I never thought blogging would…

I didn’t think it would become such an integral part of who I am. When I first started blogging inspired by a couple of blogs it was mostly as a journal that I never expected would last for a few years. How wrong I was?

Ever since I started daily blogging in late 2006, blogging has become one of the things that define me. It is my release and it is a comfort and it is one of the few things that helps to keep me sane. If I didn’t have this blog I might have to resort to keeping a physical journal but it just isn’t the same feeling of being able to jot down stuff online. It is a good habit to do so, I think, but I wouldn’t do daily journaling if it was in a book.

I also never thought that I would money through my blog. Even though it is a small trickle now, atleast I have made some nice money through it. That is actually the extra creamy, deliciously rich chocolate icing on the cake.

Prompt from BLOG EVERY DAY IN OCTOBER: BLOGTOBER14 at HeleninBetween.com

How do you become consistent with your blog life? The truth about consistency in blogging life.

It’s way too easy to let your blogging routine slide. You most likely began with good intentions to blog every week or every day or whatever you had decided and now you find the calendar empty for several weeks. Consistent blogging is the key to successful blogging. Most successful bloggers are consistent with their blogging. Now even though I know that blogging consistently is a big struggle for A LOT bloggers, there are some tips that you can use to make it more consistent.

STEP 1: DECIDE WHAT IS ‘CONSISTANT’ FOR YOU:

Not everyone wants to do daily blogging and multiple posts like me or some other folks. Some people may only want to post a couple of times a week or once a week or every alternate day. Decided on your time table. I have a friend who plans 3 blogs posts a week – Monday, Wednesday & Friday and takes the weekend off for her family & pets. You decide the schedule and then stick to it so your readers also get to see when to expect new posts.

STEP 2: MAKE A COMMITMENT AND STICK TO IT

Once your schedule is set then make sure you stick to it. Take some time out each week to plan your posts and prepare bullet points as you go along just so you don’t lose track of what you want it to contain. Actually write that commitment down and put it somewhere you will see often… then calendarize  it too! Why does making a commitment and writing it down matter so much? Because making a written commitment increases your likelihood of following through by more than 100%.

STEP 3: MAKE A CONTENT CALENDAR

If you want to blog consistently, and especially if you have very little time to blog, you should never put yourself in a position where you have to spend the first chunk of your precious blogging time working out what to blog about. The best way to make sure you always know exactly what to blog about each week is to create a content calendar. A content calendar does not have to be fancy… it’s simply a list of what topics you plan to blog about and on which days.

STEP 4: US BLOG PROMPTS FROM VARIOUS WEBSITE

When you are stuck for content a sure shot way to get the juices flowing are blog prompts.

Prompt from 127+ BEST BLOG POST IDEAS FOR EVERY LIFESTYLE BLOGGER IN 2022

1. Blogging helps you make passive income

One of the BIGGEST benefits of blogging is that it helps you with passive income. That means you can make money even while you sleep. Of course, you will need to work upfront to earn passive income from your blog. But once you build up a following and traffic to your blog, you can start making money passively. There are a few ways to earn passive income from blogging. You can use affiliate marketing, sell products, or even place ads on your blog.

2. Helps you network with others

Networking is one of the most important skills you can build in life. Networking is all about building relationships with others. When you network with others, you create a web of contacts that can provide you with information, advice, and opportunities. Networking can help you find mentors, friends, and even business partners. It also allows you to learn from others and share your own experiences. When you network with others, it’s essential to be genuine and authentic. People are more likely to trust and respect someone honest about who they are and what they do. Here’s where blogging comes into play as a blog helps you build trust online.

3. Blogging can be fun

It’s no secret that most people don’t enjoy their jobs. It’s important to remember that your job doesn’t have to be a source of misery. There are many things you can do to make your work-life more enjoyable. One better way is to start your blog. It can be a lot of fun. You can share your thoughts and ideas or create content on any topic you enjoy. You’ll love writing more once you start getting comments from other readers. Once you start generating some money from blogging, you’ll want to work even harder. All in all, blogging can be a fun job. It can also be a side hustle if you work consistently.

4. Blogging can lead you to lucrative job offers

In today’s job market, most companies and startups are looking for people who have a strong online presence. Unfortunately, many job seekers have the same qualifications and experience. So how can you make yourself more attractive to potential employers? One way is to start a blog. If you have a solid presence online, you’ll have a significant competitive advantage in the job market. Many companies are now looking for candidates with strong written communications skills and deep knowledge of social media.

