It’s hard to be a blogger. It’s especially difficult if you are blogging for business, and not personal reasons. Here are a few tips to help the process, re-energize you and your content and improve your life as a business blogger.
- Read a lot of content (blogs) outside of your industry for inspiration.
- Make a list of what you see on other blogs that you like. Is there a technique, a style or a format you find especially appealing?
- Share a link to a blog post you have published and are particularly proud of, to a select group of trusted friends and advisers. Ask for honest feedback — a review, if you will — and ideas for how you can improve.
- If you don’t already have this in place, work with someone to provide a “second pair of eyes” on your content, to eliminate distracting grammatical errors and typos.
- Brainstorm an “editorial calendar” of topics to get you through the next dozen posts. Don’t do it alone — invite a group to help you think out loud over lunch.
- Write a post for someone else’s blog — sometimes stepping off of your own web page can provide unexpected inspiration.
- Strive for consistency in publishing. It doesn’t matter when you write; it matters when you publish. Select days and times and stick to them, to meet your community’s expectations.
- Regularly review your analytics. Is your content trending the way it should? Are people finding your content because of appropriate search terms? Â Paying attention to what’s popular and, if it’s on target, replicating that success will help you build your online community.