I’ve been running several blogs, including those attached to retail businesses, for some time now. My author’s blog has been consistently written to since 2012 when I started publishing my young adult novels. I loved writing about my journey, but I never had a set schedule.
Recently, I started reading a book – I will share my review soon – about how to improve your blogging. I do have set days that I like to write, but I found that often I was sidetracked or lost on what to write about. I also struggled with creating enough content (Content is key and you need plenty).
Last night, instead of coming home and trying to churn out a post, I came home and planned. I created a content calendar for 5 of my 10 websites. (That’s half!) In my planning, I planned out what I would write about and when. I made sure to give myself some easy ones that I knew I could churn through quickly and time to research those I need as well. (Yes, sometimes bloggers have to do research, too!) I now have a calendar for each day of the month for February. I’ll start planning March, soon. I want to have at least 3 months of content planned in advance.
So how has this change in how I blog affected me? Well, I do believe I have changed my ways. I had set a goal every month for the same thing (blog at least 3x a week). Each month I failed to meet my goal. In just 3 hours, I have written 7 blog articles. I also plan to create some templates to use that I can just duplicate and add in new information as needed, such as a Follow Friday quick post that pulls in from my social media accounts.
I will be tracking my numbers. Currently, the site I’m trying to increase traffic to has only 231 page views so far this month. The goal is get to over 2000 as my highest has been 1537. I know it is small steps. Very small steps. But I have faith that this will work.
