How to Maintain Consistency as a Blogger
A big key to successful blogging is consistency. Readers love consistency. They like knowing when they can expect a new post from you and will often search you out just to read your new content. If they don’t know when to expect it, they are less likely to keep coming back for more. Of course, it’s difficult to blog consistently when you’re busy with important factors of your life – relationships, children, work, friends, etc. That’s why planning ahead is really important.
Create a List of Post Ideas
It never fails that I personally struggle to come up with content immediately when I need it. That’s why instead, I write down post ideas and thoughts about them as they come to me. This keeps me armed with dozens of post topics to choose from so that I’m never faced with the frustrating question of “What the heck do I even write about?”.
Decide on a posting schedule
This is something that you need to be honest with yourself about. There’s no shame in posting only once per week, or even once every two weeks. There’s no special blogging rule that says you need to post 3-4 times per week. In fact, bloggers who post less, but keep to a schedule tend to be much more successful and are less likely to get burnt out. Decide what will work best for you, your lifestyle, and your time constraints. There’s no shame in starting small and adding in posts later.
Organize a Content Calendar
One of the most important parts of remaining consistent is planning ahead. Create a calendar and write in what content you will publish and when. You can create a calendar several different ways depending on what would work best for you:
- Create a spreadsheet with a list of dates and topics
- Use Google Calendar and input blog topics into appropriate dates
- Write it down with pen & paper – list the topics, and post dates
- Use an online to do list such as Trello to keep track and give you reminders
- Try a scheduling program like CoSchedule to create the content, publish, and promote posts
Pro Tip: Be mindful of holidays so that you are writing blog posts in advance and delivering them at the best times (3 weeks before a holiday is a good window to shoot for).
Do your blogging work in batches
If you’re anything like me, you sometimes get stressed out about all the work that goes into a blog post besides writing them – things like post images, SEO, post excerpt, etc. Focus first on just writing the blog post. You can get the writing done a lot faster if you just focus on it first, and worry about adding in all the bells and whistles later.
How do you blog consistently?
I’d love to read about your own tips on remaining consistent as a blogger. Post them below in the comments!