Blogging is not that easy and it needs hard work. That’s why you want to make it as easy as
possible. This post provides hints and tips on how to make your blogging
experience less painful.
Sometimes it’s not that easy to get your blog online. Not because of any
technical problems or lack of skill, sometimes just finding the time to
think about what you will post about, researching the topic and then
creating it, can be easier to avoid than do.
We all know about the benefits of blogging to our personal or corporate brand. Blogging can…
- Establish ourselves as the expert
- Allow us to engage with our users
- Encourage repeat traffic
- Improve our search engine visibility
Finding time to blog, is a constant challenge to the team at Blog Action
Day. Here are some tips we use to try and make it a bit easier for
ourselves.
1. Make Time to Blog.
Let’s not beat around the bush. Building a blog is hard. Not
everybody talks about it because everybody wants everyone else to think
that their blog became an overnight success, because their content is
just that fabulous and their blog is just that beautiful. Sadly for most
of us, we need to put in the hours and the love to make our blogs a
success and guess what? There is no shame in that. In fact, building
your blog in the “slow and steady” way could even be a more successful
strategy for you in the long run.
Here’s why:
If you have been blogging for only a short time, and you create one
“viral” content piece, you may not be able to fully capitalize on that
traffic. If you don’t have a lot of content for your readers to browse
or an easy to implement email capture strategy (to build your subscribers) all that traffic could be a complete loss to you- and we don’t want that.
Treat your blogging like a friend. Schedule a regular amount of time
where you can completely focus on your blog. It might be 30 mins every
Tuesday lunchtime or a hour ever second Thursday at 9pm.
It doesn’t matter when or how long, but making that appointment with
your blog, putting it in your diary and treating it like your would a
work commitment or a catch-up with friends, means you can focus your
time and effort, rather than getting distracted and putting it off until
tomorrow, again.
2 Knowing what you will blog about in advance.
Unless your blog is about celebrity, politics or breaking news, you should be able to plan your posts in advance.
Knowing what you will be writing about in advance, means you can use
the time your set aside to work on your blog more efficiently, as you
have a topic or idea to focus on. Also, you will be surprised how you
start noticing content and links that will “beef-up” your blog, when you
have already decided what you want to cover.
One of the easiest ways to plan topics in advance, is to think about
significant days and events and use them to inspire your blogging. One
good source is the.
3 Scheduling posts
Scheduled post publishing, which we talked about testing on Blogger in draft last month, is now live for everyone. If you set a post’s date into the future, Blogger will wait to publish until that time comes.Have you ever wanted to announce something on a certain date but knew you wouldn’t be at a computer to make a post? Or you wanted to keep posting regularly but knew you’d be on vacation for a few weeks? Scheduled post publishing is here to help you out.Scheduling
a post is easy to do: on the post editor page, click the “Post Options”
toggle to show the “Post date and time” fields. Then, type a post date
and time that’s in the future. When you click the “Publish” button, your
post will become “scheduled.” When the date and time of the post
arrive, it will be automatically published to your blog.
“Scheduled”
posts appear in your Edit Posts list alongside your drafts and
published posts. To un-schedule a post, simply save it as a draft any
time before it gets published.
One quick note:
If you want to give a post a date in the future but have it appear on
your blog now, you’ll need to add in an extra step. First, publish your
post with the current date and time. This will make it appear on your
blog. Then, edit the post to change the date into the future and publish
it again.We don’t
re-schedule posts that are already published, so the post will stay on
your blog but sort to the very top. The same is true of future dated
posts you’ve already made, so there’s no need to worry about your
existing posts disappearing, or having your blog assaulted by unplanned
entries in, say, 2027.4 Find a good editor
Whether
you’re self publishing or using publishing company, using a
professional editor is crucial. Even though a publisher will send your
manuscript through the editing process, believe me, they will be much more likely to take you on as a client if your book has been edited up front.
Before
choosing an editor be clear about what an editor is and is not. If you
want your book to be as professional as possible you should get the
help of a line editor and a copy editor. A line editor goes through
your manuscript a various stages and reshapes it until you are happy
with it. Your relationship with this editor is important because she
is being asked to take what you’ve worked on for weeks, months, maybe
years and tear it apart for the good of the project. You should be able
to answer every question she asks and approve of every change she proposes. You can only do this if you have total trust in her.
Now that you have a better understanding what editors do, how do you choose one?
How much should you pay?
Determine how much you
have in your budget. Because I recognize its importance, I’m willing to
spend upwards of $3,000 for a good editor, but if that’s outside of
your budget, try to find the best editor you can for what you can
afford.
Where should you look?
I would start by asking people I know who have written books to give
me suggestions. Other sources would be writing magazines, websites and
blogs.
Don’t expect the first one to be perfect
Like
finding a good mate, you may have to kiss a few frogs before finding the
right editor but each you’ll get close to knowing what you want and
don’t want in an editor going forward.
5 Don’t be a lone blogger
Blogging without conversation is a bit like shouting in the wind, you
may get the words out but you are very unlikely to be listened to.
Connecting up with bloggers online and offline by taking part in a
blog events ( like Blog Action Day) or a regular blog meet-up in your
local cafe, can take away some of the isloation that people sometimes
feel when they blog.
Your meet-up might decide to give each other a topic or even work
together on a joint post that will appear across all of your blogs, with
the aim of creating conversation between your different audiences
And don’t forget the most important person in your blog isn’t you.
It’s the person that reads it. So be nice to your readers. Ask them
questions and find out what they think of your posts and topics. Soon
you will end up having conversations online that guess what, turn into
your next blog post.
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