One way to demonstrate these qualities is by maintaining a blog. A blog is an effective platform for sharing your ideas and showing your writing skills. Not just that, a blog can help you to build a network of contacts and followers. If you’re ever searching for a new job, these contacts can be PRICELESS in helping you to land a job.

Share your blog on social media : This is likely not your first time hearing about social media promotion. Sharing your blog post on social media will always be one of the best ways to promote your content. Of course, you’ll want to take the time to cultivate a strong social media presence, and ensure you aren’t posting swipe-up links to your content daily. Instead, try creating a diverse social media content calendar with a variety of engaging posts, and have 3-4 a month drive traffic to a new or relevant blog post.Even if a social media post doesn’t explicitly mention a blog post, you can still aim to increase followers on your social media accounts, and over time, those followers will become naturally curious and take a look at your blog for themselves. Additionally, try leveraging a social media automation tool that helps you share and manage all your social media accounts from one dashboard.

Answer questions on Quora : Quora is one of the best platforms for engaging with people that might be interested in topics you discuss on your blog. And, as a new blogger, Quora can be a great promotion opportunity. Create a Quora account and make it a daily obligation to go on Quora and answer questions relating to your niche. Don’t simply copy-and-paste your blog URL into each Quora answer, though, which can come across as spammy and might even get you blocked on Quora. Instead, try to genuinely help Quora users with useful answers, and simply keep the URL of your blog on your profile for users to find on their own if they’d like.

Post on subreddits: Subreddits on Reddit are another good place for sharing your knowledge with a ready audience looking for more information on a topic. Just like Quora, Subreddits are topics in which you can join and add to the conversation. This is another way of sharing your post and building your influence.

Guest post on popular blogs : Guest posting is one of the oldest marketing techniques around, and it’s still as effective as ever. Guest posting requires you to reach out to similar blogs in your niche and then pitch ideas for them to publish to their blog. This is a win-win for the two parties involved — it provides a high-quality, unique piece of content for the blog host, while giving you a backlink to your own website.However, guest blogging isn’t easy and requires a lot of work. Other than sending outreach emails to the bloggers in your niche, you also need to take the time to craft high-quality guest blog posts. To do this on a larger scale, you will need to hire freelance writers that can help you write the blog post while you conduct the outreach process.

Network on related or similar blogs : Many bloggers have neglected to leave a comment on other blogs simply because they believe it won’t affect their SEO rankings. And yes — they’re right, it won’t. But the benefits of leaving a comment on another, related blog are still worthwhile. Leaving a comment on another blog can help you get on the radar of other bloggers in your industry, and begin cultivating relationships within your community. While admittedly small, this is still a potential avenue for getting your name out there without spending money or sacrificing too much time.

1. You Can Use WordPress for All Types of Projects

You might have heard that WordPress is a blogging platform. That’s not technically false, but the way the CMS is built also means you can use it for all sorts of projects. For example, you can use WordPress to grow your business, build virtual classrooms, create forums, run social media platforms, or power pretty much any other type of project you can imagine. If you own a small business, you can even set up an online store with WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin.

2. Learning How to Use WordPress Is Simple

WordPress is pretty easy to pick up, even if you’ve never dealt with a CMS or built websites before. Beginners are welcome! To get started, all you have to do is select a theme, maybe install a plugin or two, and then jump right into creating pages and other content. However, the great thing about WordPress is that there are always more ways you can customize the platform. Once you get the hang of it, you can start implementing more advanced functionality to gain full control over how your site looks. Even for experienced web developers, WordPress has plenty to offer. It provides a foundation you can iterate on more quickly, which is far more efficient than trying to build a site from scratch.

3. Themes and Plugins Give You Full Control Over Your Website

If you’re new to WordPress, you may not be familiar with the concept of plugins and themes. Let’s break down what both of them are:

1. Themes: These are templates you can use on your website to alter its basic design.
2. Plugins: These add new features and functionality to your site.

As we mentioned before, there are thousands of plugins and themes (both free and premium) available for WordPress. In most cases, you’ll find there are excellent free options for whatever style of features you want to implement on your site. That is in stark contrast with other CMSs, where some of the best ‘extras’ lie behind paywalls.

4. WordPress Websites Are Easy to Maintain

One thing you may not be aware of if you’ve never set up a website before is that they require a bit of maintenance work. With WordPress in particular, you have to stay on top of the following:

• Updating the CMS as new versions come out
• Updating your plugins and themes whenever you have the option to
• Managing your site’s comments (if you choose to enable them)
• Ensuring that your website is fully optimized and secure
• Backing up your site often

In practice, none of those tasks should take up too much of your time individually. However, if you want to save time, you can always opt for a managed hosting service. Managed hosting plans get their name because your provider will take care of a lot of maintenance tasks for you.

