If you find yourself having difficulty completing daily tasks then perhaps it’s time to start focusing on whats truly important. We can all agree, keeping busy is not the same as being productive, meaning we all have tasks or activities our lives can do without. The end result is to ensure we make the most of our time.
As a blogger our daily or even weekly task first and foremost is creating new content for our readers. Tho our day may be filled with social media, email, web surfing, exercise, eating or family our most productive and demanding task is our blogs.
Stop Multitasking
You may take a second read over this statement but I’m not joking and I stand by this, we multitask way to much, find ourselves busy but hardly productive. Life doesn’t need to be busy, we need to find ourselves more productive. If you want to eat, take time and eat, do not eat and do research. Dedicate time to research and ensure it’s without distraction.
When we find ourselves “busy” we may also feel overwhelmed or high anxiety. Multitasking can cause much unneeded and unwanted life and work stress, stay focused on one task, become productive and efficient without distractions.
From the first post of the week to the last, nothing about blogging is fast. In fact some could say blogging moves at a snails pace. I personally find this to be very true! Mind you this can change drastically when we all have different expectations of what momentum may look like.
Consistency
If we want to see a forward momentum from our blogs we need to provide some sort of longevity when it comes to our consistency. This can be broken down into two main elements, content creation and targeted topics. As humans we like things to be consistent, hence why some of the largest most successful restaurant food chains take pride on their consistency of food products, preparation and delivery.
Content Creation
It’s of most importance to create content with some form of consistency, in this case our example will be a specific day we write on, or days if you write more than once per week. For example, if you are going to create content every Monday, ensure the content is ready on this day every week, your audience will come to expect this from you.
Targeted Topics
Stay within a specific niche, give your audience what they want to read, not what you feel like writing. At times this can be most difficult and can even seem like a daunting task but it’s your responsibility to ensure the content your readers like is ready to read and is on topic! Over 400 million blog posts are written everyday.
Being Productive
The last 2 weeks have been a challenge for myself. Creating content with my kids being home is not easy. This requires me to be more productive and efficient with my time, I find scheduling is the only way to accomplish my daily tasks.
Planning your tasks and scheduling your week can help you become very successful with accomplishing your daily and weekly tasks. Its not a full proof method of finishing your tasks but it sure helps you to stay organized and to be aware of what needs to be completed. Some of the tasks I schedule are as follows,
Content Creation
Social Media Sharing
Content Research
Blog Commenting
Blog Comment Replies
Not everything can be scheduled but trust me, if it can, make sure to start doing it! Make sure to read over one of my previous posts on increasing a bloggers productivity!
If you’re an online stay at home blogger with kids, you’re likely struggling right now to find time and write content. I’m just like you right now, and I’m reaching for any minute I can get to write my next blog post.
As humans we are creatures of habit, and like many I enjoy writing my posts first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee and a fresh mind. Mind you, being taken away from my WordPress dashboard to help the kids has brought some new and interesting ways to write fresh content.
One thing for sure, I get to step away from the post, allowing my mind to venture into many directions changing the feel and outcome of my actual posts. The distraction surprisingly also helps with writers block and allows me time to think. As I write this post, I have literally stepped away several times already!
To make the most of our time we have to schedule our day to the best of our ability. Setting mini daily goals is also a fun way to ensure you’re making progress. Ensure to open the dashboard so you’re inspired to actually post. If you can, write posts in advanced helping you avoid unforeseen busy times.
Schedule Your Day (social media and content creation)
Set Mini Goals
Open The Dashboard
Write in Advanced
If you’re looking to increase your productivity please make sure to read one of my previous posts where I discuss tips that can help you become more productive.
I’m not very productive during the evening but perhaps you are, you can always save your content creation time slots for the evening after the kids are in bed! Evening blogging may be the perfect option for some, but it’s simply not for me!
Morale of the story is, when you have a free moment, get to work! Don’t let it pass you by as the next moment of opportunity is not guaranteed to anyone, especially as a stay at home parent.
Hello Blog Engage readers and welcome to another year of great opportunity! Happy New Years and Welcome to 2022! This year let’s do something great! Let’s do something different! Whatever we do, let’s move outside our personal comfort zone and obtain new goals we would had never before!
