When it comes to starting a blog - we are all experts thanks to Blogger and Wordpress. But what about running a blog and keeping it up to date? Do you feel satisfied with how often you blog and the response from your readers? These tips are designed to help you engage yourself - and to build a true connection to your life as a blogger.
Take the essence of these tips and you'll be one of the few people who have learned through perseverance what it means to be called a professional blogger.
Take the essence of these tips and you'll be one of the few people who have learned through perseverance what it means to be called a professional blogger.
Blog about what you love during the first 6 months
It sounds simple but it isn't. Finding out what you love requires a degree of honesty with yourself. Is it really cooking reciepes? Is it really video game reviews? Is it really writing about writing?
You'll need to answer that sometime, or else the blog you're trying to run will fail on you - or rather, you'll get bored and pull out.
Connecting your interests with a regular blog post can be easy if you learn to make regular lists about subjects. So I advise making titles in addition to subject lists. The variety of titles on a notepad near your laptop or phone will make you want to share what's inside of you - that expertise no one else has.
Here are a few more tips that will benefit your enduring blog:
You'll need to answer that sometime, or else the blog you're trying to run will fail on you - or rather, you'll get bored and pull out.
Connecting your interests with a regular blog post can be easy if you learn to make regular lists about subjects. So I advise making titles in addition to subject lists. The variety of titles on a notepad near your laptop or phone will make you want to share what's inside of you - that expertise no one else has.
Here are a few more tips that will benefit your enduring blog:
Do it for you: make your blog your personality, your voice
o Start with zero motivation to make money ( via Jennsbalhblahblog.com)
o Get up earlier in the day if you can.
o Don’t take hot showers- you’ll be too tired to write in the morning. Lukewarm or cool is better. Use a rough towel to stimulate blood flow.
o Blog for pleasure to encase it in your life.
o Make lists and find facts to put under each blog post idea you get. The more ideas you have, the more likely you’ll get around to writing another post sometime in the day.
o Don’t push yourself too much, don’t worry too much. Just take it easy.
o Eat before you start, drink some coffee. Go to the coffee shop with a friend.
o Take regular breaks. Stand up and stretch. Take a short walk. Watch tv and write in a notepad.
o My personal tip to more “aggressive writing” is sit up straight while I type. Slouching kills my productivity. I actually try a few different poses for long-writing bouts – some of positions are better than others. But having your butt planted in a fluffy, leather chair can lower blood flow and make writing very sluggish at times.
o Realize it is non-sense that you will make money right away – unless you research and have started blogs before and have a following or some way to get your foot in the door so to speak. Otherwise, it’s like watering a plant every day and knowing it will be months before you see its fruit – whatever they may be.
o Treat your blog like a business. Do it often, on some kind of schedule and feel that "urge" to write.
o Get up earlier in the day if you can.
o Don’t take hot showers- you’ll be too tired to write in the morning. Lukewarm or cool is better. Use a rough towel to stimulate blood flow.
o Blog for pleasure to encase it in your life.
o Make lists and find facts to put under each blog post idea you get. The more ideas you have, the more likely you’ll get around to writing another post sometime in the day.
o Don’t push yourself too much, don’t worry too much. Just take it easy.
o Eat before you start, drink some coffee. Go to the coffee shop with a friend.
o Take regular breaks. Stand up and stretch. Take a short walk. Watch tv and write in a notepad.
o My personal tip to more “aggressive writing” is sit up straight while I type. Slouching kills my productivity. I actually try a few different poses for long-writing bouts – some of positions are better than others. But having your butt planted in a fluffy, leather chair can lower blood flow and make writing very sluggish at times.
o Realize it is non-sense that you will make money right away – unless you research and have started blogs before and have a following or some way to get your foot in the door so to speak. Otherwise, it’s like watering a plant every day and knowing it will be months before you see its fruit – whatever they may be.
o Treat your blog like a business. Do it often, on some kind of schedule and feel that "urge" to write.
Save time: stop trying to watch the grass grow
- Don’t check email. If it’s not blogging, it’s a time waster and will get you to waste time that you could spend researching, coming up with fun topics you want to write about in a week or so.
- Don't check Google Analytics or Google Adsense. For the most part, it will just waste your time and frustrate you from the sheer lack of statistics to analyse. When you get 10-20 search terms in Analytics, start using those to think of articles to write and include the keywords in the article, weaved in neatly and poetically.
Clean up your workspace all the time & throw out the time wasters
- Clean up your workspace often. When there are 1-2 inches of papers and a slew of cups, there’s no room for focus. So clean up right now and start writing after that’s out of the way of your monitor.