5. You Can Optimize Your Website for Search Engines

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about making sure your website gets the traffic it deserves from the likes of Google, Bing, etc. There are a lot of things you can do to work on your site’s SEO. However, depending on which platform you use, optimizing your content for search engine results can either be simple or an uphill battle. With WordPress, you get access to a lot of powerful SEO plugins, such as Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack, The SEO Framework, and more.

6.  You Own Your Website and Its Content

WordPress is what’s called a “self-hosted” CMS. That means you can take the software and set it up on any server you want to use to power your website. The advantage of this approach is that you’re not tied to a single hosting platform. With a hosted platform, the provider can always suspend your account for one reason or another. With WordPress, on the other hand, you can switch hosts at any time. You can also make any changes you want to the CMS, and you have full ownership of all the content you create.

Even the best writers struggle with creative block. Help out your readers by sharing with them some of your personal favorite strategies for getting back into the rhythm of writing.

So one of the easiest methods to overcome writer’s block – when you want to blog but you are unable to come up with a topic – is to use blog prompts. Simple as that! Just go to Google and search for blog prompts. If you want specific topic prompts then search for “blog prompts for (insert the topic here)”. What I have been doing is to search for “blog prompts for (insert the month we are in at the moment)” to get some specific topics for the month.

There are several website and bloggers who share a bunch of prompts on a monthly basis and hence it is easy for us to find a topic to inspire us. If you do select one of them, please do link back to the blogger or website in return.

Prompt from 100+ Blog Ideas to Inspire Your Audience from Wix Blog

What are your favorite things about blogging?

Hmmm, everything? I like it as it brings out my creative side. It is an outlet and it is I also try to be as honest as I can on my blog. I don’t hold back – well maybe I might tone down the language a bit, even though I have thrown in a few choice words many times. Yet it is still very tame when I compare it with what I say when I get angry or think. I also try to post as much positive things as I can and keep it varied. It’s like a release from the day to day life and a way that I also let my frustration out. If I didn’t blog and use it as a therapy for myself, I might actually go a bit angry and nuts at things that happen to and around me along the week. Even sometimes at home, when I get pissed off because of family, even if I may not blog about that exact incident, I do find that blogging keeps me from acting out.

Sometimes that is more than enough and sometimes it’s not but it is akin to therapy. Another thing I learned is that this hobby of mine can and has made me a lot of money. When what you do during the downtime and as a hobby makes you a bunch of extra cash on the side which you can use to buy some things that you have been eyeing but maybe couldn’t buy at the time until you save some money, it is an awesome feeling. It’s a feeling that is so sweet that you cannot but be proud of yourself a little bit. Ok, I lie! It’s more like you cannot but be proud of yourself a lot.

When I first started blogging, way back in 2002 and on a different blog than this, it was mainly because I had made the move from my hometown to Calicut and I thought it was a good way to capture my thoughts, ideas and what I was going through and events that happen to me living alone in a new city. But over the years I have realized that I am blogging more for me than anyone else.

Prompt from 30 APRIL BLOG POST IDEAS at BloggingHerWay

Write for yourself first : Write for yourself first & foremost. Ignore the fact that anyone else will read what you write; just focus on your thoughts, ideas, opinions and figure out how to put those into words. Write it and they will come.

Understand your audience : Understanding your audience better means you’ll have a better idea of what blog content will resonate with them, which is a good start when you get to writing blog posts. A great technique for doing this is to simply ask your readers first on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn with an engaging quote. If people respond well to it, than this is probably a great topic to write about. An example for this comes from Andrew Chen who famously “tests” his blogpost ideas on Twitter first.

Love your existing readers : Focusing on your readers is a great way to get to know them better. Love the readers you already have. A lot of bloggers get quite obsessed with finding new readers – to the point that they ignore the ones they already have. Yes – do try to find new readers but spend time each day showing your current readers that you value them too and you’ll find that they will help you grow your blog.

Be true to your voice : Stay true to yourself and your voice. People don’t care to follow sites so much as they care to follow people. Writing isn’t about picking the right topic; it’s about finding the right voice. What matters, what readers really resonate with, isn’t so much what you say, but how.

Be consistent : Consistency is one of the most important things that bloggers tend to forget. It’s much easier to lose your traffic than it is to build it up, so make sure you consistently blog. Over a two-month span, businesses that published blog entries on a regular basis (more than once a week) added subscribers over twice as fast as those companies that added content once a month.

Prompt from 31 BLOG POST IDEAS FOR MARCH FOR EVERY BLOGGER at The Sunday Girl