into one of my hobbies (go figure). While I love it, blogging will still be there tomorrow and I have a much more balanced approach to it than I once did.

16. Make Mistakes

It doesn’t feel that good when you stuff up or make a mistake but as I look back on the last year or so it’s the times when I’ve blundered that opportunities have often flowed. The key is to learn from the mistake, to make the most of what follows and to see it as an opportunity to improve what you do and make the most of any publicity that comes out of it.

Elbert Hubbard got it write when he wrote – ‘The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.’

Learn to see mistakes as opportunities.

17. Be Yourself

One of the temptations of starting a blog is to spend more time trying to emulate other bloggers than establishing your own voice and style. While there are a lot of lessons to be learned from other blogs there is a lot to be said for developing a strong blogging identity of your own.

There are a number of reasons for this that come to mind:

1. Transparency – readers are an insightful bunch and will quickly find you out if you’re not being genuine
2. Sustainability – it’s difficult to sustain writing in a voice and personality that is not your own. Be yourself and you’ll last a lot longer.
3. Consistency – regular readers of a blog overtime take on a sense of ownership of a blog. When you chop and change your writing to emulate and please others you’ll end up disillusioning the people who make your blog what it is (your readers). Be yourself and you’re more likely to be consistent (I’m not suggesting be monotonous – you can still be creative and surprising – just do it in your own style and you’ll be right).

18. There are No Rules

Lists like these always finish with a point like this that says ignore all of the above – but that’s not the point of this point (can you have a point of a point?).

All of the above is essential stuff (for me) but the thing I love about blogging is that it’s such a new and emerging technology that there are very few things that you can’t do or shouldn’t try.

Push the boundaries, experiment with the model you’ve got, try new tools and techniques and have a blast doing it. The worst thing you can do really is make a mistake – and we all know that they rock!

What Lessons have your Learnt in Blogging? Write your own list and leave a comment below telling us about it.

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Maintaining Momentum in Blogging Series

Have you ever found yourself staring at your blog, wondering what on earth to write about next?

You might think you’ve explored every angle of your topic, leaving no stone unturned. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

Many bloggers encounter this challenge, especially after the initial excitement fades, usually between 6 to 12 months into their blogging journey. This feeling of having “said it all” can be discouraging, but it’s far from the end of the road.

The Myth of Exhausted Topics:

The feeling that you’ve covered every topic under the sun is a common misconception among bloggers. Rather than viewing your blog archives as a completed checklist, I encourage you to see them as a goldmine of untapped potential. Your past posts are not just remnants of your blogging journey; they’re stepping stones to deeper, more enriched content. Here’s why:

1. Depth Over Breadth: Topics, especially in dynamic fields like blogging, are never truly “done.” Just as you grow and evolve, so do your topics and your niche. What was relevant a year ago may have new implications today, and your understanding of certain concepts has likely deepened. This evolution is a perfect opportunity to revisit old subjects with fresh eyes and new insights.
2. New Readers, Fresh Perspectives: Your audience is continually changing, with new readers discovering your blog every day. These new followers haven’t journeyed through your archives; to them, your older content is brand new. Revisiting past topics can introduce your newer audience to valuable insights they’ve missed, while also giving you the chance to update and refine your earlier views.

As a result of these two factors you should see your archives of old posts not only as a collection of your previous thoughts but as a springboard for new ones.

I regularly scan through old posts for ideas for future ones. I particularly look for posts that I either disagree with (due to a change of perspective) or posts that I think I could go deeper with. Sometimes I link back to my old posts to show the progression of thinking but on many occasions I simply write them as standalone new content.

I often talk about how blogging is conversational in the way it lends itself to interactions between blogger and readers (as well as between bloggers). Here’s 3 Simple Ways to Make Your Blog Posts More Conversational.

Strategies for Leveraging Your Archives:

Turning your archives into a source of inspiration can transform the way you approach content creation. Here are some practical strategies to get you started:

• Audit Your Archives: Dive into your past posts and identify which topics could be updated, expanded upon, or even challenged. Look for posts that once sparked lively discussions or those that continue to draw attention. These are perfect candidates for a follow-up.
• Disagree With Your Past Self: As you evolve, so do your opinions and strategies. If you find posts that no longer align with your current views, write a rebuttal. This not only demonstrates your growth but also encourages readers to engage in the evolving conversation.
• Deep Dive Into Complex Topics: Some subjects can’t be fully covered in a single post. Identify previous topics that could benefit from a more detailed exploration. Breaking down complex ideas into multiple posts or series can provide tremendous value to your readers.
• Introduce New Formats: Revisiting a topic doesn’t mean you have to stick to the same format. If your initial post was text-heavy, consider creating an infographic, video, or podcast episode to explore the subject from a different angle.
• Encourage Reader Participation: Invite your audience to suggest topics they’d like to see revisited or expanded upon. This not only gives you direct insight into what your readers find valuable but also fosters a sense of community and engagement.

Here’s more about looking after and updating your archives.

Feeling like you’ve covered every possible topic in your niche is a sign that it’s time to revisit your archives, not a signal to give up. By viewing your past content as a foundation for growth and development, you can continue to produce engaging, relevant, and valuable posts for your audience. Remember, the key to maintaining blogging momentum is not always about finding something new to say but finding new ways to say it.

When you treat your archives as a living part of your blog that can be revisited over time you actually take the conversation into a new realm – talking to yourself. While ‘talking to yourself’ might sound a little strange (my mum always said it was the first sign of madness) I think its actually one of the first signs of a maturing blogger who is taking their blog to a new level by refining their thoughts on a topic. It’s through this refining process that real wisdom and expertise surfaces.

Without revisiting your previous thoughts or ideas you run the risk of becoming stagnant and limit your own growth in your chosen field.

Action Plan:

Start today by taking a leisurely stroll through your blog’s archives. What hidden gems can you find? How can your past self inspire your future content? Let the journey of rediscovery fuel your next great post.

• What do you see there that is out of date?
• What old posts do you disagree with?
• Where could you go deeper?
• What older posts might your newer readers have never seen?

If you’re still struggling, one of my favorite techniques in business for organising my thoughts, helping me to review, plan and organise my business and to think creatively and generate loads of ideas is to use mind mapping – listen to this podcast episode to hear how I do it.

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Maintaining Momentum in Blogging Series

Blogging thrives on conversation. It’s not just about broadcasting your ideas; it’s about sparking dialogue and engaging with your community.

One of the most vibrant places for these interactions is often overlooked—the comment section.

As we continue “maintaining momentum” on your blog, let’s explore a strategy that places your readers at the heart of your content creation: leveraging their comments to guide your blogging journey.

I’ve always believed that the comments, questions, and shared experiences from you, the readers, are a goldmine of inspiration. Every comment left on ProBlogger is a potential catalyst for a new post. I read each comment that is left and attempt to respond wherever possible within comment threads. However, the nature of blogging means that conversations can quickly fade as new posts emerge. Although tools like ‘recent comments’ widgets and ‘comment subscription’ plugins can prolong the discussion, they only offer a temporary fix.

The real magic happens when I elevate a reader’s comment to the spotlight of a new blog post. This does more than just acknowledge a reader; it invites the entire community to dive deeper into the conversation, fostering a sense of ownership and belonging on your blog.

Creating Momentum through Engagement

This approach serves a dual purpose:

1. It provides fresh content ideas. Running out of topics? Your comment section is brimming with inspiration for your next post. In fact, one of my favourite content production techniques is to turn a blog post upside down to get more comments.
2. It revitalizes the conversation. Instead of letting discussions dwindle, highlighting a comment can reignite the exchange and take it to new heights. I did this in a recent post Content Creation vs Content Promotion: Where is the Balance?

Ways to Amplify Reader Comments

• Link to the Discussion: Kickstart a new post by pointing your readers to an engaging conversation happening in the comments of a previous post. Check out this post as an example of this method.
• Spotlight a Comment: Select a notable comment and feature it in a new post, ensuring to link back to the original discussion and credit the commenter. My motto is “Make Your Reader’s Famous” (see point 7 of this article)
• Write a Follow-Up Post: Combine the above tactics with your reflections. Some comment threads have the power to change your perspective or introduce you to new ideas. By acknowledging these shifts openly, you demonstrate the value you place on your readers’ insights.

Using reader comments in your posts isn’t just a token gesture of appreciation. It shows how much you value your community. This approach not only makes the conversation on your blog better but also builds a strong sense of mutual respect and collaboration.

In reality, this strategy has helped ProBlogger keep moving and even gain more momentum. It reminds us that real connections are key to a successful blog.

So, I encourage you to see your comment section as more than just feedback. Think of it as a place where growth, inspiration, and closer connections with your readers can happen. Remember, the real power of your blog doesn’t just come from the content you make but also from the discussions it starts and keeps going.

Further Reading

Get More Comments: Write Unfinished Blog Posts

10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog

7 Questions to Ask On Your Blog to Get More Reader Engagement

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The post Strategies to Maintain Blogging Momentum Through Life’s Ups and Downs appeared first on ProBlogger.

This week at ProBlogger, we’re diving deep into a topic close to every blogger’s heart: how to keep the momentum going, no matter what life throws your way. Whether you’re just starting out or you’re a seasoned pro, maintaining your blog’s momentum is key to its success.

Last week, we talked about the initial planning stages of a blog that will help to create a sustainable blog for the long term. But let’s be real, most of you reading this already have your blogs up and running. So, today, we’re shifting gears to focus on how to keep that blog thriving, especially through the unpredictable waves of life that might often bring blogging to a halt (many of which I covered here).

Planning for Life’s Big Moments

What ‘life events’ do you have coming up that could potentially break the momentum of your blog?

Life’s big events—be it a joyous occasion like a wedding or the arrival of a new family member, or the exciting transition of taking a holiday or starting a new job—can throw a wrench in your blogging routine. The key here is anticipation and planning. Ask yourself: What big events do I have on the horizon? How can they impact my blogging schedule, and what steps can I take now to prepare?

With some forward thinking the impact of such events can be minimised (and even alleviated). Options for handling these planned interruptions range widely.

You might consider:

• Scheduling posts in advance
• Recruiting guest bloggers
• Or even taking a short hiatus

These strategies are all legitimate – but it’s important to know what you’ll do, to communicate this to your readers and to especially think about how you’ll reengage with your blogging after the event (more on this shortly).

Dealing with the Unexpected

What would I do if some unexpected life event made it difficult or impossible to blog?

Then there are those life events we can’t plan for—illness, loss, emergencies. While we can’t predict these, we can think ahead about how we’d handle our blogging commitments during such times. Who could you call on to help keep your blog running? Do you have a contingency plan, like a set of evergreen posts ready to publish, or a way to let your readers know you’re taking a break?

I don’t have specific contingency plans for my blogs for these events but have given it some thought. I do know that on my main blogs there are other bloggers that I could approach to take on some of the load (voluntarily or paid) in an emergency. I also have a couple of people who have administrative rights to my blogs in case of an emergency (sort of like giving a friend a key to your house in case you lock yourself out).

For some the contingency plan might simply be a post telling readers that there will be no blogging for the next period of time due to whatever reason you might have. For others it might mean involving others in a blog, having some backup posts ready to go, having a series of questions for bloggers to discuss on your topic, a lighter blogging frequency etc.

Reengaging After a Break

How will you reengage with your blog after a period away from it?