The magnitude of our discomfort can vary drastically with everyone. Some can be as simple as starting a blog, perhaps even writing within a niche that challenges you more intellectually. I want us all to set new goals that make us try harder to obtain new success.
New Success Awaits
When we reach for new ideas and opportunities we bring upon us new success. I understand change is difficult and at times the simple idea of change brings stress and self doubt. Tho this is true, we don’t want this feeling of self doubt to stop us from moving outside our comfort zone, we cannot be the demise of our own success.
Content shared is easily content judged! The simple basic fact that what we write is open to ridicule from everyone on the internet, including our influencers. This makes most bloggers feel extremely uncomfortable. Perhaps even one of the reasons it took me so long to start blogging here on Blog Engage. Not everyone experiences being uncomfortable with blogging but we have to recognize for many its a real challenge.
The More You Write
Good news, the more we blog, the easier it gets! This is the positive news! So whatever you do, don’t give up. Surround yourself with positive people that have similar interests such as other bloggers. Join blogging communities that bring you close to these potential blogging friends!
I look forward to blogging in 2022 and reaching new goals myself! I hope we get to grow and have success together in this online journey. Please don’t be shy, say hello, subscribe to the blog and stick around! You will only find success sticking around these parts!
One common goal we all have as bloggers is to increase the amount of blog traffic we are receiving to our blogs. If you’re new to blogging and found yourself here wondering why blog traffic is so important, put it like this. The local mall where you’re from needs to drive human traffic in order for the stores inside to get sales. Online blogging is not much different, we need visitors to our blogs which in return leads to earning more money.
Write Better Titles
There is no secret that content is what drives traffic for bloggers. Creating more exciting titles for your readers is a sure fire way to increase your blog traffic. Write content that engages the reader and leaves them wanting more! However writing better titles only gets you so far, you must equally create exciting and fresh content.
Social Share Icons
Mare sure to add some social sharing options directly to your blog posts. If visitors enjoy the content they are very likely to share with their followers and friends. Make sure to have this option easily available for visitors. Referral traffic from visits and blog readers are so important.
Bring your blog post to the next level with the right imagery. Nothing is more attractive in a great blog post then an image that satisfies the audience. Images can make a boring blog post exciting! Most bloggers fail to understand the power an image has and how the audience reacts to a quality image. This is what made infographics so successful in blog posts.
Implement SEO Strategies
Ensure you’re helping Google find your blog. Thankful WordPress does an amazing job right out the box that may satisfy most bloggers in regards to SEO. It doesn’t need to stop there you can dig deeper and help your blog rank higher overall increasing your organic search engine traffic. If you’re not familiar you can use Google Search Console to help position your site in search rankings. Google shows you how using Webmaster Tools!
Newsletter Marketing
Nothing beats igniting a post like a quality email subscribers list. Mail-chimp provides an easy to use and fun way to start collecting your emails from blog readers. The process is extremely simple and easy for users to subscribe. This is a great way to boost your traffic, when you publish to the blog, you can also email all your subscribers notifying them of your latest post.
What are some of the methods you’re using today to help increase your blogs traffic? Are you using some of the ones mentioned in my post? I’d love to hear your personal experience on how you managed to increase bog traffic! Leave a comment below!
I can only imagine how many people have stopped blogging and gave up, simply based on the opinions of someone else. Did you know as humans in society we base the majority of our decisions solemnly on how others will judge us?
Learning how to put your true values before the opinions of others is something we all struggle with in our lives. This statement is so true, many often find themselves trying to live someones best version of their self.
The influence and opinions of others does not always translate into a negative experience, in many situations it can be of great value, positive an helpful. When the opinions of others stop us from starting a blog, and blogging about what we truly value, than it’s an issue and needs to be addressed.
Can you imagine logging into WordPress and trying to write a blog post when in the back of your mind is the thoughts of being judged? If you want to have any chance of success you need to find a way to eliminate this need for approval and you need to overcome your fear of other peoples opinions.
This daunting overbearing weight of needing someones approval is a never ending struggle many of us are challenged with. It affects our lives, family, employment and more. You need to break free from these chains in order to be a true version of yourself as a blogger and content creator.
