This article is a chapter from my book Blog Ideas: 131 Ideas to Kill Writer's Block, Supercharge Your Blog and Stand Out. The entire book will eventually be available on this website for free in web format, but if you prefer to read it in ebook or physical formats, you can find Blog Ideas on Amazon.com (affiliate link).
Consistency is key to being a professional. You need to show up and clock in every single work day. If you stop showing up to work, your readers will abandon you. The first part of this article will give some ideas on how to build a consistent writing habit.
The second section of the article will give some tips for crafting blog posts. There are some tricks and best practices you should know when writing blog posts. Follow the guidelines in this part to write blog posts that your readers will enjoy reading.
The final section of this article discusses how to run your blog like a business. The goal of your blog doesn’t have to be about money. But if you run your blog like a business, you will come across to readers as more professional. Readers will come to respect what you say more if you are professional.
Building a writing habit
Building a daily writing habit is crucial to long-term blogging success. Write a little every day, even if it’s only a paragraph. It helps to set aside a specific time every day when you will write in your blog. Make it as early in your day as possible, before the day’s stresses tire you out and you find excuses not to do it.
Keep a regular posting schedule, and stick with it. Readers like to know when they can expect to see new content. If your blog doesn’t have a consistent posting schedule, your readers will soon tire of checking your blog for updates and not finding any. An inconsistent blog will have inconsistent readers.
Work extra hard and build up a backlog of posts during the first few months. A backlog of draft posts will ensure that you can stick with the schedule even when you go on vacation or have unexpected things happen. And unexpected things will happen. Having a pile of draft posts ready to publish will help keep you consistent and reduce stress.
Here are some more ideas for building a writing habit and staying consistent.
Use the Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique is a time-management technique developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The idea is that you work for 25 minutes of focused work, followed by a five-minute rest. Each 25-minute sprint of work is called a Pomodoro. After every four Pomodoros, take a 30-minute break. During the breaks, you can do anything to rest—anything except work. Get up and walk around, use the restroom, get a cup of coffee, do some exercises, meditate, whatever.
Have a Miracle Morning
In his book The Miracle Morning, Hal Elrod outlines a morning routine that changed his life and made him more productive. He sums it up with the acronym S.A.V.E.R.S., which stands for Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing.
Start by waking up an hour earlier than you normally do. In that extra hour, go through all six parts of S.A.V.E.R.S. in any order you like. Silence means doing meditation, prayer, or just sitting in silence for a few minutes. For Affirmations, you should say positive things to yourself to get into a good mindset. Visualization is imagining yourself succeeding in your day. Get the blood flowing for the Exercise portion. It can be as simple as doing some stretches, or as intense as doing 15 minutes of CrossFit exercises. For the Reading portion, read something useful or inspirational for at least 10 minutes. Finally, Scribing is just a fancy way of saying writing. Spend 10 minutes writing something. It can be anything.
Plan ahead
Any daily plan can get derailed by unforeseen circumstances. That’s why it’s important to schedule blocks of time for writing blog posts. Write as many blog posts as possible during your writing time. Don’t post all of them. Schedule them for the future, or save them in your drafts. You need to build a buffer so that when things pop up to mess with your day, your blog will still keep humming along.
Consistency is important to building an audience for your blog. Readers will not come back to your blog regularly if you don’t post regularly. You should set a schedule for when you post, and stick to it.
How frequently you post can also be one of the main features of your blog. Readers like knowing precisely when new content will be posted. You can post daily, weekly, or monthly. You can even post more irregularly, like “four times a week” or “every 9 AM and 9 PM.” Then you can advertise your frequency of posting in your blog hook. “I’ll teach you how to get started with a new skill every week,” “Monthly restaurant review newsletter,” or “Stock market news every day at the closing bell.”
One tool for consistent posting is the editorial calendar. Plan all the content you will be releasing several months in advance. Then when you write your posts, you always know what you will write next. Having an editorial calendar also allows you to work ahead.
How frequently you post depends on the depth of your content. If it is short content with only a few sentences, it is best to post daily or even several times a day. If your content is long-form content that takes hours of painstaking research to complete, once a week or even once every couple weeks is sufficient. The advantage of posting less frequently is that it allows more time for readers to comment on each post, and gives you more time to focus on quality.