Taking a break from blogging is important. I try to do this both on a micro level (breaks throughout the day and days off each week) but also on a macro level (extended breaks/vacations).

I’m pretty good at taking extended breaks – but find it difficult to get back into the rhythm of blogging when I return.

Here’s how I tackle it:

• Ease back into it – don’t expect to jump back in at full speed. Give yourself time to catch up on comments, emails, and your reading list.
• Plan for a buffer – extend your break by a day or two on either end to give yourself time to catch up. This isn’t just about extending the holiday but about managing the workload waiting for you.
• Set a deadline – announce your return in advance to create accountability for yourself.
• Start slow – gradually ramp up your posting frequency. Let your readers know you’re getting back into the swing of things and might need a bit of time to return to your normal schedule.

Sometimes a break also offers the chance to recalibrate and change how you work. You might want to consider how to make your blogging life easier.

Next, we’ll explore practical tips to help you maintain your blog’s momentum. Stay tuned!

But for now, remember: blogging is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s about pacing yourself, planning for the highs and lows, and knowing that it’s okay to take a step back when life demands it. You’ve got this.

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The post 3 Factors to Consider Before Starting a Blog – Maintaining Blogging Momentum appeared first on ProBlogger.

Image created in Canva

Originally posted by Darren Rowse, Updated for 2024

Starting a blog is an adventure—a journey I’ve embarked on more times than I can count. And along the way, I’ve learned a thing or two about what it takes to keep that momentum going. Today, I want to share some updated insights on maintaining your blogging momentum, reflecting on today’s digital landscape and planning for success from the get-go. If you already have a blog, reading this article might help you refocus or unlock the solution to a problem that has been standing in the way of your success.

1. Choosing Your Topic Wisely

The breadth of your topic can make or break your blog. Too broad, and you’ll be overwhelmed. Too narrow, and you might quickly run out of steam. Here’s how to find that sweet spot:

• Modern Research Tools: Beyond Google News, tools like Ahrefs, BuzzSumo, Google Trends and Answer the Public can offer a wealth of insight into what’s trending in your niche. Use these to gauge the pulse of your potential topic.
• Real-world Success Stories: Let’s learn from blogs that have nailed their niche. For instance, look at how “Minimalist Baker” thrives by focusing on simple, delicious recipes requiring 10 ingredients or less, one bowl, or 30 minutes or less to prepare.

A practical exercise that I encourage you to do is to simply brainstorm what posts you could write on the topic. Simply put down on paper as long a list of post titles as you can as quickly as possible. If after 10 minutes you only have a handful of potential post ideas you might want to either widen your topic or find another one. To get your imagination going, you could start with a mind map.

2. Fueling Your Passion

Does the topic excite you? Are you motivated enough to write about it for the long term?

The energy you bring to your blog is its heartbeat. Without genuine interest and passion, your blog might not withstand the test of time.

Ask yourself what your passion and energy levels are for the topic you’re considering blogging about. Be brutally honest about this because as I found, we can sometimes fool ourselves into thinking we are interested in a topic when we are not.

Here are a few questions you might like to ask:

• Can you honestly see yourself writing on the topic in 2 or more years time?
• Is the topic one that you’re proud to be covering?
• Do you want to be known as an expert on this topic?

I’m not saying that you can’t start blogs on topics that you don’t want to be known for or that you’re not interested in – but these questions will help you to work out what your motivations are which is an important step in the process of building a sustainable blog.

If you’re not interested in your topic your potential readers will sense this and the chances of success will fall.

Successful blogs are almost always long term efforts and most do not really begin to see significant ‘success’ for 12 or more months. They take a significant investment of time and energy and I guess all I’m saying is that it’s worth considering if the topic is something that you want to invest your life into for such a significant amount of time.

Here’s what to consider:

• Align With Your Personal Brand: Ensure your blog reflects what you’re passionate about and how you want to be perceived professionally. It’s not just a blog; it’s a part of your identity.
• Community and Engagement: Joining blogging communities and participating in online forums can reignite your passion and provide fresh perspectives. Platforms like Reddit or LinkedIn groups are gold mines for such interactions.
• Balancing Blogging and Life: Remember, your well-being is paramount. Embrace tools and practices that support a healthy balance, ensuring your blogging journey is sustainable and enjoyable.

I’ve written more extensively about “Finding Your Spark” on my own personal blog. In that article I identify four places to look first for inspiration.

3. Realistic Time Management

How much time do you have? Do you have time for this blog?

Every blog demands time, but how much can you afford? Here’s how to ensure you’re not biting off more than you can chew:

• Leverage Time-saving Tools: With Trello, Asana, or Notion, you can streamline your blogging process, from brainstorming ideas to scheduling posts.
• Automate Where Possible: Use tools like Buffer or SEMrush to automate social media posting and SEO tasks, freeing up more time for writing and engaging with your audience.
• Quality Over Quantity: It’s tempting to run multiple blogs or post daily, but focusing on creating high-quality, impactful content will serve you (and your readers) better in the long run.

Wrapping Up

As we look ahead, remember that blogging is a marathon, not a sprint. Embrace the journey, stay adaptable, and never stop learning. Whether you’re refining an existing blog or starting a new one, these considerations will help you build a solid foundation for success.

Stay tuned for our next post, where we’ll dive into strategies for sustaining momentum once your blog is off the ground. Happy blogging!

The post 3 Factors to Consider Before Starting a Blog – Maintaining Blogging Momentum appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Mastering the Art of Listening: A Blogger’s Guide to Success appeared first on ProBlogger.

Once upon a time, I shared a set of slides from a presentation which outlines a variety of lessons that I’ve learned as a blogger. Over the coming months I intend to expand upon many of the points in that presentation – starting today with ‘Listening’.

When I began blogging in 2002 I made a lot of mistakes and had a lot of false assumptions about blogging. One of the things I quickly found out didn’t work when trying to grow a blog was to use it purely as a broadcast tool.

In the first few weeks of blogging it was almost as though I was using the blog as a platform or a stage where I stood with a megaphone in hand blasting out my message for anyone who might happen to be passing by to hear. It’s no wonder that only my wife read my blog that first week (and even she never really came back).

Nobody likes a loud mouth. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of someone talking AT them.

The people we tend to be drawn to in real life are people who pause in conversation to let you have a say, people who ask questions about you, people who have a genuine interest in what you’ve got to say.

The same is true (in most cases) when it comes to blogging.

Of course there are cases where blogs are successfully used as broadcast tools with little interaction between blogger and reader – however in most cases there is at least some element of ‘listening’ going on by the blogger. Let me explore a few ways that a blogger should consider ‘listening’:

Listen to the culture of the blogosphere

This is one for those yet to start blogging (and it should also be applied to those getting into new social media tools like Twitter, Facebook etc).

I was chatting with a new blogger recently who described her first week of blogging as being similar to travelling to a new country and having to adjust to a new language, climate, etiquette and customs as an outsider.

When travelling overseas for an extended stay (perhaps for a new job) most travellers know that one of their first tasks as a new resident is to make some cultural adjustments.

• learning some basic words in the local language
• finding a local who can talk them through the etiquette
• getting a map so that they can find their way around
• learning to use systems like public transport…. etc

In a similar way – when you’re new to the blogosphere (or any new part of the social media-sphere) it’s important to pause, take stock, learn about the culture, learn to use the tools, discover what is acceptable (and not acceptable), learn the rhythms etc

The danger in not learning the culture of the blogosphere is doing something that not only doesn’t work but that offends ‘the locals’ and hurts your reputation.

Listen for where your potential readers are gathering

One of the key tasks that any new blogger who wants to grow their readership should do is identify where their potential readers are already gathering online.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks back – it’s not enough just to build a good blog with great content in order to find readers for your blog. If you want people to know about your blog you need to ‘get out there’ and interact with them and develop a presence in the places that your potential readers are already gathering.

Of course before you can find these places you need to have an understanding of who you’re trying to attract – so do a little work on defining who you want to read your blog and then begin to look for where that type of person is already gathering (I talk more about how I did this in this recent video on how I use promote my blog).

Listen to what others in your niche are saying

One of the most powerful things that I did which helped take my early blogs to the next level was to begin to monitor what others in my niche/industry were talking about.

I discovered the power of this accidentally one day when I just happened to be surfing on another small blog that broke news of a big story. I picked up the story on my own blog (linking to the first) and then my post got picked up by a massive blog which drew in a lot of new readers. Knowing what was happening in the niche helped to break stories but also build relationships with other bloggers in the niche.

Back then the tools for monitoring other blogs and topics were primitive and meant some manual hunting around (I remember in the very early days having to manually bookmark the blogs I wanted to track and visit them each every day to see if they’d posted anything new) but these days it is a lot easier to set up and automate.

My own monitoring of my niches generally happens in two ways:

1. Subscribing to Feeds of Key Sources of Information – these days most sites have some way of subscribing to them, usually via an RSS feed. I have a folder in my feed reader for each of my main topics which contains a number of key blogs and news sites in that niche. I used to follow close to a thousand blogs to do this – but these days have refined the list to much less for each topic.
2. 2. Keyword Alerts – using Google’s news and blog alerts I have a number of alerts set up so that if any news site or blog uses a keyword that I’m interested in I know about it. Choosing keywords that are specific enough can take a little time (some words just generate too many alerts) but on almost a daily basis these alerts identify important posts in my niches.
3. Recommendation Sites – the other listening tool that I use to help me know what’s going on in my niches is to subscribe to sites that are in the business of looking for popular content in my niches. These sites can be a little hard to find depending upon your niche but because I’m largely working in the Tech space there are a few including TechMeme and Delicious. TechMeme looks at what content key blogs are linking to in the tech space and Delicious is a bookmarking site that produces a list of popular content being bookmarked at any point in time (it’s not purely tech related but does consistently produce good results for me). Both of these sites have RSS feeds you can subscribe to to monitor what’s hot.
4. Twitter/X – I also find that being active on Twitter and developing a Twitter account that has a niche focus can also help you listen to what people are saying about your niche. This partly happens naturally (those you follow in your niche will share links) but there are also great tools including Tweetmeme (which shows you what is being retweeted in different categories) and other monitoring/search tools such as Twitter search (you can set up an RSS feed for different search terms) and tools built into Twitter clients (like TweetDeck which allows you to set up a column specifically for alerts). More and more useful tools are being set up for Twitter to help monitor what people are saying about your industry.

Listen to what is being said about you

The other use for some of the tools mentioned above (keyword alerts and the Twitter keyword monitoring) is that you can use them to alert you when someone is talking about you, your business, your blog or your brand specifically.

I’ve talked previously about setting up a vanity folder in your feed reader to help you do this so won’t go into great detail about it here – however it’s something that I’ve found particularly useful for a couple of reasons:

1. Building Relationships – when another blogger links to you it is useful to know about it so you can go and build a relationship with that blogger and their readers.
2. Reputation Management – from time to time you might also be mentioned on another site/blog/press in a more negative way. Knowing quickly about this is also important as it enables you to respond (if necessarily) or at least monitor developments.

Create Listening Spaces on Your Blog

Have you ever had a ‘conversation’ with someone where you simply could not get a word in edgeways? The person talked so fast and without taking a breath – to the point where there simply wasn’t space for you to be listened to.

Sometimes I get that same feeling while on blogs. It’s not that the blogger isn’t interested in their reader – it’s just that they get so excited about what they’re blogging about that they just don’t stop long enough to let others have a say.

