How To Blog *Consistently*
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How to keep your blog going on and on and on…
I’m a juggler of projects. At any given time, 3-4 projects are on my table simultaneously. Thats why, I find it hard sometimes to be consistent with my blogs.
I’ve found that I’m not alone with this problem. Some awesome blogs find it hard to be consistent too. So what can be done to make it easy for you to remain consistent with your blogs?
I have a few ideas…
Idea # 3: Have a buffer of posts
i. Find out how many posts you should publish per week.
ii. Then sit down over a couple of weekends and write at least 3 times the posts you need to publish per week.
iii. Follow an easy schedule now. Because you’ll be ahead of your publishing schedule, your blog will always have fresh content on it even if you have to take some time off.
Note: This idea doesn’t work for blogs that focus on current news. And you do have to be very disciplined to maintain a buffer of posts all the time.
Idea # 2: Hire a Co-Blogger
Another idea you can use to keep your blog fresh year after year is hire or joint venture with other bloggers. There are quite a few benefits of having multiple bloggers write for one blog:
i. The pressure is off any single blogger. If one blogger is slacking, others can put in a big more effort.
ii. You can now take vacations!
iii. Multiple authors bring multiple view points. Thus you can also attract a wider audience.
iv. More bloggers = more promoters too. Marketing your blog becomes a whole lot easier!
Idea # 1: Accept RSS ads
But the best idea of all to make sure you keep on blogging consistently is: accept RSS ads.
Let me explain: I’ve been consistently publishing a premium newsletter called Marketing Hotsheet for more than 4 years. Over the past 4 years, 98 issues of Marketing Hotsheet have been published (2 issues are published every month). And I’ve never ever missed a single deadline for that newsletter!
How so? Because the subscribers of Marketing Hotsheet pay me in advance! I have to be on time or else they’ll start calling me up to complain. And a few may ask for refunds!
Because I’m already obligated to others to publish the newsletters on time, I’m never late!
The key is: you’ve got to be obligated to others to come out with new content on a fixed schedule. By accepting pre-payment for RSS ads, you will be forced to be on time!
Why Doesn’t the Sidebar Ads Work in Making You Disciplined to Blog?
Because you’ll most likely be charging for the sidebar ads on a monthly basis. Or on a CPM basis. But with RSS ads, advertisers will be paying you for a fixed number of posts per month!
So How To Run RSS Ads on Your Blog?
i. If you use WordPress, you can install the RSS Feed Footer WordPress plugin to run ads. (You may have to find other alternatives if you don’t use WordPress…)
ii. The easiest way to attract advertisers is to make a new post on your blog with a graph of the number of RSS subscribers you have. And asking people to contact you if they want to advertise.
iii. You can charge as much as $5-50 per post for every 1000 subscribers. (Start low and then slowly increase the rates.)
iv. If you don’t have many RSS subscribers, you can go to a forum like DigitalPoint.com and sell RSS ad placements for $1 or so. The money is not important. The fact that pre-selling RSS ads obligates you to write a certain number of posts every week without fail is.
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Very interesting post with lots of good ideas. I’m one of those who preaches “write at least one post a day, six days a week”, and in Juin, I myself wrote 15 posts, share over 7 blogs that made me money. Ouch! Well, my main income source from AdSense isn’t my blogs, but one site, so I guess that would count as an excuse, but… To think about how not writing is throwing money away - that is also motivating. Not as motivating as your tricks. I especially liked the one with payed RSS ads.
Posted 08 Jul 2008 #
nice tips, i like your idea about rss ads we earning and get post update too.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 #
Hi Ankesh,
Nice to see a new post on your blog after such a long time;-) Been following you on Twitter.
The tips you have given are really helpful. I personally like to write a bunch of artilces and schedule them for updates.
Shinil.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 #
I have a little bit of trouble keeping my posts on schedule, especially lately. I like the RSS ads idea. I force myself into situations to keep myself from procrastinating. I just never thought of doing in with ads. Thanks for the tip.
Posted 10 Jul 2008 #
Consistency is always a problem for most bloggers. Real life interferes and gets in the way of keeping a good blog. Things get worse as you start blogging in different places and more work comes your way.
Posted 17 Jul 2008 #
If blogging is your career, then no issues with consistency. People like John Chow writes three to four a day!!!
If you are somebody else by profession, and want to maintain your blog daily. it’s gonna take toll on your other activities.
Ajith Edassery
Create Your Blog, Optimize, Promote and Monetize
Posted 18 Jul 2008 #