Writing blog posts
The most important element of a good blog post is compelling content. Readers need a good reason for spending time reading your blog. They have to learn something new, be entertained, or find the information they were looking for. Your priority should always be to write great content.
Once you have great content to provide to your readers, you can learn a few tricks to craft the content into engaging blog posts that your audience will want to read. This section has ideas for how to write great blog posts. Read through the ideas, and make a checklist of the most useful and interesting ones. Then, every time you write a blog post, go through your list and make sure you hit all the points.
Know your audience
When writing blog posts, it helps to know who your audience is. What kinds of people read your blog? It may help to profile a few fictitious readers who represent your audience. Write down each character’s traits, what they do for a living, and what problems they have. Name them something memorable. For example, you might come up with Blogger Betty as one of your typical readers. She is a suburban mom of two small children who works in an office during the day. At night, after the kids go to bed, she stays up for an extra hour to write blog posts.
Whenever you write in your blog, picture your readers looking at your articles. Try to solve their problems. Speak to them.
Here are some ways you can identify your audience:
List every type of person who reads your blog. Create a persona for each type, like the example of “Blogger Betty” above. Write down who they are, what they do, when they read your blog, where they read it from, and why they come to your blog.
Read the comments on your posts. Which posts have the most comments? What kinds of people are the top commenters?
Stalk your readers a little. Follow them on social media. Engage in discussions with them.
Ask your readers who they are. Conduct surveys and polls. Or if you want to go for more direct contact, e-mail individual commenters and say hi.
Do you follow similar blogs? Look at what type of people are active on those blogs.
Trial and error. At least in the beginning, publish a variety of different types of posts and gauge the response. Which posts attracted the type of response you want? Write more of those kinds of posts.
Crunch the data. Use Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, etc. to find out who visits your blog.
Once you have an idea of who your audience is, use the knowledge to write content that they care about, understand, and gets their attention.
Blog on the go
Most bloggers sit at their computer and write out blog posts. Many blog platforms let you email in posts. That means you can easily post to your blog from your smartphone on the go. This is well suited for “live blogging” as things are happening, or sending out short updates while you are doing something. The idea is like Twitter, but you can do this on your blog, too. In WordPress, you can set this up by going to your Settings and enabling “Post via email.”
Rock your headlines
Advertising pioneer John Caples has said that the most effective headlines have at least one of four qualities: self-interest, news, curiosity, and a quick, easy way. Self-interest headlines are like, “Get the first month free.” News headlines go, “New law means you pay 30% less.” A curiosity headline looks like, “This ancient Egyptian trick stops hair loss.” Quick, easy-way headlines go like, “Save $100 with just one click!”
Pay attention to any headline that grabs your attention. Keep a file of them. Whenever you see an eye-popping headline, make a clipping and add it to your file. Go to your favorite news sites and look at what headlines get the most attention from readers. Pay attention to the headline structures of the most popular articles. Why do people click on them?
Try plugging your headline into an automated headline analyzer to get some tips on how you can improve it. The CoSchedule Headline Analyzer and Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer will show you the strengths and weaknesses of your headlines, and offer tips on how to improve it.
Write a strong lede
In any blog post, the first sentence is your lede, and it is the most important one in your post. It needs to summon enough reader curiosity that they can’t leave without reading the next sentence. By then, you want to have the reader hooked.
Bestselling author James Altucher says you should always bleed a little on the first line. He means this both figuratively and literally. If you can start your article with blood, readers will be drawn into the story. Why was the author bleeding out of her ears? Readers will want to know.
Another bestselling author, Tim Ferriss, says he learned a formula from a Wired writer. Make the first paragraph involve a specific person. It can be a question, a situation, or something the person said. Make the second paragraph a “nutgraph,” where you explain the topic of the post. You can describe the underlying trend and statistics to back it up. Then close the paragraph with the “nut,” explaining what you’ll teach the reader in the rest of the article.
Another strategy is to make your first few paragraphs very short. They can even be single sentences. It makes the beginning of your article quick to read, and readers naturally flow into reading the rest of the article.