The Fear Of Failure
Your chest is heavy, your stress is high and you fear the failure of approval or acceptance for your latest blog posts. Anxiety has never been so overbearing and out of control. I know it’s harder to do then say, but if this is you and how you feel when blogging… you need to find a way to overcome these doubts and fears. In my experience, it gets easier with every blog post.
Do you struggle with blogging due to the fear of other peoples opinions? Have you overcome these fears? If so, how did you manage to find success? Care to share your own experience, please do leave a comment below!
We have all felt the pressure that comes with failure. At some point in our lives we experience different magnitudes of what is known to be failure. As bloggers failure can come in many forms, most often based on what we perceive to be important to ourselves or others who have influence on us. Most times you can sum failure up into a matter of one’s own perception.
Failure is not always a bad thing, though in the moment can be a significant negative influence, failure also brings out the organic process to which we learn our greatest lessons in life. Strive for failure? I think not, but don’t find yourself overlooking the lessons that can be learned from ones failure.
Technical Failure
Understanding the technical elements of owning, managing and operating a blog website is a daunting task, but is possible. There’s so many things to learn from a technical standpoint and some of them include.
Upgrades
Plugins
Themes
Hosting
Maintenance
Yes, the list can go on forever, these are simply the basic fundamental technical challenges you will need to learn and master to become a blogger. These are the beginning steps needed in order to start on your own journey to become a blogger. The failure rate during these stages is extremely high, many people simply give up. Can you imagine that? The potential blogger giving up before they even wrote their first article ?
This discussion is happening among the largest online content creator teams and is a struggle for most bloggers and business. Simply put, lack of content creation ideas stops the majority of bloggers in their paths. If you can manage to create great, fun and exciting content, you may find yourself among the elite with an actual popular blog. Content is hard to create, but not impossible.
The morale here is we need to be okay with failure when it happens. We should adapt, change what we need and try again. Don’t let failure bring you down, don’t let failure drive you to quit. Can you keep up with blogging?
Blogging is a great way to earn extra money, either by offering a product or service of your own, and or creating affiliate and referral sales from your traffic. Giving up is what most people do, are you like most people ?
Yes, the dream of every blogger, to be productive, efficient and to make the most, out of the least. The phrase “I’m going to be a more productive blogger this year” comes around, well quite frequently this time of the year.
As the holiday season and celebration of the new year approaches us, we find our self reflecting back on what we have accomplished, who we have become and perhaps set goals to do a better job next year. Whatever your “better” needs to be, we need to recognize ways to increase our time management allowing more time to focus on our improvement, and not the task.
Start Scheduling
As a blogger we have several ways to be more productive and the first major game changer is to start scheduling everything. Schedule your blog posts and also schedule your social media sharing. WordPress allows you to write your blog posts and schedule them for later dates. This helps you to write posts in advance opening up and clearing your schedules during busy times of your lives. If you can write in bulk, do it!
Schedule Your Social
Go Social With Buffer or HootSuite and start posting your Tweets and Facebook shares in advance. It’s very easy to use these services and for most of us we get away with the free version. If you have a need for more than the free limited accounts offer, then use both Buffer and HootSuite together to manage all your social media accounts. Scheduling your social media will help you save so much time as a blogger, in fact in my opinion it’s a must.
If you can manage to schedule your posts in advance, it will also allow you to separate the writing from the editing. Proof reading and editing takes a lot of time from a bloggers perspective, typically done in the same sitting. If you can separate these elements it makes for a more productive writing session. When I’m at my best I set posts for Wednesday and Friday 8am. I have these posts written 48 hours before hand allowing me to edit 24 hours prior to going live.
Stick To The Plan
When you make a plan, try and stick to it. If you were honest with yourself when making the plan it should work. If you start to feel the stress and start to hit failure within the first two weeks you need a new plan, one that’s more realistic with your commitment level. Be fair to yourself and set goals you can achieve not goals that will create stress and failure. Read my latest post on why bloggers fail. Let’s make sure this doesn’t become you by following these basic tips on being a more productive blogger.
In my previous blog post I discussed the top reasons as to why most bloggers quit blogging. It’s the sad truth, most bloggers really do quit and never look back. Today we want to discuss steps we can take as bloggers to ensure this doesn’t happen to us.
