Blogging is not an easy hobby, it takes time, hard-work and commitment.
With so much-needed these days to create a popular blog it is easy to see why so many give up after only a few months. It is no longer enough to just publish create content, you also have to promote it and network with others to help get your posts read.
Add to that the fact that most people have to fit their blog around their full-time jobs and family commitments and you are left with a very time-consuming hobby.
With that in mind I want to share with you 4 tips that will help you to become a more productive blogger and get the most out of your time.
- Allocate Time To Blog – One of the best things that I have done to improve my blogging productivity is to allocate time during my week to my blogging activities. I tend to allocate an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays to create new content for my blogs. By setting the time aside I can make sure that blogging is my only task for that hour allowing me to focus on the task in hand and get more done. I find I get more content written when I am focused solely on doing just that and don’t have any other activities to do.
- Go Offline – This is a tip that many bloggers tend to find pretty silly. What I mean is when you are working on content for your blog, disconnect yourself from the Internet.. Why? Think about how many distractions that you have online, the most notable being Social Media. By removing the distraction of constant Twitter, Facebook and email updates I have been able to produce an extra blog post per hour.
- Get A Notebook – One of the most time-consuming aspects of blogging is thinking about what to write. If you are in a news niche then you will always have fresh content, however if you blog in a more specific niche then it is usually up to you to think up exciting content that your visitors want to read. My tip to you is to always carry a small notepad wherever you go. I find that inspiration for blog posts can pop up at any time of the day and having a notepad on me means that I can jot down the potential title and the thoughts that are running through my head at that time. This means that when I sit down to start writing content I already have a couple of ideas to form the basis of my first couple of posts.
- Separate Publishing and Promotion – As I said before there is a lot more to blogging these days than just publishing great content. You have to get out there and promote it to people in your niche, whether that be through Twitter, Facebook, Email marketing or comments on other blogs. I found that I became more productive when I separated the publishing and promotion angles to blogging. As I mentioned above I set aside an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays for producing my content, I then schedule an hour at some point during the week to get out there are promote my posts. I then find that through-out the week I will get odd hours that I have free, I can then use this time to do a bit of promotion. It is much easier to jump in and promote your blog in your free time that it is to sit down and produce content.
These are just four ways in which I have made myself a more productive blogger.
I want to know what you have done to improve your productivity? What tip would you share with others?
{ 6 comments }
David,
These are solid tips!
I happened to write about this similar topic just last week
Anyway, I’m doing the writing part early in the mornings, because that is the quietest time of the day. Also, when I write, I use a timer. I helps to focus solely on writing and nothing else.
In addition, I like to brainstorm for topic ideas and write some basic outlines for them, so that when I write, I don’t have to figure out the sub-headlines for my posts anymore. Obviously, whenever I come up with an post idea, I try to capture it right away.
I like your way of separating publishing and promotion. That’s something that I have to work more on, so that I get a bit more sense to it
Timo
Twitter: ProfitDuck
July 22, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Recently I have been posting whenever an idea pops in my head, luckily as I’m away from the usual work load I have, I have the time to do this. but as said in the post, allocating time is a must, I used to make sure that every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I had about 2 hours a day to do blog worked, it helped a lot, but I also felt a bit restricted. Being able to do the blogging work whenever I feel inspired it a big help for me, I guess it’s just the way you work.
The Notebook point. I have found since I bought an ipod touch I have found it much easier to write blog posts, as wherever I am I am able to note down my ideas and then use them when I’m at a computer.
Regards,
Simon Duck
Twitter: alexiskenne
July 28, 2011 at 2:23 pm
I agree with David, Time allocation for your blog is very important. During my first period of blogging i had many sites which i had no time to post articles on them, all this due to time. But immidiately i allocate time for my activities, blogging became very easy.
Try to comment on 3 or more blogs in your niche to add value to others’ posts and link back to your site
I’ve been doing the part where I plan out specific times of day to work on my blog. Whether that is writing new posts, or commenting on blogs, etc. It has definitely increased my productivity.
I’ve recently started a few blogs to give guidance to people for health issues, and yeah, it’s very tough to get traffic. I’m really trying hard though – I agree that sticking to it is the best way to go!
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