One of the simplest ways to create these ‘listening spaces’ on a blog is to ask questions. Ask them at the end of your posts, ask them half way through the and even write posts that are nothing but questions.

Listen to the Questions Your Readers are Asking

One of the most important things to be on the listen out for is questions.

I remember one of my first teachers drumming into the class I was in that there was no such thing as a dumb question and that if one person asked a question it usually meant that others also had the same question going around in their minds.

As a result – when a reader asks you a question, you can bet that they’re not the only one thinking it.

Questions reveal potential topics to write about, problems with your site and opportunities to expand what you’re doing on your blog. Pay careful attention to them in the following areas:

1. comments section – this is the most obvious place for your readers to ask questions
2. your inbox – what questions are you getting from readers via your blog’s contact form?
3. search engine referral terms – often people arrive on your site having plugged a specific question into Google. Most stats packages will reveal these terms and phrases – keep on the look out specifically for questions – also check out 103bees – a tool that specifically monitors and collates questions being asked in your search stats.
4. questions typed into onsite search boxes – this is a goldmine of information, monitoring what people are searching for when they’re actually on your site will show you all kinds of needs, problems and challenges that your readers want to learn more about. Lijit is one tool that helps you track these questions.
5. ask readers for questions – from time to time it can be worth writing a post on your blog that specifically invites readers to ask a question.

Listen to what is working (and what isn’t)

The last thing I’ll add on the topic of listening before I open this topic up to others to share their thoughts is to listen by tracking what is and isn’t working on your blog.

This means setting up your blog with a good metrics tool (I use Google Analytics but there are other great ones out there) and regularly using it to work out what is readers are responding to on your blog.

Some places to start include:

• What posts are being read most?
• What posts are generating good conversation/comments?
• What posts are being linked to by others most?
• How are readers using your design? (use a tool like CrazyEgg to create a heatmap)
• What days of the week are people reading your site most on? What times of the day?
• What pages are people ‘bouncing’ from your site on (bounce rate shows how many people arrive on your blog and immediately leave)
• What posts are people spending most (and least) time on?
• What posts are you getting most negative feedback on?

It is easy to obsess on some of these stats – but it’s also easy to ignore the useful stuff in them that could help you improve your blog.

How else do you Listen in your blogging?

I’ve talked for way too long on a post about listening – so now it’s over to you.

What would you add? Do you use some of the above techniques? What has worked well for you? I’m all ears!

The post Mastering the Art of Listening: A Blogger’s Guide to Success appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Using Categories and Tags Effectively on Your Blog appeared first on ProBlogger.

This post on using Tags and Categories on a blog was originally written by Michael Martin from ProBlog Design and updated recently by the ProBlogger team.

Categories and tags are essential for blogs and content organization for many reasons:

• SEO Benefits: Categories and tags help search engines understand the structure of your website and the topics you cover
• Content Organization: helps both your readers and you to find and navigate through your content more efficiently
• User Experience: improve the user experience on your blog by helping visitors discover related content. This can increase engagement and keep readers on your site longer.
• Content Discoverability: When readers click on a tag, they can find all the content related to that specific topic, increasing the chances of them exploring more of your content.
• Filtering and Sorting: Categories and tags allow readers to filter and sort content based on their interests, which can be particularly useful on blogs with a wide range of topics.
• Content Strategy: Categories and tags can also help you develop a clear content strategy. They force you to think about the different topics you cover and how they relate to each other.

According to Yoast SEO “When used correctly, a good taxonomy system can boost your site’s SEO. The opposite is also true: when used wrong, it’ll break things.” Check out their article on Taxonomy SEO: How to optimize your categories and tags.

In terms of content management and organization, categories and tags are almost identical.

A category system could very easily be used as a tagging system, and vice versa.

So what is it that makes the two different? And how are they best used?

Understanding and Using Categories

Categories are best imagined as a paper filing system. Each page in the system must be filed away in the appropriate drawer. There are only a set number of drawers, and so each must cover a rather wide blanket.

In your blog, categories are best used in exactly the same way:

• The number of categories should be small. Resist the temptation to add new categories because a long list of them will not be read or browsed by anyone and so, is of no use.
• Each post goes into one category. The categories are a way of giving a post permanent storage, just as the drawers do. You cannot put one piece of paper into two drawers, and in the same way, a single post should go into a single category.
• Categories are navigation elements. Categories are not simply a way of labelling posts, they are a core element of your navigation. Your categories should be factored into your site’s architecture and navigation, and displayed appropriately.
• Categories in URLs. A category represents the traditional folder system of a HTML website. Using permalinks with category names included is a good way of displaying the tiered architecture of a web site. Consider this URL – http://domain.com/category/post-name/ – If I want to return to the post’s category (i.e. go “up a level” in the architecture), I simply slash the post-name off the URL.

Complement the Categories With Tags

The most common problem with tagging is that it is used for the same purposes that categories are. Your tags aren’t categories. They are complements to your categories.

Think of tags as the colorful little page markers you might use to flick back to your favorite pages in a book. The tags don’t describe the book as a whole, instead they describe individual sections of the book.

• Use the same tags over and over again. The tagging system is useless when the tags you use vary. For instance, if you have a series of posts on writing articles, you could tag them as “journalism,” “writing,” “copywriting,” or a hundred other variations. The important thing is that you choose one of them, and then reuse it on every post you ever write on the topic.
• Tags do not need to be displayed in the sidebar. Tagging is not a part of your navigational structure, and so it does not necessarily have to be displayed in the sidebar. Why not simply list a post’s tags at the end of the post? The contextualisation will make them much more valuable to readers, and could even be used to replace “Related Posts,” plugins and such.
• The tag cloud is easy to scan. If you do use your tags in your sidebar, then use the tag cloud. A list of categories is very easily recognised because it is in a list. A list of tags will be clearly recognised as such if it is in a cloud. The cloud works because it fits a lot of information into a small space, and is easy to scan over.

Tags have a lot of potential. To a certain extent, they could be used to replace searching, if done well. Let’s say I’m interested in posts about FeedBurner. Am I more likely to get good results by searching and having every post that has ever mentioned FeedBurner returned to me, or by clicking a tag and only seeing the posts which have been specifically tagged as discussing FeedBurner?

Categories and tags are both very useful assets, provided they are each used for their own purpose. Are you using tags on your blog? Will you be using them in the future?

The post Using Categories and Tags Effectively on Your Blog appeared first on ProBlogger.

The post 5 Blog Naming Basics appeared first on ProBlogger.

A guest post by Nathalie Lussier.

Is your blog getting the attention you know it deserves? Maybe you haven’t started your blog yet because you can’t settle on the right name or theme. Perhaps you’re thinking of starting a second blog, but want to “do it right” this time…

Whichever camp you’re in, you need to consider five basic factors in naming a new blog or business.

You’ll need to weigh up the branding pros and cons before you settle on a name. You’ve only got a few seconds to make an impression with your web site visitors, or potential visitors. If your blog or business name doesn’t capture what you’re all about, then chances are that people will just click away.

You didn’t start your blog to have drive by visitors did you? No, you want to foster a community, get comments, and get people to subscribe and come back for more. All of that starts with your branding, and more specifically, with your blog or business name.

Let’s look at the options together, shall we?

1. Just be yourself: the pros and cons of using your own name

There are many bloggers and business owners who chose to brand their blog using their own name (or a pseudonym). Blogs like Johnny B. Truant, Steve Pavlina and ElizabethPW come to mind.

The benefit of using your name as your domain or blog is that it’s not likely to change. Plus, you’re getting people to connect with you as a person and not a business entity.

Another benefit of using your name is that if ever you decide to switch gears and blog about new topics, your readers will stick around, because they’re there to read what you have to say. Oh, and you won’t need to have people change their links if you decide to stop writing about your chosen topic and start another blog.

In a way, using your own name is more about creating a strong connection with you as a person and blogger than it is about delivering a particular type of advice or information. This doesn’t mean that you can’t deliver value or targeted blog posts — it simply means that you’re not as tied down. You can always create a tagline that describes your main area of expertise.

The downsides of branding as yourself are that you need to train people to remember your name. If your blog name is memorable, you won’t have this problem. You also need to ensure that yourname.com domains are not already taken, and you might also want to buy common misspellings of your name.

When using your name, you also need to keep in mind that potential employers, family, and friends can easily find your blog. Now that might not be much of an issue, but it’s something to keep in mind if you aren’t ready to announce your blog to the world. Here’s more about whether you “Should You Blog Anonymously or Use Your Real Name?”

2. Picking a targeted name that’s catchy and relates to your topic

The other blog-naming strategy is to choose a name that describes the topic you’re blogging about. Some examples include Problogger, Ittybiz, and Escape from cubicle nation. You can tell just from reading the name of the blog exactly what the blog is about and what you can expect.

There are many benefits to choosing a targeted keyword and title. There’s definitely a search engine optimization advantage to including a common word or phrase in your title. Plus, people are more likely to remember how to spell your domain name.

If you come up with a fun, memorable brand and blog name, you can set a new trend in motion. Today there are people calling themselves probloggers, referring to the ProBlogger blog. Just like White Hot Truth started a tribe of “fire starters”.

The disadvantage of using a specific blog name is the limitation on what you can write about. If your blog’s name is Dolphin Rescue and you start talking about manicures, you might throw your your readers off course along the way … not to mention negate some of those SEO benefits we talked about earlier.

Another common issue with specific blog names is that we are all human beings who evolve and change. We can’t expect our blogs to stay static any more than we can expect our cells to stop regenerating.

One way to deal with your changing views is to expand your blog name — like the blogger who made the switch from Illuminated Mind to Illuminated Mind & Body.

You might also lose some of your blogging mojo if you get burned out writing about the same topics year after year. (Though there are great tips for battling bloggers block.) In the end, it’s best to pick a specific name for your blog only if you can see yourself sticking to your topic for at least a few years.

3. Pick a niche or market because you care — and not just about the money

Before you choose a blog name, you’re likely going to think through what you’ll be writing about. I want to caution you not to get sucked into certain topics or niche markets just because they’re currently hot.

There are definitely trends in the blogging world, and you don’t want to be one of the latecomers to the party.

Avoid choosing a topic because you think it will monetize well. If your heart isn’t in it, your readers will be able to tell. Nobody wants to spend tons of time setting up a blog and then giving up just a few months down the line.

Pick a topic that you’re really passionate about and that you can see yourself writing about long term.

4. Create a meaningful name that says something

Another thing I’d like to caution you about is picking a name that doesn’t really mean anything, or worse, that has a meaning your readers aren’t interested in.

Try to stay away from bland, no-real-meaning names like “Positive Living” or “Thoughts on Leadership”. You don’t want something that is so generic that people will forget it immediately. This isn’t to say that you can’t pick a great name that is both simple and conveys your topic well.

Let me tell you the story of how my old blog’s name came to be. I initially chose the name Raw Food Switch, because I wanted to help people make the switch to a raw food diet.

I discovered that I was actually antagonizing my readers, because I was assuming they wanted to switch their diet. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who was just itching to voluntarily change the way they eat.

Usually the changes come about because of a health challenge, or other life changing experience. So you see the name of my blog was not talking to my people the right way. That’s why…

5. Listening to your friends and family works … sometimes

At this point I had received a couple of suggestions from friends and family members about the name of my blog. In general I try not to be too influenced by people who aren’t in my target market (and some of my family members are not into raw foods at all!).