- Ignore stats, like Google Analytics or Adsense income. It is a time waster, except for the keywords that may be coming in to your site – capitalize on the search terms that come in to your site and turn them into bolded text within your articles. Be sure to make their placement effective.
Improve your blog by customizing it to fit your needs, your style, your person
o A great way to stay motivated is to know exactly why your blog is here, why you want to have a blog, how you can help people, how you can make your niche better (via Johnpaulaguiar.com)
o Once the blog is rolling, and you have a readership of 1-10 people and perhaps even more, start having fun. Write more regularly than you do, write in bed if you have a laptop and share more thoughts and more with the community. Don’t overwhelm them with minutiae if that’s not what they subscribed for, but share articles you are reading and comment on them; just like a Facebook fan page, you want to share other people’s things on your site 80% of the time, and post new things 20% of the time – until then, post fresh and engaging words from the heart. This will help bring in more traffic, but more importantly it will help you stay focused on enjoying the blogging aspect. Don't slack off on quality, though.
Now I know this tip may seem unusual, but look at sites like Icanhazcheezburger.com; they're running without creating any content themselves. This means you'll have to make sure you pick the right things to share, that will truly give people the informational, personal, and entertainment value they expect.
o Work through all the negativity of not being noticed and post your own big pictures that are high quality. Do better captions, better drawings, better writing. Improve your blog daily in some way with every new post. As you improve, your readership will come. They will come.
o It’s okay to fail at a blog or two. Keeping several blogs may be too difficult for some writers, or it may be the perfect thing to do; different subjects for different days? Think about it. I have personally started dozens of blogs and have only kept about 3 of them actively updated. One of them is thriving, the other two have a steady silent readership. It’s working, but it takes time like a plant you water with care and love every day.
o Keep working even if you feel like you've failed. Okay so you lost a week of writing, so what? Start posting good stuff again. Keep posting, post twice, three times a day, and more if you can. Frequency equals GREATER traffic, exposure to the right audience!
o Do NOT take a break lasting more than a week. Some research into blogs indicate that ones that stop writing lose their steady traffic. If you can’t post one week, be sure to use scheduling so that your readership – even the people you haven’t seen log onto your site – have something fresh to see on your site. This date-problem can be fixed in Wordpress blogs with a simple plugin that removes dates. It may help Google to rank some of your links higher, seeing that they do not have really old time stamps.
o Once the blog is rolling, and you have a readership of 1-10 people and perhaps even more, start having fun. Write more regularly than you do, write in bed if you have a laptop and share more thoughts and more with the community. Don’t overwhelm them with minutiae if that’s not what they subscribed for, but share articles you are reading and comment on them; just like a Facebook fan page, you want to share other people’s things on your site 80% of the time, and post new things 20% of the time – until then, post fresh and engaging words from the heart. This will help bring in more traffic, but more importantly it will help you stay focused on enjoying the blogging aspect. Don't slack off on quality, though.
Now I know this tip may seem unusual, but look at sites like Icanhazcheezburger.com; they're running without creating any content themselves. This means you'll have to make sure you pick the right things to share, that will truly give people the informational, personal, and entertainment value they expect.
o Work through all the negativity of not being noticed and post your own big pictures that are high quality. Do better captions, better drawings, better writing. Improve your blog daily in some way with every new post. As you improve, your readership will come. They will come.
o It’s okay to fail at a blog or two. Keeping several blogs may be too difficult for some writers, or it may be the perfect thing to do; different subjects for different days? Think about it. I have personally started dozens of blogs and have only kept about 3 of them actively updated. One of them is thriving, the other two have a steady silent readership. It’s working, but it takes time like a plant you water with care and love every day.
o Keep working even if you feel like you've failed. Okay so you lost a week of writing, so what? Start posting good stuff again. Keep posting, post twice, three times a day, and more if you can. Frequency equals GREATER traffic, exposure to the right audience!
o Do NOT take a break lasting more than a week. Some research into blogs indicate that ones that stop writing lose their steady traffic. If you can’t post one week, be sure to use scheduling so that your readership – even the people you haven’t seen log onto your site – have something fresh to see on your site. This date-problem can be fixed in Wordpress blogs with a simple plugin that removes dates. It may help Google to rank some of your links higher, seeing that they do not have really old time stamps.
