With blogging taking off as one of the fastest-growing ways to make money online, it can be easy to want to get in on the action. Keeping that in mind, blogging certainly isn’t for everyone, and getting started isn’t as simple as you may think. Even once you get a blog up and running, you’re going to need to stay productive if you want any shot at growing a real audience over time. Fortunately, there are a few tips and tricks you can take to heart to succeed in the land of blogging and become a productive blogger.
10 simple yet powerful tips to help you become a productive blogger
This article will feature many productivity hacks that anybody can use to get started blogging right away. Take advantage of all the tips below, and you’ll be on your way to blogging better in no time.
1. Define your niche
If you don’t decide on a field you wish to be writing in; then your blog will fail before it even begins. All successful bloggers have some type of niche. That’s not to say you can’t write on multiple topics; instead, that just means you have multiple niches.
Not everybody is aware of their niche, which is completely alright. Consider researching the start-a-blog guidelines to find a niche or simply start writing and see what feels natural. It is far more challenging to stay productive as a blogger when you do not have a few topics you write on consistently. It would help if you become an expert in what you are talking about. The only way to do that is through repetition.
2. Create outlines for every article
When it comes to productivity hacks for blogging, nothing is better than simply outlining every article before you write it. This will allow you to collect your thoughts before your fingers ever touch the keyboard and help you write faster overall.
Disorganization is a quick way to become unproductive. Find the research material and links you will use ahead of time to avoid wasting time searching for them while you are focused on writing. Create all of your headers and the title for the article in advance and write based on those headers. This will help give you a general direction for the post you write and keep your brain organized.
3. Write incrementally
More important than anything else is not to burn yourself out. As exciting as starting a new blog can be, it’s easy to become soon overwhelmed by the topic(s) you are considering writing on. The easiest solution to overcoming a writer’s burnout is never to stop writing. But that seems counterintuitive.
Writing consistently and writing too much are very different. You must write as much as you can, but don’t exceed your limits. Recognize how many posts you can write in a day or week and stick to that. As you get better and more experienced with blogging, feel free to increase the number of words you write in a period of time. Don’t overwhelm yourself from the very first day.
4. Publish consistently
Like writing consistently, you also need to be publishing consistently. When you just start blogging, you will be the only person expecting your writing to be released on the net. Once you begin to build a crowd, however, that all changes.
At that point, you will finally be writing for more people than just yourself. You will be writing for people who expect content. Pick a day or multiple to be set for publishing and never break your schedule. Both your followers and you will be expecting a new piece on those dates, and this small productivity hack will help keep you accountable for your writing.
5. Repurpose old topics
Nobody ever said you need to be original 100% of the time. One of the best ways to avoid writer’s block or burnout is to repurpose old content. This doesn’t mean simply publishing everything you have posted before but rather means taking an old topic and writing a similar piece. For example, if you are in the space niche, you could write about the planet Mars or interstellar travel for years before running out of ideas.
This is also an added benefit of defining a niche before writing. The odds of you exhausting all content in your chosen area is improbable. Even if you do, you can pick a similar topic you’ve discussed previously to continue.
6. Don’t be afraid to write in advance
Seriously. Writing in advance can save you time and stress down the road. Many bloggers wait till publishing day to write their work, which leaves no time for editing, let alone enough time to write a worthy post.
There are many reasons for publishing in advance. It can save your skin, but the biggest is that life happens. Things will naturally come up that impede you from writing a post on the day it is supposed to be published.
By employing the small productivity hack of writing in advance, you can simultaneously deal with whatever happens to come up and publish your piece. If you can dedicate yourself to it, aim to write an article one week in advance.
7. Save any page of interest to you
As a blogger, you will need ideas. Of course, you can repurpose old topics as much as you like, but it’s always great to find a new topic in your niche as well. Take 10 minutes just to surf the Internet throughout the day in your niche and bookmark any pages that seem as if they are up to your alley. By doing this daily, you’ll eventually build up a catalog of topics that you can turn to in the case of writer’s block.
Some ideas may be worthless, and some may be gold. Save them in your history, regardless. The key to being a productive blogger is always to have something to talk about.
8. Find a style guide
You will need to find a definitive style for your blogging. Do you want to write in the first person? Perhaps the third person? Are you a blogger who writes essays, or do you write short-form articles?
Identifying these factors early in your blogging career will help you be more productive throughout the writing process. Research other sites that keep up with emerging trends and find inspiration. Thankfully the internet has many excellent resources, such as 21 Most Popular Types of Blogs, for you to review and learn from. In it, you will find a comprehensive list of the most popular blogging categories, along with examples of established players whose work can serve as a stimulus to your own creativity.
In general, writing more than 2,000 words in length tends to do better SEO-wise and in terms of views. Nobody is 100% sure why. Despite this, find a style guide for your niche and see what tends to perform best. The most important key to being productive is by playing to your strengths. If you happen to excel at short-form content, then stick with it.
9. Download a better notes app
When you’re out in the world, and a brilliant idea strikes you, what are you going to do without your computer? The default notes apps work fine for bloggers, but there are better solutions that may help you combine all of your ideas into one space more effectively. To that end, look at software such as Notion that can be both a to-do planner and a notes app all in one.
To be as productive as possible, download applications to your phone that can help you in your blogging career from wherever you are in the world. After all, you never know when brilliance will strike.
10. Automate social media posts
Social media has become far more critical to the world of blogging in the last couple of years. There are billions of active users monthly across many social media platforms, and tapping into this crowd can help you.
With that said, you don’t want to dedicate too much time growing your social media when you still need to be writing. That’s not very productive.
Make use of auto-scheduling features apps like Instagram or Twitter have. Alternatively, download third-party applications to automate your posting process completely. Dedicate just a few minutes each day to set those posts up. From there, you can start tapping into a social media audience while also staying focused on your writing duties for the day.
Final thoughts on how to become a productive blogger
Blogging is certainly not a profession for everyone. However, once you grow a large enough following, you can make serious money from blogging online.
Don’t be afraid to follow your dreams and become a blogger if that’s what you want to do. So stay on track, and don’t burn yourself out by using some of the above tips to grow your blog today. There’s never been a better time to start your own blog. Take advantage of the opportunity you have in front of you.
This guest blog post was written Georgi Todorov, founder of ThriveMyWay.com, a place for digital entrepreneurs, bloggers, and SEO specialists to find success their own way. You can follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter @GeorgiTodorovBG.