My boyfriend had a great insight. He suggested I move the “s” from the word switch to the word food, and become the Raw Foods Witch. At first I resisted his suggestion, since it’s hard to see the genius in someone who is so close and potentially biased.

Yet as soon as I took his advice and decided to make the witch switch, everything fell into place. Martin Whitmore illustrated my new witchy logo, and I got tons of great comments, new subscribers, and more overall connection with my readers.

So my advice here is to listen to your friends and family, because although they may be biased, they probably know you well enough to see things that you can’t see yourself.

Pick something and go for it

If you’ve been stuck in the planning stages of your blog and have yet to create one, there’s no better time than the present. You can always tweak your name over time, so dive in and create that blog of yours!

Remember that you can choose between branding as yourself or creating a memorable targeted name. Don’t pick a topic just because it’s cool, and plan to write about your topic for many years to come. Finally, listen to your friends and family’s input when picking your name.

Here’s 4 (more) Things to Consider When Choosing Your Domain Name. And if you’re starting a new blog consider taking my FREE 7-Step Course to Starting Your Blog.

The post 5 Blog Naming Basics appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post 7 Tips for Busy Bloggers on Finding Time to Blog appeared first on ProBlogger.

Whenever I ask ProBlogger readers “what’s the biggest challenge that they face as a blogger?”, the answer I hear most is “Time”.

Finding time to blog is something that all bloggers struggle with.

Whether you are just starting out and blogging as a hobby, blogging as a part time job while juggling work, home, and a social life or even blogging as a full time business amidst other demands such as up-keeping of social media accounts, responding to comments and emails etc…

Finding time to write is a consistent challenge.

This issue is so prevalent, we actually published an eBook on the topic – BlogWise: How to Do More with Less (featuring 9 busy but productive bloggers such as Leo Babauta, Gretchen Rubin, Brian Clark, Heather Armstrong and more).

7 Tips for Busy Bloggers on Finding Time to Blog

I’m someone who periodically struggles with the challenges of being productive in limited timeframes. Over the last 10 years of blogging, I guess I’ve settled into something of a workflow and routine. What follows is a collection of reflections on what I’m learning.

I hope something in it connects with where you’re at!

1. It Starts with Life Priorities

I feel a bit like a parent saying this but the truth is, time management is a lot to do with priorities. 

It’s important to take time out to identify what is truly important to you, as this is a starting point for working out how you should spend your time.

If blogging is important to you, the first step in finding time to do it is to name it as a priority.

Of course ‘naming’ it as important is only half the battle. For many people there is a HUGE gap between what they say is important and how they actually spend their time.

One of the most confronting exercises I’ve ever done, when it comes to time management, was when (as a young adult) I was challenged write a list of my priorities. I then had to track how I used each 15 minute block of time over a week.

At the end of the week I tallied up the different activities and was amazed to discover how much time I was spending on things that did not feature in my priorities list, and how little I spent on the things I’d named as my priorities.

My list of priorities included things like studying, career, relationships etc.

My actual use of time was dominated by TV, computer games, time in the pub etc.

Of course, at the time I was young and reckless… but I suspect if I did the exercise again today there would probably be a bit of a disconnect between my priorities and how I spent my time. The activities I ‘waste’ time on and my priorities today might be different but the pattern would probably remain.

One of the keys to finding time to blog is working out whether blogging is actually important to you and arranging your life so that time is allocated for it!

I know it’s sounds obvious but it is easier said than done… and needs to be said.

2. Name Your Blogging Priorities

In the section above I talk about ‘life priorities’ but now I want to hone in on your blogging priorities.

The challenge many bloggers face is that they feel overwhelmed and often distracted by the many elements of blogging that they feel they need to do to have success.

Writing blog posts, reading and commenting on others blogs, responding to readers comments, guest posting on others blogs, being active on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, Pinterest (and more), working on your blog design, writing an eBook, finding advertisers, creating a media kit…. the list goes on and on.

I’ve had periods in my own blogging where this list overwhelmed me – to the point it almost paralysed me.

When I felt overwhelmed, I tried to strip my blogging back to the core tasks I knew I needed to do to keep my blog moving forward. Again it was really about priorities.

What do you need to do to grow your blog and make it sustainable?

For me, I strip my focus back to these areas:

• Create Content
• Find Readers
• Build Community
• Make Money Blogging

These are the priorities I have with my blogging. Simply by naming them simplifies things a little for me so I’m not looking at a long, crazy list of little things that I need to do.

With this list in mind I’m can set myself some achievable goals in each area.

For example, when it comes to ‘Create Content’ I’m set myself some goals with how many posts per week or month. Then I start to think about the types of posts I want each week.

So here on ProBlogger, my current goal is 5 posts per week as a minimum with 3-4 of those posts written by me and at least one of them to be a longer form piece of content (like my Guide to the Amazon Affiliate Program).

Within each of these areas I would normally have at least a couple of goals/priorities at any one time.

Simply having this list of things I want to achieve suddenly gives me direction on how to spend my time, which makes me much more effective when I do blog. Instead of sitting down at the computer to blog and then working out what to do, I have a list of things I need to get done – and I find myself just knocking them off.

3. Batch Process Your Main Tasks

I won’t go into great detail on this as I’ve written about it before but a number of years ago I changed the way that I do my weekly tasks and it significantly boosted my productivity levels.

Before making this switch, I would sit down to blog and find myself going through a whole day flitting from one thing to another…. but not really getting much done. I’d write an intro to a blog post, then jump onto Twitter, then talk to another blogger about a collaboration, then go back to the blog post, then moderate some comments, then jump on Facebook and then…. well you get the picture.

So I began to carve out longer chunks of time to do the most important tasks in ‘batches’.

For example, one of my weekly rhythms is to use Monday and Wednesday mornings to write. On those mornings, I will often set myself up in a cafe and work offline for 2-3 hours. This enables me to write as much content as possible for the days and week ahead. It is not unusual for me to write 4-5 blog posts that I’m then able to schedule onto the blog for the coming days.

By silo’ing off time to do the most important tasks, and removing other distractions, I found I churn through a lot more work than I had previously been able to do.

I now ‘batch’ process many tasks. I’ll often set aside half an hour to do social media for example (instead of popping into Twitter 20 times a day, I might spend a longer period once a day). Email is similarly something I try to do in batches, similarly I tend to read other blogs via RSS in batches etc.

Read more about ‘batch processing in my post ‘How Batch Processing Made Me 10 Times More Productive‘.

Mental Blogging

In the early days of my blogging I had very very limited times to blog. I was working 3-4 part time jobs at any one time while also studying in the evenings. As a result I often would only have half and hour here or there during a lunch break, late at night or early in the morning to write content.

In order to be more effective at those times, I began to do what I now call ‘mental blogging’.

So while I was working in one of my jobs in a warehouse packing parcels, I would begin to write my blog posts in my mind. I would come up with a topic, decide upon a title and then begin to map out my main points – all in my head.

I sometimes would use a small notebook to jot a few words down to remind me what I wanted to write but after a shift in the warehouse, I would often be ready to sit down and quickly write out a pretty decent blog post (sometimes more than one) because I’d effectively written it already in my head.

Since that time I’ve come across countless other bloggers who do a similar thing during their own daily activities.

Later on I did a similar thing by jotting down my notes on my iPhone or even speaking blog posts into an audio recording app on my iPhone while I was out on a walk.

4. Idea Generation and Editorial Calendars

In my early days of blogging one of my biggest time sucks was coming up with ideas. I would sit, staring at my computer screen for hours on end, trying to work out what to write about on my blog that day.

I discovered that a much more effective strategy is to put aside batches of time specifically to come up with post ideas.

Instead of deciding what to write about each day, I began to create times to brainstorm and mind map blog ideas. I would then developed a file for each post topic so that on any given day I could sit down and within seconds I’d have something to write about

Mind Mapping is my favourite technique for generating potentially hundreds of ideas (read Discover Hundreds of Post Ideas for Your Blog with Mind Mapping).

Just having the ideas ready to go when you need them will save you a lot of time. You can take this a step further and consider creating an Editorial Calendar where you actually slot the ideas into a calendar over the coming week, month (or longer) and map out where you’ll be going with the blog in that period of time.

Editorial calendars may not suit everyone but I know of numerous bloggers who plan their blogs content well over a month in advance. This not only gives them an idea of where their blog is headed but they also find it useful to monetize their blogs as they’re able to share their calendar with advertisers who may wish to sponsor a relevant series of posts that might be coming up.

5. Break Down Big Jobs into Small Bites

Late last year, I recorded a free webinar where I shared 10 things I wish I’d known about blogging when I started 10 years before. In that webinar I shared the story of creating the first eBook that I developed over at Digital Photography School.

The idea of creating an eBook was something that I’d been meaning to do for at least a year or two but I’d always put off doing it because I didn’t have the time for such a big project. I’d never done something like that before and I felt overwhelmed by it.

In the end, to get the eBook created and launched, I decided that the only way I’d find the time to write it was to get up 15 minutes earlier every morning to work on the project.

15 minutes a day isn’t much (although we had a newborn at the time so 15 minutes sleep was precious) but I was amazed how much I could get done in that short period of time, on a daily basis. Over the coming 2-3 months I completed writing the eBook, had had it designed, had worked out how to market it, had researched how to sell it (shopping carts etc) and was ready to launch.

I effectively broke down a big job into little bite sized chunks until it was complete. That eBook went on to sell thousands of copies and became the template for 19 other eBooks that I’ve now launched (the main source of income to my blogs today).

I often wonder what would have happened if I’d never found that extra 15 minutes per day!

6. Slow Blogging is OK

“I have to post something today!”

Sometimes, as bloggers, I think we create monsters for ourselves for no good reason when it comes to posting deadlines and frequency.

I’m very guilty of this and it’s been something of a relief to realise that I can slow down my blogging a little and not see it ‘hurt’ my blog.

Here on ProBlogger you may have noticed a bit of a change lately. I’ve gone from posting 7-10 posts per week to posting 5-6 times a week.

For many years here at ProBlogger I felt the need to publish daily posts and at times, even aimed for 2-3 posts per day. While there were some benefits of doing so (more posts can mean more traffic) there were also costs in terms of the quality but also personally (it’s hard to sustain that kind of publishing for years on end).

Since slowing down, I’ve been fascinated to see that our traffic has remained steady (in fact some days it has been higher). The other impact has been a rise in comment levels, in positive feedback but also in my own energy and passion levels.

While deadlines and targets for posting frequency can be motivating – there may be periods of time when slowing down has some big benefits.

7. Make Space for Preparation, Creating and Rest

I first came this concept via an Aussie blogger Kemi Nekvapil, but I think this idea originally comes from Jack Canfield who talks about creating days for ‘preparation’, ‘success’ and ‘rest’.

Kemi talks about the structure of her week and how she has 3 different types of days during her week. They are ‘preparation days’, ‘success days’ and ‘inspiration days’.

So for Kemi, her Mondays are preparation days when she is getting ready to have a creative ‘success’ day, Tuesdays are successful days, Wednesdays are preparation days and Thursdays are successful days. Fridays are her inspiration days where she gets to do whatever she wants to do for herself.

By giving herself days with a different focus, Kemi says she’s able to keep her creativity up and to sustain herself.

It makes sense really – if every day is a day where you have to produce something and you never have time to prepare or to have a break the quality of what you produce will suffer (as will your energy levels).