Blogging can be so much fun, fulfilling and engaging, but it can also be difficult, time consuming and overwhelming. If you’re here, perhaps you’re at the breaking point and asking yourself, is it time for be to quit?
Make Time For Yourself
This morning, traditionally I would be posting in the morning, not afternoon. It’s been a busy hockey season, both my boys play full time. I’ve also started a lifestyle change where I visit the local gym for some exercise. I decided this morning that my personal health was more important then posting an early article. Take the time you need, and make time for yourself.
It’s important to set goals, create a weekly agenda and try our best to be the most productive and efficient as we can. It’s also okay if you don’t reach your goal. I think the most important part of setting goals is not obtaining them tho that is the “goal” it’s the fact that you care enough to set a goal and monitor the results.
Lower Your Expectations
This is a difficult reality to face. Perhaps you thought you would be further, larger, more popular than you really are. Perhaps you wanted more comments, more social engagement? Sadly most of us, and I’m confident to say it’s the majority of us that experience this feeling a lot. “Where we are” is so relative to our own objectives, opinions and expectations, this also woks in partnership based on what type of blogger we are.
Create The Detailed Plan
If you’re at the point of quitting it means your expectation are far to high for your commitment level. You need to reduce the amount of time you’re spending on your blog, or in some cases opposite and spend more time blogging. Either way, if you have the right plan implemented you will have an easier time to find success and happiness when blogging. You need to schedule your posts, write them in advance or be prepared to commit the days you’re required to. Following your plan will be key as well to finding your happiness when blogging, nothing feels better then creating a plan, sticking to it and seeing it through!
Take a Break, Step Away
Nothing is wrong with taking a break, this can be any duration starting at one day to a month. This will be something you need to determine. We don’t want you to hate blogging, if it’s come to this, it’s time to take a break, and step away.
What are some of the strategies you have used to reduce the chances of blogging burnout? Have you ever experienced it? If so how did you overcome it?
I hope this is not the case, I hope you did not quit blogging! Blogging is fun, it should be fun and you should love every minute of it. I’ve been marketing blog content for 14 years and one thing consistent is bloggers come and bloggers go.
Many things can go wrong when blogging and the list of reasons to quit for many can be endless and over whelming, this is the sad truth. It’s in my opinion that in order to start a blog and continue it’s success online you must have the mentality of an entrepreneur.
Here are the top 5 reasons why you stopped blogging or why most bloggers quit.
Commitment Level To High
Many of us, when starting a blog have no idea on the commitment it takes to start and continue an active blog. Creating new content is not easy and takes much dedication. Users have issues balancing their blog with real life and slowly the idea and concept fades into what is only a memory. Never underestimate the difficulty of launching a successful online blog.
Intentions for most bloggers is to start a blog, create content and make money. Well I’m sorry to say, blogging doesn’t make money… well not easily anyways. If your pure intentions are to monetize your blog and the goal right from the start is to make money, chances are you’re going to be very disappointed and you’re going to quit.
Making money is the byproduct of a great blogger or great content creator!
No Positive Results
Positive results can range from receiving comments, social media shares or likes and even as mentioned above, making money. When bloggers don’t see a direct response from their efforts it’s easy to simply give up. The easiest part about blogging is simply giving up, trust me in my 14 years online content marketing I’ve seen thousands of bloggers give up!
Content To Difficult To Write
Yes! Writing is difficult but not impossible. If you find yourself having difficulties producing new fresh content, see my post on how to keep your blog content fresh. It’s not hard but does require commitment and consistency. Like any successful business you need a plan and you need to be organized to help give yourself the best chance possible at success.
Set Obtainable Goals
Be Consistent
Complete Tasks
Set Milestones
Unrealistic Blogging Expectation
Maybe the blogger thought it was going to be easy. “My friend does it, how hard can it be?” I’m going to make money from blogging and quit my job attitude is not realistic. Perhaps you can work hard and make blogging a side income, a small passive income that substitutes your real life income but chances you will make enough to quit your day job, I don’t think so.
Have you quit or thought about quitting blogging? I would love to hear what challenges you face, and how you overcame them or how you didn’t.