“Blogging is like a shuttle launch, shuttle uses something like 70% of it’s fuel on the take off and the other 30% to finish the trip” - John Paliguar
o Read articles like this to stay motivated, comment and say that you need support for your site. You’ll be surprised how quickly people can assemble on Facebook and comments pages to bring you the readership and love your blog needs. Try it out; ask and ye shall receive.
o Write about subjects unrelated to your blog from time to time to show a personal touch; remark on family life, mention your favorite bands, or link to the blog you model your blog after and then share the post with the author of that blog. This will be extremely helpful in accelerating the growth of your blog, through true engagement and personalization of your site. Which brings us to a bigger point than any other points in running a blog as a business or as a hobby to make money:
o Make it personal. Newspapers are not personal. Google News is not personal. Entertainment gossip is not personal. But blogs can be! They are a voice for the middle income personality, the ultra high income personality, the struggling artist personality and every other voice out there. Make your voice as clear as day to your readership, write it on your page, stylize your site to make it just like you are. The more it is like you, and liked by you, the more people who like your ‘style’ will flock to you. They will see you are genuine, and personal. You do not talk about boring subjects, you talk about subjects that matter to you today. Like a personal diary, it’s up to you how much you want to share – but sharing more won’t hurt on the internet; you can take precautions if you’re too scared to have your face on the blog, but sharing your personality doesn't require a picture of you: just give them what’s in your heart every day and do it honestly.
o Reward your readers from time to time and keep writing daily. Ask questions at the end of your post, even if no one responds. Always ask them what they think. Eventually, readers will be responding but for now you’re conditioning yourself to think of the blog as a type of long distance conversation. It may take a month for John Jane to receive your blog post and be able to send you a letter.
o Do more than the other bloggers. Use newer technology, newer widgets, smoother layouts, and keep things consistent. Make images, youtube videos, designs, drawings, presentations and do research like this: open a Google search and find a subject you want to write about, then in a document make a tab for every site you copy a fact or advice from. Be sure to copy the URL. Once you have ten links and ten facts, you essentially have a new story to write. Give proper credit and write your thoughts in between each fact and you can have a neat 500+ word article that Google and your readers are going to love.
o Here are some awesome questions to ask yourself as a blogger from ProBlogger. My favorite is, “Am I getting personal satisfaction from posting?”
"Go beyond what you think you can make of yourself with your personalized blog."
Do it for yourself, out of love not for money
This is probably one of the biggest pitfalls for novice bloggers: they think they'll make a ton of money from writing once a week for a month. Or they think writing for one year is going to get them an extraordinary income. It is possible if you do all the right things, but chances are you have a lot to learn about blogging until you make a living or even a decent $50 bucks a month. Think of what your estimate is to reach your income goal and double or triple it.
"I think I will be making $100 bucks from ads on my blog by the end of the year, posting once a week." - and quadruple that estimate to 4 years. Yes, the reality is it will probably take about 4-5 years to reach the point of making actual money on your blog. Sorry.
This is a more realistic view, and it is still optimistic; it means you have all that time to make an awesome, fun blog just for yourself. There's no hurry, just do it every day once or twice from your phone or on your laptop. In a few years time, you may even be able to leave your day job!
If you post once a day, you will have about 200-300 blog posts that Google will find. But if you improve your writing, images, add videos, add polls, add newer technology and share other blogs on your site and great facts pertaining to the subject - you will grow quicker, and even if you have fewer posts, you'll be more reputable. Then income will be a matter of real discussion. Until then, post once or twice a day about things you actually care about, and spend time customizing the post so it looks like your ideal journal entry. .. and go beyond what you think you can make of yourself with this personalized blog of yours. Treat it better than a journal, but be sure to give it the touch that says "this is me, exactly like what I'd say in real life" or "these images reflect my taste exactly!".
"I think I will be making $100 bucks from ads on my blog by the end of the year, posting once a week." - and quadruple that estimate to 4 years. Yes, the reality is it will probably take about 4-5 years to reach the point of making actual money on your blog. Sorry.
This is a more realistic view, and it is still optimistic; it means you have all that time to make an awesome, fun blog just for yourself. There's no hurry, just do it every day once or twice from your phone or on your laptop. In a few years time, you may even be able to leave your day job!
If you post once a day, you will have about 200-300 blog posts that Google will find. But if you improve your writing, images, add videos, add polls, add newer technology and share other blogs on your site and great facts pertaining to the subject - you will grow quicker, and even if you have fewer posts, you'll be more reputable. Then income will be a matter of real discussion. Until then, post once or twice a day about things you actually care about, and spend time customizing the post so it looks like your ideal journal entry. .. and go beyond what you think you can make of yourself with this personalized blog of yours. Treat it better than a journal, but be sure to give it the touch that says "this is me, exactly like what I'd say in real life" or "these images reflect my taste exactly!".