Write good structure
When you’re writing a blog post, think of your article as a list. Do this even if your article is not a list. It is useful to think of it as a list because it injects structure into your thinking while you’re writing. You will find that the words come easier when you have a sequential outline to work from.
Blog readers tend to scan articles. The torrent of new blog posts comes too fast for most readers, and they need to make quick decisions about whether a new article is worth reading or not. Make it easy for readers to make the decision. Make your posts scannable. That means including lots of subheadings. Break big paragraphs up into single lines. Bold or italicize text to emphasize important points. Add quotes, graphics, and whitespace.
James Altucher suggests deleting your first and last paragraphs after you’re done writing. He says this works even if you know you’re going to do it while you’re writing. Try it. See if it makes your article more compelling. It often does, by removing needless explanation.
You want to end your articles strong. Be sure to end them with a takeaway, call to action, or witty line that makes the readers think.
Try a robot editor
While there is no replacement for a good human editor, automated editing services can catch many of the grammatical errors in your articles. All you have to do is paste your writing into the editor, and it will analyze it for common grammatical mistakes. Some of the more popular ones include Hemingway, Grammarly, and After the Deadline.
Make your blog posts visual
Besides writing, one of the most important skills for a blogger to have is photography. You should get a good camera and learn to use it. These days, most premium smartphones have very good cameras. Other than the camera, the other thing you need for taking excellent photographs is good lighting. When you take a picture, make sure there is nothing distracting in the background. Use the “Rule of Thirds.” Imagine the view with grid lines similar to tic-tac-toe. You want to get the focal point of your picture on one of the lines or intersections. To learn more, try taking a course on photography. There are many you can take online.
If you don’t want to take the pictures yourself, at least get them from somewhere else. There are many places online where you can find royalty-free pictures. This is important. Don’t take pictures from other people unless they give you permission or you can confirm that they are royalty-free. Even if they are royalty-free, you almost always need to credit the source. Unsplash is one of the few websites that don’t require you even to credit the source. Pixabay and Flickr each have millions of pictures that you can search through. Many of the images are free to use if you attribute the source. Just make sure the pictures allow commercial use if you are making any money from your blog (including advertisements).
Refresh your old content
Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net goes through a process for refreshing old blog content every day. He determines what day it was six months ago. Then he goes back to all his past blog posts from the current day and the day six months ago, reviews them, and updates them. For example, if today is September 12, you count back six months to March 12. Then you go through all your previous blog posts that were posted on September 12 or March 12 and update them. When you update, look for any errors that need to be fixed. Do you need to include a new call to action? Do all the links still work? Or maybe the post is no longer relevant and should be deleted. Should you promote the post on social media? If you follow this process, you will be sure that every post on your blog gets updated every six months.
An approach I like to take with my own blog is to think of my posts as arranged in a circle. Whenever it is time to post another article, I either write a new post, or update an old post and repost it as new. This way I have a never-ending cycle of blog posts, and I can post daily without ever running out.
Blogging like a business
If you plan to make money from your blog, you should treat your blog like a business. Approach your blog with the same discipline as you do your job.
Since most bloggers work from home, the biggest challenge is to approach blogging professionally. It’s too easy to spend your afternoons playing with your kids, running errands, or hanging out when you should be working. The home has a lot of distractions. There is no boss breathing down your neck and asking when your next post will be written. You need to set your own hours and discipline yourself.
Here are some ideas for putting some discipline into your blogging and becoming more productive.
Make your blog an official business
If you make any significant income from blogging, you should consider organizing it as an official business. That means you register your blog as an official business with your local government. I am not a lawyer, and laws change all the time, so you need to verify suggestions provided here with a licensed attorney.
One common practice in the United States is to start a Limited Liability Corporation, or LLC. This sets you up to make money and pay taxes. It also provides the benefit of reducing your liability in case someone decides to sue you.
If you make over $50,000 from your blog, you should look into organizing as an S-Corp. Again, I am not a lawyer, but I’ve heard there may be tax benefits for doing so.
For organizing your own LLC or S-Corp, you can consider services like LegalZoom or RocketLawyer. These are services that turn legal processes like organizing a corporation into easy step-by-step processes that you can do online.