I love this idea and almost intuitively have done something a little similar of late. My wife (V) works on a Wednesday, so on those days I’ve had a bit more to do with the kids (drop offs, pick ups and a shorter working day). I’ve decided to go with it not being quite as a productive day and make Wednesdays a little less hands on with work, giving me a little more space to just ‘be’.

I’ve been doing a little work but also am trying to put time aside on Wednesdays to read, walk and have a siesta. It might sound a little like a lazy day on some levels but I’m noticing that having a quieter day in the middle of my week certainly makes me more productive on the following days.

What Are Your Tips for Finding Time to Blog?

What I’ve written above just scratches the surface. I am by no means an expert on this and am keen to learn from your experience.

The post 7 Tips for Busy Bloggers on Finding Time to Blog appeared first on ProBlogger.

The post 25 Types of Pages that Every Blogger Should Consider appeared first on ProBlogger.

When you use WordPress you’re given the choice when publishing between doing it as a ‘post’ or as a ‘page‘. Posts go up on your blog while ‘pages’ are static pages that you can publish without it having to go up on your blog.

There’s a lot of reasons why you might choose a post over a page or a page over a post (that’s for another post) – but today I thought I’d highlight a few ‘pages’ that I have here on ProBlogger as examples of pages that bloggers might want to develop to promote their blog to different groups of people. Some are more essential in my mind than others but all have been helpful in the development of my own blogs.

1. About Page

Perhaps one of the most common uses of the ‘page’ function on WP is the good old ‘about page’. Having an about page is essential in my mind as it gives new readers to your blog a snapshot of who you are and why they should subscribe to your blog. This is the page that I go to every time I hit a new blog – if they don’t have one it decreases my chances of subscribing significantly.

Read more on adding an about page to your blog.

2. Contact Page

I’m amazed how many bloggers don’t have any way of contacting them on their blog. While I understand the temptation not to have one you could be missing out of wonderful opportunities by not giving readers, potential partners, press, other bloggers a way of contacting you.

Read more on Why your blog’s readers should be able to contact you.

3. Press Page

I don’t promote this page heavily (although do mention it on my ‘About Page‘) but use it more when interacting with journalists and mainstream media outlets. The way I use it is to show journalists what others have written about me. I find that in providing a list of previous articles in mainstream media you gain a little credibility and give journalists a head start in finding an angle to pursue for their own potential articles about you. It’s also handy to be able to provide this page to anyone else that you’re attempting to build credibility with that may not be that ‘new media savvy’. It’s amazing how a mention in mainstream media will open doors for some.

4. Disclaimer Page

In the interests of transparency and disclosure I have this page linked to on every page and post on my blog to show readers what I get out of this blog – ie that I make money from it and use affiliate programs. I also use this page to dispel some of the myths and untrue assumptions that people have about me and this blog by sharing some of the ‘costs’ of this blog. I find that this balanced ‘disclaimer’ works quite well.

5. FAQ Page

This page was written with a very selfish motive – to cut down my workload. I get asked a lot of questions, many of them repeatedly. As an attempt to answer some of these frequently asked questions I put together some answers for them. I still get asked the questions but being able to point to this page helps. I also have it linked to prominently from my Contact Page.

6. Subscribe Page

Having a page dedicated to how people can subscribe to your blog can be very useful. I do also link to a signup form in my sidebar and footer – so it’s hard to miss! But I do find that having a page like this can be useful as some readers don’t understand the idea of RSS or can be worried about issues of privacy or what it means to ‘subscribe’. Sometimes having a page dedicated to walking people through the process can pay off.

7. Advertise with Us Page

Looking to sell advertising on your blog? An ‘Advertise’ page is an important part of attracting new advertisers and a well written one can cut down a lot of work for you as it’ll help to filter out people by giving them information that helps them to know if your site is right for them.

Further Reading: Finding Advertisers for Your Blog.

8. Series Page – Compilation

I’ve used ‘pages’ in two ways when it comes to series of posts. The first way is to put together a compilation page of all of the posts in a series. I don’t do this that regularly but in the example linked to put together the content from all 25 posts on my series on Battling Bloggers Block. I found that some readers really appreciated having the series all in the one place.

9. Series Page – Central Page

The other approach to managing a series of posts with a ‘page’ is to use one as a ‘central links page’ that you update with a link to each post in your series over time. This is what I did in my Blogger Collaboration Series. The beauty of this approach over the ‘compilation page’ is that it can drive a lot more page views as readers are ‘sneezed’ in multiple directions into your blog. It’s also good because it allows readers to be more selective about which posts in a series they want to read rather than reading the full thing.

10. Affiliate Pre-Sell Pages

Having a dedicated page for an affiliate program that you’re running can be a very smart move. If you refer to a product that you’re promoting regularly in your posts – rather than linking to the affiliate program link to a ‘pre-sell’ page on your own blog. This allows you to ‘pre-sell’ the product more with a personal message. This is what I do on my AdSense page here at ProBlogger. This doesn’t work for every affiliate program but I find with AdSense that it works well as their landing page can be a little off putting to new potential users of it. It also gives me a little more flexibility with how I mention AdSense in my posts as their Referrals program doesn’t allow html linking. Further Reading: 5 Tips for Improving AdSense Referral Earnings.

11. Services Pages

If you offer services to readers then develop a dedicated sales page for yourself and link to it prominently on your blog. The example here is my Consulting page – a page I used to point to regularly. These days I don’t offer these services any more (due to workload) so have not promoted it for a while. I find that when you have a dedicated page to selling your services you can sell yourself much more expansively than just a quick mention elsewhere on your blog.

12. Key Information Pages

Do you have information that you’re constantly providing to people over and over again (whether in blog posts, via email or in other ways)? Make a page about it and keep the link handy. That’s what I did with my b5media page and have found it to help me cut down my workload in answering questions about the network. I also link to it in my navigational bar here on ProBlogger and it’s lead to some great opportunities. You could do this with any business or product that you’re associated with.

13. Landing Pages

This page is an example of a landing page over at DPS of a current campaign that we’re running for our new Lightroom Course. If you do choose to run an ad campaign to promote your blog then it’s much wiser to link your ads to a dedicated landing page than the front page of your blog. Read more on Advertising Your Blog and on Landing Pages.

14. Sneeze Pages

One great way to propel people deep within your blog is to develop a Sneeze Page or a ‘Best of’ page that highlights some of the better articles on your blog around a particular theme. Put links to these pages on your sidebar or refer to them in posts and you’ll see your page impressions per visit statistics go up.

15. Testimonial Pages

If you’re selling something (even if it’s yourself) like we do with ProBlogger Jobs advertising, having some sort of a testimonial page can be very worthwhile. People base buying decisions increasingly upon the opinions of others – so capture some of these opinions and present them.

16. Event Specific Pages

Speaking at an event? Create a ‘page’ specifically for those at it and mention that you’ve done so in your presentation. This way you can tailor a specific message to those visitors, their needs, your presentation and ‘sell’ something to them (whether it be subscribing to your blog, buying a product, selling your services or getting them to read certain pages on your blog. The example I’ve given is from a conference I did this time last year. I also used to have a section on that page selling a product that I mentioned in the presentation and it converted quite well.

17. 404 Page

When people arrive on your blog to a page that has been deleted, follow a dead link etc and end up on a default error page on your blog you’ve got a wasted opportunity on your hands. Customize your error pages to help readers find what they’re looking for or at least find something else that might interest them. Further Reading: How to Create a Custom 404 Error Page for Your Blog and this article from Search Engine Journal where I found the Disney example pictured above.

18. Special Projects

When I participated in a charity event called (Movember), rather than letting this event completely take over my blog for the month I created a dedicated page for the event that those who were interested in could follow my updates on.

19. Guest Blogger Page

I don’t accept guest posts on ProBlogger but we do invite writers to apply to write for dPS with some guidelines on how to write for this blog. As a result, I get more posts that are written in a format that I can use and it’s cut down a lot of work for me.

20. Archives Page

There are numerous ways that you can present that archives of your blog. It becomes more challenging the larger your blog grows to be able to direct people back to your best previous work and a dedicated page can be helpful in that process rather than just presenting a list of categories or dates on your site bar. What I’ve attempted to do with mine is to provide a page with dated archives but also categories with some suggested starting points.

Some of the above ‘pages’ can of course be created from ‘posts’ on your blog (and there might be some good reasons for doing so) however my preference is to make them ‘pages’. In most cases this is because I prefer these pages to not be date specific. The way I have my links set up here at ProBlogger posts have dates showing and in the link structure – but pages don’t. In many of the above examples I also didn’t want to page to show up in my blog’s RSS feed or categories – but preferred them to be standalone pages.

21. Start Here Page

When we redesigned ProBlogger (some years ago now), we mapped out a reader journey and part of that was for new readers landing on the blog knowing where to start. So our “Start Here” page introduces the topic, lays out the format of the blog and gives readers an induction into the content pillars and how to get the most out of their interaction with the blog.

I’ve recorded a podcast episode on Why You Should Create a Start Here Page for Your Blog and Kelly Exeter wrote a guest post about The 5 key elements your blog’s ‘Start Here’ page must have.

22. Resources Page

If you have an assortment of recommended tools, services or resources you use and recommend – particularly if you are earning affiliate commission, sponsorship or advertising from them – give your readers a page where they can see all of these resources in one spot and links for them to access. Just make sure that you disclose any commercial arrangements you may have attached to these resources.

Here’s both a podcast and an article I produced on How to Use a Resources Page to Grow Your Traffic and Income.

23. Privacy Page

New data protection laws that apply to just about every business in any jurisdiction mean that having a Privacy Policy published on your website is essential. I’m not a lawyer and we don’t dispense legal advice on ProBlogger, but our guest legal expert Jeanette Jifkins did write an article on What Laws in the World Apply to You?

24. Product Pages

Do you sell anything from your blog – products or services? Well, you’re best to create a “shop window” so your readers can become customers.

25. Member Pages

Many news sites now monetize via a paid subscription and you can gate all or some of your content behind a paywall for subscribers only. At ProBlogger we don’t have a paywall, but we do offer a FREE Member’s Library of resources, with access based on subscribing.

What page types would you add to the above list?

Update: Some great suggestions in comments so far, some of which I have now listed above. I agree that a privacy page is a good one, as is a comments policy (I have one of these but wrote it as a post – I think it’d be more appropriate as a page though). Another one that I should have included is a ‘resource’ page – a page that lists recommended resources, books, courses etc. Lastly – I should have included a ‘blog roll’ or ‘links’ page. Thanks for everyone’s suggestions – keep them coming.

The post 25 Types of Pages that Every Blogger Should Consider appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Six Ways to Get Feedback On Your Posts and Pages (And Why You Need To) appeared first on ProBlogger.

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This guest post is by Ali Luke of Aliventures.

Are your blog posts working well, or leaving readers unsatisfied? Is your About page enticing, or confusing? Does your Hire Me page do a great job of selling your services, or is it too bland?

Often, the only feedback that you have comes in the form of numbers. Maybe readers aren’t spending long on your blog. Maybe you rarely get comments. Maybe no one’s ever hired you.

The problem is, it’s hard to tell why. Without any feedback from readers, you don’t know what you’re doing wrong.

Honest, constructive feedback isn’t the same as a comment saying “great post!” Good feedback:

• tells you exactly what’s working, and what isn’t
• offers suggestions on how to fix any problems
• encourages you to make the most of your strengths.

