Friday Blog Challenge: Plan The Next Week of Posts

Filed under Blog Challenge, Tips and Tricks, Writer's Block by on January 20, 2012 at 10:33 am {no comments}

Friday Blog Tips

Earlier this week I wrote about post frequency and how as a blogger you cannot post too often. In fact, if you want more traffic you need to post more often. The problem with writing more comes down to what to write about. Often times the biggest obstacle to updating a  blog or website on a regular basis is finding an interesting topic to write about.

There’s always something to write about

I usually write ten articles per day, nearly half are about blogging. There have been times where I believed there was nothing left to write about in my niche. But of course nothing could be further from the truth. I also write for several real estate blogs, home improvement websites and home builders blogs. While there are always topics to discuss in those industries each article I write must be unique so burnout can happen.

Organization increases productivity

What I have found, in both my Friday Blog Challenge Friday Blog Challenge: Plan The Next Week of Posts ghostblogging and writing for this site, is that if I plan ahead and write down the topics I want to discuss for the coming week, and the coming month, I can easily breeze through more articles per day than if I spent each morning staring at a blank page with only a blinking cursor on it.

Having a plan sounds like a really simple thing to do to increase your productivity and yet because it is such an easy thing to do most bloggers overlook its importance.

Inspiration comes from organization

Whether you blog professionally or just do it as a hobby you will notice quite quickly that being organized will lessen your time staring at your monitor with nothing to show for it. You might also find that indeed there are plenty of things to write about within your niche and you might even be inspired to write several blogs posts in advance of publication.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have several blog posts in the can and set up to autopost?

Take a few minutes this weekend and jot down the topics you want to cover, are interested in writing about or just find topical and relevant to your blog. If you are really feeling ambitious start a draft of each topic and save it to come back to later. Just seeing the start of a draft can be inspirational and is less likely to cause you to mop the floor, clean the window blinds, sort your socks by color and fabric or anything so you don’t have to write.

By taking a few minutes to plan out the next week of your blog you might be surprised to learn there are plenty of topics to discuss.

 

Friday Blog Challenge: Plan The Next Week of Posts

Ultimate Blogger Contest

Filed under Blog Challenge, Contests, Events by on December 14, 2011 at 5:33 am {no comments}

Scenechat Ultimate Blogger Contest

SceneChat has just launched the Ultimate Blogger Contest designed to make a blogger’s life easier by providing you with the tools and resources to manage your time better and write more efficiently. They’ve included 6 amazing tools in the contest, including:

* Dropbox

* Copyscape

* Evernote

* Spotify

* Pingdom

* Remember the Milk

Don’t miss out – the contest ends on December 18th!

Enter here: http://www.ultimatebloggercontest.com

To find out more about the contest and how these tools help bloggers, read SceneChat’s blog post here:http://scenechat.com/launching-the-ultimate-blogger-contest/

 

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Ultimate Blogger Contest

Friday Blog Challenge: Write a Follow-Up Post

Filed under Blog Challenge, Uncategorized by on December 9, 2011 at 7:55 am {no comments}

Here’s a way to produce more content while kicking writer’s block to the curb: Go through your archives every so often to identify a post that’s worth an update.

As you know, blogging is mostly about relationships. We share our lives and our stories one post at a time and that allows us to get to know our readers and fellow bloggers. And after you’ve written 20 posts you have a backstory that your readers know and are following.

So why not revisit some of the things you wrote about last summer. Update Stamp Friday Blog Challenge: Write a Follow Up Post Chances are good you mentioned some things you were planning to do. Have you followed through on that plan? If so tell your readers what happened. Perhaps you built a tree house for your kid. In addition to telling the rest of the story you could probably offer some dos and don’ts regarding the actual project.

Did you write a post in mid-November asking for some tasty Thanksgiving Day recipes? How did the meal go? Did you use one of your reader’s recipes? Did the dish turn out well or did it go in the garbage? Write that follow-up post in December.

Give old posts some new life

Another benefit of updating an old post is that it gives you the opportunity to link back to some of your older posts. That’s called making your blog sticky. Linking to old posts on your blog within a new post allows you to reference the back story without having to repeat it.

It will also encourage new readers to stay and sit a spell.

Write with a purpose

If you can’t find any posts that will work with this method write some new posts that will. A good way to do that is to provide a scenario and then ask your readers what they would do. Soon after, write the follow-up post explaining what you actually did.

For example, if someone at work is stealing your coffee cream from the break room refrigerator give the details of the situation and then ask your readers what they would do. (Yes, I actually ran into that exact scenario about 15 years ago. But I didn’t have a blog back then so I had to go old school and complain to my friends on the telephone.)

Then you can either dole out your own swift justice — and then write about it later — or you can get some ideas on how to ferret out the thief. And then you can write about that.

Friday Blog Challenge: Make a Blog Schedule

Filed under Blog Challenge, Tips and Tricks by on November 4, 2011 at 9:35 am {one comment}
2489317446 227f6f2558 m Friday Blog Challenge: Make a Blog Schedule

Image by Francesc Esteve via Flickr

If you are a writer you know how easy it can be to procrastinate. If you are also a blogger you know how important it is to write consistently. As a writer you have learned how to procrastinate with the best of them. This can cause copious amount of guilt if you are a blogger too. How do you bring the two together and eliminate the guilt? The blogging tips below will help you just that.

Organize Your Time With A Schedule

Whether you use an online scheduling tool like Google Docs, an app for your phone or mobile device like Apple iCal or you use a planner that you have to write on with pen or pencil, the reality is most of us don’t use calendars and stick to them. Your schedule is only as good as your ability to follow it.

Just Do It

I know it’s easy to suggest but hard to actually do. I’m notorious for saying I will use a calendar but never following through. It wasn’t until I learned how to use the calendar on my iPhone that my blog and life started to reap the benefits of being organized. My iPhone syncs all my calendars together so that no matter which device I am using, cell phone, iPad or computer, I always had access to a current calendar.

You don’t need Apple devices to take advantage of the current syncing technology. Google Docs has a pretty robust program as well too. You can even collaborate and share the calendar and docs with other people!

Try It For A Week

If the idea of being pinned down by a calendar scares you because you’ve been a write-when-the-moment-strikes kind of writer just commit to giving it a try for one week. You can always write more when the mood strikes but for the times the mood isn’t striking write anyway. Carve out at least an hour each day to work on your blog. If you have several posts already set up to auto post then use that time to add alt tags to your images or clean up your blog roll. The point of the challenge is to get organized so you aren’t worrying about not writing, worrying about your readers who are wondering when you might write again or fretting over what you are going to write about.

You Might Be Surprised

You might be surprised to learn that by scheduling time to write and work on your blog each day, you actually have more to say and write about. You might even find you look forward to the time you carved out each day to be creative. You might actually enjoy yourself.

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Friday Blog Challenge: Make a Blog Schedule
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