Another thing to look into is getting a Tax ID or Employer Identification Number (EIN). Doing this will allow you to avoid using your social security number when you sign up for advertising or affiliate networks.
Get a P.O. or UPS box
You might want to consider renting a PO Box or UPS Mailbox for your blog business. If you use your home address online, you may get unwanted visitors. Use a PO Box or UPS Mailbox address whenever possible to hide your home address. If you decide to create a mailing list, you will need to provide an address. You might be uncomfortable sending your home address to thousands of mailing list subscribers.
Should you get a PO Box or a UPS Mailbox?
I personally use a small PO Box at my local post office. It costs $102 a year ($8.50/month). A UPS Mailbox starts at about $350 a year (about $29/month). The main difference is that a UPS Mailbox is technically not a PO Box. Some places like banks and business commissions may not accept a PO Box as your address. Your post office might not even allow Fedex or UPS packages to be delivered to your PO Box. A UPS Mailbox also provides other services like 24-hour access, package receipt notifications, and mail forwarding.
Bottom line: If you run a small one-person business like I do, using your home address or getting a PO Box for privacy should be sufficient. If your business centers around physical products or has employees, you’re probably better off with a UPS Mailbox.
Create a business plan
Even if your blog business doesn’t have any partners or employees, it is useful to have a mission statement and business plan. These provide a big-picture plan to guide you in making major decisions for your blog.
A mission statement is a succinct paragraph that sums up what your company is trying to accomplish. It includes a statement of core values, which are the beliefs that you want your business to represent.
A business plan can be a few paragraphs describing the goals of your blog business. What are you trying to accomplish with your blog? How do you plan on making money? Do you have an end goal? What happens when you achieve that goal? Do you have an exit strategy in case you decide to do something else a few years down the line? What are some concrete goals you have, both short-term and long-term?
It is also useful to identify your audience. What type of person visits your blog? What is the background of the average visitor of your blog? This information is invaluable when you are writing blog posts or marketing to your audience.
Set monthly goals
Challenge yourself to stay motivated. One way is to set monthly goals. These are short-term goals that break your long-term goals down into manageable chunks. They help focus your priorities.
One month is an ideal amount of time for a goal. It is just long enough for you to accomplish something big, but short enough so that if the project fails you can move on to a new project quickly. You can accomplish a lot in a year by setting 12 monthly goals.
Track your numbers
Business management consultant Peter Drucker once said, “What gets measured, gets managed.” It is important to keep track of certain metrics for your blog. That is the only way you can know if you’re making progress or wasting your time.
One thing you can do is install Google Analytics. It can be intimidating with all the data you can track, so you should keep it simple. I suggest tracking total unique visitors, total visitors from your top 10 traffic sources, and average visitor duration. Enter these numbers into a spreadsheet, and try to look at them only once a month. You can easily waste a lot of time analyzing your statistics when you should be blogging. Another analytics tool you can consider is StatCounter. There are also many WordPress plugins you can install that will show you analytics data directly from your blog interface.
If you run a commercial blog, you should also track expenses and revenue related to your blog. At the very least, write down each expense you incur and each check you receive as a result of your blogging efforts. This information is useful when tax time comes. It is also useful to know if you are making money or losing money from blogging.
Another thing you can track is people you interact with. With all the blogs you might follow and all your email and social media interactions, it can be easy to forget things. Keep a spreadsheet of all your interactions with other people related to your blog. That way, it will be easier to keep track of every promise you make, every favor you asked, and which contacts you should follow up on.
Build your team
As your blog grows, you may find it worthwhile to delegate certain tasks to others. Some tasks that can be delegated include administrative work, copy editing, photo editing, accounting, design, advertising, public relations, and legal assistance. You should consider delegating whatever you’re not that good at, and whatever you don’t like to do yourself.
Two of the most popular places to hire help online are Freelancer and UpWork. Both sites help match prospective employers with freelancers. All you have to do is post a detailed description of the work you need to be done, choose a freelancer to hire and work with them to get the job done. If you want to take baby steps, I recommend trying Fiverr where you can hire people to do small jobs for minimal investments of $5.
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