Perhaps you’re reading this and thinking no one will give me any feedback. I don’t have any readers yet. Or maybe your blog isn’t even online—you’re struggling away with your posts and pages, trying to get your core content together before you launch.

Don’t give up. I’m going to give you six easy ways to get feedback.

Six ways to get feedback

1. Look at your current comments

If you’ve received any comments on your blog, look at the following.

• Which posts have the most comments? These will, in some way, have struck a chord with the reader.
• Are there any suggestions that you can use for future posts? Sometimes, commenters will tell you exactly what they’d like to read. Other times, they’ll mention what they’re struggling with—and you can use that as the basis for a post.
• Did any posts get negative or confused comments? If a reader leaves a comment to say that they didn’t understand, you might want to take another look at that post and make sure it’s clear.

2. Ask around on Twitter or Facebook

If your blog is new, you might well have a bigger following on Twitter, Facebook, or other social networks. Try asking there for feedback: post a link to a particular post or page and explain that you’d welcome any constructive criticism.

You’ll be surprised at how generous your friends—and even complete strangers!—can be. Don’t discount the opinions of non-bloggers, either; they might not “get” the technology, but they’re likely to be representative of your general audience.

3. Find a blogging partner

Some bloggers like to swap posts with one another. If you’ve got any blogging friends, ask around and see if anyone would be interested. A blogging partner can do a lot more than just read your posts, too—check out Find a Blog Buddy [Day 15 – 31DBBB].

If you don’t know a single blogger yet, try looking in the comments sections of relevant blogs (ProBlogger might be a good place to start). Find someone who seems to be at a similar stage to you, and drop them an email.

4. Post a message in a forum

When I’ve been looking for feedback, often on sales pages, I’ve posted in the Third Tribe forum. I’ve always had great responses from other members, with plenty of insightful feedback. When you put out a request like this, it’s often helpful to specify what particular areas you want feedback on. You might ask questions like these:

• Was my About page clear?
• Did it encourage you to read on?
• Is there anything you think I should add?

If you’re not currently a member of any blogging or business-related forums, you might want to take a look at ProBlogger’s own Facebook Community Group. ProBlogger Community even offers a “blog review swap” thread.

5. Join a blogging-related course

Many ecourses will include some element of interaction—that might be live calls with the tutors, or forums where you can easily interact with other members. There’ll often be a chance to ask questions and get specific feedback.

Even if it’s a big course without any individual instruction from tutors, you’ll find that other members are very willing to help out. People taking an e-course are often more engaged (and at a slightly further stage) than your general audience on Twitter or Facebook.

Checkout ProBlogger’s Courses, where they have both free and paid courses, including several on creating content.

6. Hire a writing coach

For really in-depth, expert feedback, look for a writing or blogging coach. They’ll work with you to help you shape and polish up your content, and a good coach will be careful to preserve your own voice and style.

Coaching is definitely an investment, but many bloggers find it a very worthwhile one. That applies even if you have a strong writing background. One of my own coaching clients, Prime Sarmiento, is an experienced journalist. She wrote about the benefits of getting coaching in a guest post for Men with Pens: Why Hiring a Writing Coach Can Help You Build Your Business.

The review

So, you’ve found someone willing to give you feedback. What should you ask them to look at?

I think there are several key areas where you’ll want to make sure your writing (and formatting of posts) is as good as it can be.

Your cornerstone content

If you’re creating a series of posts as cornerstone or pillar content—posts that readers will go back to again and again—then you want them to be as good as possible.

It’s worth asking someone to read through the whole series, so that they can help you both with the small details (like typos and clunky sentences) and the big picture (making sure that all the posts fit together well).

Your About page

Did you know that your About page is probably the most-read page on your blog after your home page? (Check your Google Analytics if you’re not convinced!) It make sense—new readers will often read a blog post or two, then click on “About” to find out who you are and what the blog’s purpose is.

A great About page can turn a casual visitor into a subscriber. A poor About page might lose you that visitor completely. About pages are really tough to write, so it’s definitely worth getting feedback and even some help with the drafting.

Your Services or Hire Me page

If you’ve got any services (or products) for sale, you want to make sure that your sales page does a great job of drawing potential customers in. That means, at a minimum, being totally clear about what you do and who you work with.

I’ve read lots of incoherent and confusing sales pages—and even decent sales pages often don’t sell the blogger as well as they should. You should always get feedback on a sales page, to make sure that your offer is totally clear.

Your next steps

Pick one page or post on your blog, and find someone who can give you feedback on it. That might be a friend, a forum member, a coach … the important thing is that you get a second opinion. Ideally, it should be someone who understands your audience (even if they’re not part of that audience themselves).

And if you’re not sure who to ask, why not pop a comment below? You might just find a new blogging friend…

Ali Luke is a writer and writing coach, and author of The Blogger’s Guides series of ebooks. She has a weekly newsletter for writers and bloggers, and has just released a mini-ebook How to Find Time for Your Writing –click here and sign up for her newsletter to get your free copy.

The post Six Ways to Get Feedback On Your Posts and Pages (And Why You Need To) appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Content Creation vs Content Promotion: Where is the Balance? appeared first on ProBlogger.

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A few days ago we published a post on ProBlogger titled ‘Forget about Marketing: Concentrate on Blogging‘, which led to some interesting discussion on Twitter and in the comments.

I love the points author Nicholas Whitmore made in the post but I wanted to give a few thoughts, based on my own experience, on developing great content and promoting your blog.

Nicholas wrote some great arguments for focusing your energy on writing great content as the central way of growing your blog. He writes:

“When you write and publish awesome content on your blog, good things will come your way.”

I completely agree with this sentiment. As a blogger your #1 focus needs to be on producing content that is useful, engaging and of as high a quality as possible. Without it, all the marketing you might do will be wasted as you’ll just be directing people to something that is of no value to them.

As Nicholas goes on to write:

“When you write and publish boring content then spend hours on end building links to it, trying to force people to your website, good things will never come.”

Again, I agree with the sentiment expressed here.

However, on Twitter a discussion among some of my followers highlighted that some bloggers differ quite a bit on how much effort should be put into promoting a blog vs developing content for it.

• On one hand, there were certainly people who felt that if you build a great blog that it markets itself.
• On the other hand, there were people who felt that if you didn’t get out there and market your blog you ran the risk of all your hard work in developing great content going completely unseen.

While I think we all agree that the content on your blog needs to be of a very high focus, I’m also of the belief that if a blogger wants to grow their readership they also need to put effort into promoting that blog.

I like the idea of the marketing being taken care of by your visitors, if you have good enough blog post. In my experience, there are things you can do to promote your blog to help speed the process up, without compromising the quality of your posts.

In the early days of my own current blogs (here on ProBlogger and at dPS) I estimate I probably spent almost as much time writing content as I did working on growing the readership. In fact, I’m sure there were some weeks where I did spend considerably more time promoting my blog than writing content!

In short, I don’t see marketing and creating content as mutually exclusive – both are really important to me.

How did I grow my readership (or market my blogs)?

I recorded a webinar last year on this very topic with a load of tips in it. You can listen to it and see the slides here so I won’t rehash all of that but here’s a summary slide of the points I talked through.

You can see that my process actually talks about the content that you develop as being a part of finding readers for your blog (both in points 2 and 8). But by getting off your blog to promote what you do you are certainly able to significantly grow your blog.

Point #9 shows that this is a recurring cycle.

For me, I’d say that the balance of creating content and promoting has changed over the life of my blogs over the years. This is probably partly because the life cycle of a blog but also due to my own personal circumstances and how much time I have available to work.

That said , I would always prioritise both on a daily basis… and would probably also add in that I prioritise other things too such as ‘engaging with readers/building community’ and also a focus upon ‘monetization’ (without which I can’t sustain what I do).

Where is the Balance of Promotion and Content Creation for You?

I’d love to hear how others get this balance right in your blogging?

The post Content Creation vs Content Promotion: Where is the Balance? appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Strategic Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

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Over the past year I’ve been meeting with a business coach who has been helping me to look at my blogging as a business rather than just a job. One of the things that has become evident to me is that good sustainable businesses don’t usually just happen by accident.

Instead they take planning, strategy and intentionality.

Thinking through some of the “big picture” issues that underpin your blogging does take some time and brain-power, but (especially if you’re feeling a little bit lost) could be the difference between a good and a great blog.

I know that for some this type of talk will be frustrating – words like mission, vision, values and strategy are not where you’re at – but humor me please. You see I believe that if you get these things right you’ll find many of the next steps that I share later in this article to be much more powerful as you’ll be able to use them in much more focused and effective ways.

This mega-post combines a series I wrote to lead you through a strategic plan process that a friend of mine gave me to think through another (non blogging) project that I’m working on – I think it’s highly relevant for ProBlogging and hope you find it helpful. Here are the steps of the strategic blogging process we are going to follow:

1. Mission
2. Values
3. VisionGoals
4. Issues
5. Present Position
6. Future Direction
7. Strategy
8. Action Plan

Each step of the process gives some homework – a few questions to ask that hopefully will help you to think through the issues at hand. Feel free to answer them in private or to even think out loud in comments of this post.

Mission

13 years ago when I started studying my Marketing degree the focus of many of my first year lectures was ‘Mission Statements’. I remember writing mission statement after statement – to the point where I started to dream about them. It was obvious that my lecturers through they were a pretty important starting place for any good business venture.

Whilst perhaps ‘mission statements’ are not quite as much of a buzz phrase as they were in the early 1990s I still see asking questions around mission as a worthwhile task – especially when it comes to blogging.

‘Why do you exist?’

This is the key question that my friend’s strategic process asks in the area of ‘mission’. I don’t think it’s asking us to ponder the meaning of life – it’s not quite that deep – but it does ask a business (blog) owner to try to get back to the basics of what they are on about.

‘Why do you blog?’

Take a few minutes (or better still a few hours or even days) to ponder this question. What is it that you blog for? What are your core motivations? Be honest as you answer this question because it’s important to nail it down as much as you can as everything else comes from this.

Some blogging ‘missions’ might include:

• ‘I blog to make a living’
• ‘I blog for recreational purposes – to help me relax’
• ‘I blog as part of my plan for world domination’
• ‘I blog to keep a record of the life and times of me’
• ‘I blog because I want to help others’
• ‘I blog to because I’m lonely and want to connect with others’
• ‘I blog to pick up cute girls/guys’
• ‘I blog because it’s fun’
• ‘I blog because I want to build profile – I want to be known’

These are just a few examples that come to mind off the top of my head. Some of us will have simple sentences, for others our reasons for blogging might be a little more complex and combine a number of things.

One person’s blogging mission will be different from another’s – there is really no right or wrong here – behind each blogger there is some sort of mission whether it’s deep, shallow, silly, smart, selfish or altruistic. The task now is to name yours.

To identify these missions is very helpful because knowing why we blog then helps us to work out how we should blog to best reach our mission.

So what is your mission? Why do you blog?

This is not a question about measurable goals or strategies and your answer probably shouldn’t be too blog specific yet (ie don’t write one for each of your blogs if you have more than one) – rather get at your motivations and big picture hopes for your blogging.

Values

Having thought about our mission (or why we blog) it’s time now to turn our attention to the values that we have that help to shape how we’ll achieve our overall mission.

There are many means to an end and many ways of achieving a mission. For instance if your mission is to make a living from blogging you could do so in many different ways ranging from blogs that rip off the content of others, to blogs that are purely original in content, to blogs that explore topics of purely a ‘family nature’ to blogs that are quite explicit and ‘adult’ in their nature etc.

