By Hi All. So I’m riding this momentum from attending FinconX. In reviewing and reflecting on my past blog posts, I didn’t write much in 2020. That’s surprising. There were many anxiety inducing events surrounding the global pandemic and, more recently, the US Presidential election. Oh, and we can’t forget about the murder hornets. The pandemic has turned a lot of things upside down. We know a lot more about the virus than we knew in March of this year. What we thought was the foreseeable future became the unforeseeable future and maybe back again. At the time of this writing, there are promises of successful vaccine tests.
Year after year, and this year is no different, I’ve gained a significant amount of additional responsibilities at work. Sheesh. Talk about the rat race. Which is a reminder of why I started this blog in the first place. Like a coconut falling from a tree, I was hit on the head with a bit of reality this weekend. I really had no idea what I was doing when it came to blogging and more specificaly producing content. Here are three things I didn’t know about blogging.
Blogging with Intent
Usually, I would write just to write. Heck, some of the earlier blogs that I had were just random banter. They were just for fun and didn’t have a purpose. In some posts, I admit, I was likely doing it to pass time without spending any money. Time is precious and I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. So my intent from here on out is to write helpful and somewhat entertaining posts. I welcome any feedback from my visitors.
Write regularly.
I have to write, and write regularly. It’s just like other popular sites updating their content all the freakin’ time. The type of medium doesn’t matter. For example, the good youtubers – frequently release new videos all the time. IMHO, at least once a week. Our favorite podcasts, release a new one every week. The topics change, some are new and some have been around for a while but there’s consistency. It’s very challenging to get into a regular cadence of writing and publishing blog posts.
Since you have to write regularly and post regularly. You can queue up a bunch of articles or drafts. You don’t have to think about and spend all day writing up an article. This was something that I frequently did and probably the reason I found it challenging.
Have a content calendar. Duh. Why did I not think of that? The key to any success project is having a schedule. I’ve brainstormed lists of topics to write about (more than once) but having it laid out on a release calendar is key. So it’s something I’m working on as well.
Promote and Experiment.
It doesn’t stop at blogging. I can have a blog and no one will ever visit it. There’s probably millions of blogs out there so why should everyone come to my site? You’ve got to have a niche and when you find it, you’ve got to promote it. Then, you’ve have to find different methods to drive traffic to your site.
With just about anything. You’ll have to continuously learn and try new things. For example, you’ll need to have a basic understanding or hire someone that knows SEO (search engine optimization). SEO is a beast in its own and out of the scope for this blog post. Or you may try another avenue, like social media marketing to promote your blog.
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