These decisions come out of our values as a blogger.

What values determine our behavior?

Our values will come out of many different places including our family, culture, experiences and perhaps even personality type. They are worth naming in the early days of our blogging as there comes times in the life of any Blogger when the temptation to step outside the boundaries of behavior that we believe in comes a knocking. Having previously named (privately or even more powerfully – publicly) these values helps us to resist the temptation in the heat of the moment. Values are also important in helping others understand how or what we blog.

So what are the values that shape your blogging behavior? What are the boundaries that you’d be not willing to cross? What are the topics you’d be not willing to blog about? How will you treat those around you (other bloggers, your readers, suppliers of information etc)? Take a few minutes to write a list of the values that you want to shape your blogging. These might include things like:

• I value the work of others and when I build upon it I acknowledge them
• I don’t blog about anything sexually explicit, gambling, drugs or concerning Harry Potter
• I create an environment where everyone can have their say without fear of censorship
• I respect the privacy of others in my blogging and don’t reveal private conversations or contact details
• I only publish fact and will state if I’m speculating
• If I make a mistake I publicly acknowledge this and correct it
• I will always make it clear if I’m benefiting from something that I write
• I value people and will not blog about them in degrading ways

Of course such a list will always cause discussion and debate simply because one person’s values will vary from another person’s values. In a sense we’re talking ethics here.

Perhaps it would be appropriate to write up a set of values like these as a public blogging value statement of manifesto to promote the type of blog/s you’re keeping and to give your readers permission to keep you accountable to what you’re on about.

With your mission and values in place you’ll be ready for the next stages of actually mapping out how you’re going to move forward in your blogging.

Vision

Having answered questions about why we blog (mission) and setting some boundaries for our behavior in doing so Values) it’s now time to be a little more concrete in our big picture thinking. Where are you headed with your blogging? More specifically:

What is your objective for your blogging in the next three years?

Now three years might seem a long way away (and perhaps one or two years might be a better time frame to set objectives for in the ever changing field of blogging) but look beyond the near future and ask yourself questions about vision.

We’re now narrowing down the mission that we have into some more measurable and specific things to aim for in the long term. Don’t get too specific (we’ll get there) but make it concrete.

For example – your mission might be to make a living from blogging but your vision for three years time might be to be a full time blogger that need not do any other work.

Make your objective/s (don’t come up with too many) big enough to be inspiring but realistic enough to be achievable. They should probably come out of or at least relate to your mission.

Take some time to plot some longer term objectives for your blogging.

Goals

For each objective that you’ve mentioned you now should be breaking things down into smaller achievable goals. Perhaps this strategic plan is a little pedantic here and adds too many steps (hence I’ve added Vision and Goals together) but the basics of what we’re doing with goal setting is breaking down the big picture into smaller achievable parts.

In setting goals you might like to ask:

How will we know we have achieved our objective (vision)?

For each objective there will probably be multiple goals that signal it has been reached. For example if the vision is to be working full time in blogging in 3 years the goals might be to ‘quit from current job’ (once a certain earning level from blogging is reached), be earning $XXXX per month regularly by a certain time.

In a sense we’re breaking down our objectives into bite sized parts that can be ticked off one at a time as they are reached as stepping stones to a larger vision.

Issues

If we want to design a strategy to help us reach our goals we need to identify the areas in which we need to work. At this point in the strategic plan we take time to break down the task of blogging into activities or issues that we face.

What are your main activities?

The answer to this question will vary from blogger to blogger depending upon their focus and current approach to blogging – but they will probably include some of the following:

• finding content
• writing content
• blog design
• marketing and publicity
• administration (monitoring comments, processing cheques, book keeping)
• finding and managing advertisers
• managing other authors
• search engine optimization

In a sense what you’re describing here are the areas that you need to achieve in to make your blog successful (the above list is only partial). The list may include tasks that you already do well, don’t do well or don’t yet do at all.

In identifying these issues or activities you define areas that you’ll need to consider some strategy in.

Present Position

Having identified each activity that you need to engage in to be successful in achieving your objectives and goals you now do a little analysis of how you’re currently performing in each activity. The question you want to answer with each are is:

Where are we?

What am I doing well in this area? What am I neglecting? What is working and what isn’t working? These are all good questions to ask. You may want to do a ‘SWOT’ analysis here (look at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and assess the current reality. Be honest with yourself – if you’re anything like me there are some things that you’re doing very well and other things that you’re ignoring.

Whilst it may not be pleasant to acknowledge current short fallings it’s vitally important as your blog will only ever go as far as your weakest area allows you to.

Future Direction

Now you’ve described the current reality you again should look in to the future in each of the activities that you’ve identified and ask yourself:

Where do I want to be in this specific activity in a year?

You know where you are now but what are you going to work towards? For example you might have identified marketing as one of your ‘activities’ an in analyzing it find that you’re great at marketing to other blogs in your niche but that blogs outside your niche and non bloggers have never heard of your blog. As a result you might say that in a year you want to be known outside your niche and be getting exposure in the wider media.

In a sense you’re again setting mini goals, breaking down your overall ‘vision’ into specific areas of your blogging.

Go through each of the activities that you’ve identified already and come up with some future direction. Be specific enough in each one that you can measure your success in each area. Don’t write how you’ll achieve this direction yet (that comes next) – rather try to paint a picture of the future in each of the areas of your blogging.

Below you’ll see a table that illustrates how each of the above three steps might look if you put them into some sort of spread sheet. Of course I’ve completely oversimplified the process here in order to illustrate the point. Each ‘issue’ is likely to have a multifaceted description of the present position and may in fact have a number of ‘future directions’ for each.

Strategy

You’ve analyzed your current position and have looked into the future to how you want your blog to be in each of the activities of your blogging – now you basically need to compare one with the other. How does your current reality and future vision compare? Do they match up? If they do you’re either a brilliant blogger, you’re lying or you’re not aiming high enough.

For most of us the current reality doesn’t match what we want to achieve.

What major changes do you need to make to get to your future vision?

Albert Einstein defined insanity as ‘doing the same old things the same old ways and expecting to get different results’ (paraphrased). The only way you’ll see changes in your blogging is if you change your approach. Which of your ‘activities’ needs to change? How?

You might find that some of your activities are doing well and don’t need too much changing – but the reality will be that we can all improve in all areas – and that in some areas more than others we might need a complete overhaul if we want to really achieve something. Make a list of the changes you need to make.

Once again I’ve included a diagram that hopefully illustrates how this might look (in a very over simplified form).

Action Plan

We’ve reached the last step of the strategic plan and now we finally get to a time of planning (and doing) some action.

In each of the ‘activities’ break down your strategy into achievable tasks. You might like to break it down into some sort of a timeline.

• what will you do in the next month?
• what will you do in the next 3 months?
• what will you do in the next 6 months?
• what will you do in the next 12 months?

Your action plan should contain very specific tasks.

Some might be ongoing tasks like:

• ‘post 10 posts per day every day for the next month’
• ‘start 1 new blog every month until October’
• ‘add 3 new affiliate links to my blog every day this month’
• ‘write 1 press release to promote my blog each month’

Others might be one off tasks like:

• ‘apply for Adsense program and integrate into blog’
• ‘get to know blogger X’
• ‘do survey of my readers to find out who they are’
• ‘write a series of posts on <insert topic here>’

Once again these tasks need to be specific, measurable (you need to know when they’re complete) and achievable. In doing this you’re achieving the very big picture dreams and objectives that you’ve previously set one step at a time.

You’ll see once again below that I’ve filled in (in a very simplified way) how some of the strategic plan might build as you add your action plan. In reality each ‘issue’ could have multiple strategies – each of which could have multiple actions assigned to them. By this point you should be left with a larger list of ‘things to do’ that you need to prioritise for and then begin to work through. Once again these actions should be broken down into small enough parts so as not to overwhelm you. Make them measurable and achievable so you can begin to tick them off and create some momentum to your blogging.

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The post Principles of Choosing a Profitable Blog Topic appeared first on ProBlogger.

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I recently had a conversation with a reader about selecting the right topic for a profitable blog. In this discussion, I realized that finding a balance among various factors is crucial. Let’s explore these essential principles for choosing a profitable blog topic.

Topic Popularity

One important factor in the success of any profitable blog is that it will need to find readers. I could probably build a blog that would dominate the niche for ‘green striped paper bags’ and get 100% of those searching for the term on Google (there is no competition) however the fact of the matter is that I’d probably be my only reader. It’s important to choose a topic that meets a demand for information. It need not be on a topic that absolutely everyone is searching for information on – but the popularity of the topic is obviously one factor that could increase the chances of success.

Selecting a topic with a significant demand for information increases the likelihood of attracting readers. While it’s important to find a balance between popularity and competition, identifying niches within popular topics can be highly profitable. For example, rather than starting a broad blog about fitness, focusing on a specific niche like “keto diet for beginners” or “high-intensity interval training (HIIT)” can yield better results. These focused topics allow you to position yourself as an expert and capture a dedicated audience.

To gauge the popularity of a blog topic, keyword research tools can provide valuable insights. These tools help identify search volume, competition, and related keywords for conducting your niche analysis:

• Google Trends: This free tool allows you to explore the popularity of specific keywords over time and in different regions. It provides data on search interest, related topics, and rising trends.
• SEMrush: Known for its comprehensive keyword research features, SEMrush offers insights into search volume, keyword difficulty, and competitor analysis. It also suggests related keywords and provides an overview of the competitive landscape.

Topic Competition and Narrow Niches

Another way of increasing the chances of profit is to choose a topic which currently has few quality sources of information already existing online. You may think that no such topic exists – but you’d be wrong. Whilst the web is a crowded place there are many topics where there is little competition and as a result you have the ability to be one of the biggest fish in that small pond. Sometimes you have to narrow your topic to find such niches, other times you have to be ‘the first’ as a new topic emerges and other times there might be existing sites on the topic – but they are of a low enough standard that you can compete easily by producing something better or more useful. Finding a niche with limited competition can provide opportunities for significant growth and profitability. Here are a couple of examples:

1. “Indoor Urban Gardening Tips”: With the rise in urban living, many people are interested in growing plants indoors. By focusing on providing valuable content and advice on indoor urban gardening techniques, tools, and plant care, you can establish yourself as an authority in this niche. Monetization options can include affiliate partnerships with gardening equipment suppliers or creating your own line of indoor gardening products.
2. “Sustainable Fashion for Men”: As sustainability becomes a global concern, the demand for eco-friendly fashion is rising. By catering specifically to men and providing content on sustainable clothing brands, styling tips, and ethical fashion practices, you can tap into a growing market. Revenue streams can include affiliate marketing with sustainable fashion brands and collaborations with eco-conscious clothing companies.
3. My narrowest niche blog is one that I run on UAV’s or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Now it’s not my most profitable blog by far – and when I started it ten years ago there weren’t as many people searching on the topic and I was able to get a fairly large % of those searching for my keywords because I ranked so highly on Google for them. These days this topic is a lot more competitive but it’s an example of what you can do over time if you’re willing to carve out a niche for yourself.

Here are some additional niche analysis tools to help you identify untapped markets:

• Ubersuggest: offers keyword suggestions and competition analysis. It provides information on search volume, difficulty, and related keywords, helping you discover specific niches with lower competition.
• Ahrefs: a powerful SEO tool that enables you to analyze competitors, discover low-competition keywords, and explore niche opportunities. It also offers content gap analysis, helping you identify areas where your competitors are lacking.

Availability of Revenue Streams

Ok so you’ve found a topic people search for and you don’t have much competition – but you’ll never turn a profit on it if you don’t find an income stream for it. Contextual advertising programs like Adsense offer varying click values for different topics. Ideally, you’d want to choose a high-paying topic, but you might discover intense competition within those niches. It can be worthwhile to explore medium-level click values with less competition. Remember, Adsense is not the only revenue stream for bloggers. Explore available affiliate programs relevant to your topic and consider opportunities for sponsorships from private advertising sources.

Identifying topics with potential revenue streams is essential for long-term profitability. Here are two recent examples:

1. “Smart Home Automation”: With the increasing popularity of smart home devices, blogging about smart home automation can be lucrative. Monetization options include affiliate partnerships with smart home product manufacturers, sponsored content from companies in the home automation industry, and creating digital products such as e-books or online courses on setting up smart homes.
2. “Digital Nomad Lifestyle”: As remote work and location independence gain traction, the digital nomad lifestyle has become a popular topic. Bloggers in this niche can generate revenue through affiliate marketing of travel gear, sponsored content from travel agencies or co-working spaces, and offering coaching or consulting services for aspiring digital nomads.

Researching “your topic affiliate programs” on search engines and exploring Amazon’s affiliate program can be excellent starting points. Here are a few examples of tools to assist you in assessing your blog affiliate revenue potential:

• Amazon Associates: Amazon’s affiliate program, known as Amazon Associates, allows you to earn commissions by promoting products relevant to your blog’s niche. With a vast range of products, it can be a valuable income source for bloggers.
• ShareASale: an affiliate marketing network that connects bloggers with various merchants and brands. It offers a wide range of affiliate programs across different niches, allowing you to find relevant partners for your blog.

If you are going to use Adsense you ideally want a high paying topic. Unfortunately whilst you might identify one you may just find that your competition is incredibly high. Sometimes it is worth picking a topic that is in the medium level of click values and has less competition.

Availability of Content

You’ll want to do a little research on your topic before starting a blog to see if you’ll be able to sustain it in adding fresh content over a long period. The thing that kills many commercial blogs very quickly is that the author simply runs out of things to write. I’ve started numerous blogs over the past couple of years that I quickly found I had nothing much to say about.

Ensuring a steady stream of content is crucial for maintaining engagement and attracting readers. Here’s an example:

• “Plant-Based Recipes for Families”: As more people embrace plant-based diets, there’s a demand for family-friendly plant-based recipes. By curating and creating delicious, kid-friendly plant-based recipes, you can cater to this audience. Content can include meal planning tips, nutritional information, and creative plant-based alternatives for popular family meals. Regularly sharing new recipes and engaging with the audience can help build a loyal readership.

If you’re wanting to test the availability of content keyword research tools can help identify popular topics and generate content ideas. Here are two tools to assist you:

• BuzzSumo: allows you to discover popular content in your niche by analyzing social media shares and engagement. It helps you identify trending topics and create content that resonates with your audience.
• AnswerThePublic: This tool generates a visual representation of questions and phrases related to your chosen keyword. It can inspire content ideas by revealing what people are searching for and what information they seek.

Measure your own Energy, Passion and Interest

Lastly (and very importantly) it’s worth trying to objectively measure your own passion, interest or energy level for the blog. Whilst there might be plenty of news going around on the topic will you still be energized by posting on the topic in 6 months time (without the motivation of money – because it might take take a year or two to establish yourself in a niche). If you don’t have something motivating you to post on a topic it can become very difficult to keep doing so – unless you have a very dedicated personality type.

Put it all together

The fact is that you’ll rarely find a topic that all these factors come together on unless you’re either very lucky or the first in a popular new niche that you just happen to have a passion for. Most blogs fall down in one (or more) of these areas. This does not mean it can’t be a viable and profitable blog, but it’s good to be aware of the weaknesses as you venture out. The beauty of blogging is that there are no rules – and some of my most successful experiments have flown in the face of most of the above principles.

For example (just to disprove myself and give a little hope to you rebellious types) – arguably the most successful blog I’ve ever been involved with (over a short period of time) was the Athens Olympics Blog that I ran with a mate which generated 2 million visitors in a few weeks and made us a tidy sum of money.

This blog succeeded despite having massive competition (from every major news website going around) and despite having very low click value on Adsense and few lucrative affiliate programs. The sheer weight of people searching for information over a short period of time was the main ingredient to our success. This was coupled with us working incredibly long hours (around the clock for two weeks and for months before) providing a blog that was actually quite useful. We actually became known as a site that updated statistics and information faster than most of the ‘professional’ sites covering the event.

Despite being dormant (and falling into disrepair lately) it still even gets reasonable visitor levels to this day.

So take these principles as friendly advice – not rules. In many ways they are ‘ideals’ which you will almost certainly have to compromise some of at some point but which can help you choose a topic that has a greater chance of success.

Add your own suggestions and experiences in choosing a blog’s topic below in comments12.

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The post Maintaining Momentum in Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

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The Blogosphere is suffering from an epidemic of inactivity.

One of the most quoted statistics about the growth of blogging is that last year Technorati says that one blog is started every second (that’s 86,400 per day or 31,536,000 per year).

This is an amazing figure and one worth slipping into conversation when attempting to convince someone of the worth of blogging – however another finding from Technorati that is quoted much less is that around half of new blogs become inactive after just three months.

Scientists talk about the amount of ‘space junk’ accumulating in orbit around the earth – my mind boggles at the number of blog junk that must be sitting idle – orbiting aimlessly through the blogosphere.

There are many reasons for this blog junk. A lot of it is the results of splogging. A “Splog” or Spam Blog is a blog created for the sole purpose of linking to other associated websites. Splogs have a short lifespan. Some other blog junk is the result of blogs coming to the natural end of their life cycle (even good blogs die eventually) and some of it is the results of bloggers ‘testing’ new designs or playing around with different blog platforms.

I would guess however, that many of the abandoned and inactive blogs orbiting around, are the results of bloggers who’ve started blogs with good intentions, who have not been able to maintain the momentum that they started out with in terms of posting quality and frequency.

Most of us have struggled at one time or another with maintaining momentum on their blog/s. The reasons for it are many:

• Bloggers biting off more than they can chew – one common scenario that I see in ‘Pro Blogging’ circles is bloggers starting multiple blogs at once and then failing to maintain any of them due to the load. Another problem is picking a topic that is just too wide and therefore overwhelms the blogger.
• Running out of things to say – on the flip side of starting a blog with too wide a focus is choosing one that is too narrow and where it’d difficult to find much to write about.
• Hitting ‘bloggers block’ – many bloggers hit periods where creativity and new ideas just dry up.
• Busyness – many bloggers find that the busyness of their lives is not compatible with the maintenance of a blog
• Holidays – taking time off from blogging is an essential part of keeping fresh and not burning out – however it’s also a danger time for bloggers as many fail to reengage with their blogging rhythm after a period away.
• Crisis – similarly some bloggers fail to reengage with blogging after a crisis hits their personal life. A death in the family, the loss of a job, a relationship break up or any other significant event can mean putting blogging on pause and make it hard to start up again.
• Blogging Crisis – I’ve seen a number of bloggers in recent times become overwhelmed by the negativity of the blogosphere, particularly when they’ve been critiqued or even attacked for their blogging. While this drives some on to blog harder and stronger it can also be a trigger for giving up in some.
• Boredom – as I look at some of the blogs I’ve let go over the last few years one of the reasons was a lack of excitement about the topic. It’d difficult to keep writing on a topic that fails to engage you.

Linked below is a series of posts on the topic of Maintaining Momentum in blogging (at the request of a number of readers of late). Hopefully through it will give us all a little inspiration and a few tips on how to re-start (or end gracefully) those blogs we’ve struggled to keep moving forward.

There is likely to be a bit of cross over between this series and the Battling Bloggers Block series because ‘bloggers block’ is obviously one barrier to momentum. However, maintaining momentum is wider than just a lack of ideas and creativity and hopefully you’ll find this series will address the wider issues in a way that the previous one could not.

Read the rest of the Maintaining Momentum in Blogging Series at:

• 3 Factors to Consider before Starting a Blog
• On the Go Planning
• Using Posting Schedules to Maintain Momentum
• Build on Reader Comments
• Schedule Writing Times
• What to do when you’ve said everything there is to say

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The post Seasonal Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

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Ben Yoskovitz’s 6 Steps To Getting Back Into The Blog Saddle reminded me today of some of the tougher times in my own blogging journey when I found it difficult to keep things going.

• The month I had Bells Palsy (facial paralysis and loss of all balance)
• The two weeks that I virtually lost my sight and couldn’t look at a computer screen
• The numerous times I took vacations and found motivating myself to start again a real challenge
• The many ‘critiques’ from others that took the wind out of my sails to the point where giving up seemed attractive

The list could go on (sickness, holidays, disillusionment, boredom, inability to think of fresh ideas etc) – it’s no wonder I’ve written so many posts on the topic of keeping your blog running (see below for a few).

Seasonal Blogging

Since reading Ben’s post I’ve also been considering the idea that blogs will go through different seasons over time.

Winter

I think it’s natural for the tough times (Winter?) to hit periodically. Times like I’ve described above where it is easy to get down in the dumps and consider giving up.

The task during a Blog’s Winter is to keep things going. You might not launch any new projects or add too many new features to your blog in these times – but if you can keep things ticking over until Spring time you’ll see the benefits of sticking at it.

Winter is a time where character and discipline is tested – it’s a time when many bloggers give up – but where those who stick at it can build foundations for a strong blgo that lasts.

Spring

But it’s not all the doom and gloom of Winter when you blog. Spring can be just around the corner at any moment with a period of renewed energy and life for your blog.

Perhaps it is triggered by a fresh idea for a series, the search engines tweaking their algorithm to sending loads or traffic or even by another site linking up.

The key in Spring is to go with the new life and let your blog grow to the next level. This might be a time to harness energy and launch a new feature – or even a time to do a little cross pollination with others in your niche to see what new partnerships might emerge. You might even have a little time to do a little spring cleaning up of your blog while you have renewed energy.

Summer

Then there are other times in the life cycle of a blog where things seem to coast along.

The content is flowing, readers are interacting with what you’ve been writing and you feel like you hardly need to put any effort in at all – it’s like a Summer vacation.

You might even take a little holiday at this time and bring in someone to help you keep things running while you take a little rest and relaxation.

Fall/Autumn

Lastly – there are seasons in every blog where change is needed. Dead wood needs to be cut off and swept away – like the sweeping away of the leaves on a deciduous tree in Autumn (Fall). Other areas will need a little fertilizing (extra compost to get them growing to their potential).

This is a time for refining and consolidation of what you do, perhaps with a little pruning and thinking a little strategically about where your blog is headed. This might also be a time for storing up supplies (write some extra content for that rainy day).

The decisions you make and the work you do in these times can help you to get through the Winter that might be ahead.

The Seasons Each Have Their Place

None of the seasons are ‘bad’ – all have their purpose and all have their tasks that blogger might need to be working on.

The trick is not to give up in those Winter months that so many of us have – but to keep working through them so that the blog is able to still be there at the next change of season.

What Season is your blog in at present?

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