| 02 January 2010
A lot of people have asked how bloggers can produce so much content so easily. It's part talent, part dedication, and part orchestrated madness. However, I can provide a few insightful tips to help your writing go a bit more smoothly if you're having occasional trouble.
It's okay if its a challenge, but not if it's unpleasant. Blogging is just like any other job or hobby: It takes time and effort to produce content. However, it shouldn't be a chore. You shouldn't feel pressured to blog. Writing shouldn't be something you dread. In fact, the opposite is true. You should enjoy it. If you find yourself continually struggling to produce content, blogging may not be for you. However, if you do love it, but still find yourself occasionally struggling to come up with something, don't worry! That's normal!
If you haven't found your niche yet, do it. Niche marketing is where you find a small specialized portion of a larger market, and produce goods for it. This allows you to corner a market that may not be exploited fully. Niche blogging is finding a subject to produce original content on. Normally a subject that isn't fully exploited. This lets you corner the market on information and personal stories that hasn't been truly developed. What're you passionate about? If you're passionate about cooking, you should figure out what type of cooking you're most passionate about, and produce content related to it. Say you're into the gluten-free lifestyle. Great! Take that idea and run with it! However, don't make your niche so small that no one would feasibly look for it. French, gluten-free vegan slow-cooker recipes for one, for example, would probably be a bit too defined.
People have asked me what my niche is. I actually feel as though I've sort of fallen into the "geek niche." I include personal humor-based stories (and occasionally heartfelt realizations) in my "blog" section, but in my tutorial section, I love to share ideas and information on how to create a successful website or blog. The great thing about this? By doing two separate categories (which are related, seeing as most of my personal stories deal with how much of a geek/dork I am), I can provide a bit of information for everyone. Also, it's awesome to be able to provide free, useful information that other people would have you believe that you need to pay for.
When you find your niche, stick within it. If you have a blog about personal stories, you get a bit more lenience, but will get significantly less traffic than a blog that is designed to provide information about a certain subject. If you have a blog about cooking, don't go off on political rants or start suddenly doing How To's for basket weaving. If you can make something related in some obvious way, then do it. And if you have a blog based around a certain niche, feel free to include personal stories and opinions. This makes your blog more personally identifiable.
Write with as little distraction as possible. Now, if you're working from home, you might assume that this will be easy. However, I'm sure blogmoms everywhere will tell you that this is never the case. Even if you're not blogmom, you will probably never realize the amount of distractions that seems to conveniently pop up whenever you least need them. I never realized how distracting dogs, parents, the boyfriend, traffic, and the TV could be. They never intend to be, but if you're easily distracted, everything can pull your attention off of writing. The easiest solution is to go somewhere quiet and write for a few hours. However, this isn't always easy.
If you're like me and can avoid most visual distractions, but get tripped up by sounds, invest in a nice pair of fairly high-quality headphones. Earbuds will not cut it. 5 dollar, flimsy headphones will not cut it. Get yourself a pair of actual headphones. I own a pair of SkullCandies, which while expensive, were one of my finest investments. Now when I get ready to blog, I get comfortable on the couch (I don't have a desk, mind you, otherwise I would do my work there.) slip my headphones on, and put on whatever music I'm craving at the time. I turn it up loud enough that it drowns out any skype conversations, Nicolas Cage movies, clacking claws, or jake-break riding semi-trucks. After that, I open notepad and get to work. I also start blogging in notepad rather than into something like Microsoft Word which often is distracting as it corrects you 24/7, or directly into my website, where I'm prone to get distracted by tabbed browsing. So, I keep notepad open where I can quickly type away for a few hours. Wordpad is also nice, because you can change the colors of various bits of text if you need to go back and edit it or add more.
I also advise keeping any browsers closed. When I'm blogging, most of the time I only open Firefox to retrieve information on something related to my blog post. Wikipedia is generally the only thing I look at. And don't obsessively check twitter. Keep TweetDeck or Twhirl minimized, and don't look every time someone updates. I also keep AIM conversations to a minimum, and normally they're only to Sanct or Ami, and often it deals with the content of whatever I'm writing.
A lot of it is also finding the perfect time to blog. I'm fairly productive a few hours after I wake up until an hour before I go to bed and my mental capacity drops to near-zero. If you're a morning person, I highly suggest you blog in the morning. If you're a night owl, blog at night. If you're a parent blogger, blog when the kids are at school or taking naps. Blogging between loads of laundry is one of my favorite things to do!
Establish a schedule you can stick to. It's better to update two times a week rather than five times a week if you're going to continually miss days or produce less-than-quality work. Normally, I update Monday-Wednesday-Friday for personal blogs, and then produce tutorials whenever I think I can dedicate writing one. If you're just starting out, try doing a Tuesday-Friday schedule, and then slowly work to updating more.
If you get a great idea, write it down. Keep a small notebook in your pocket, purse, or backpack with you at all times. If you have a PDA or cellphone with a notepad function, you can also take advantage of that. You're trying to be a writer, now, and you need inspiration. I can't even tell you how many times I would get a great idea and then forget it because I didn't write it down. Post-it notes stuck to computer desks, refrigerators, or computer screens also work wonders.
Some days you will inevitably be less productive than others. Everyone gets bogged down by life. Most of your viewers will be understanding if you miss a day that you should update on, or if you come up short in a post or two. There are a few simple things you can do. The first is create a buffer. On days you feel extra-productive make some extra posts and save them for a rainy, unproductive day. Don't post them as soon as you finish. These are emergency posts! The second option? Don't update. Instead, spend the day coming up with a few ideas that you find funny. Or take it as a sick day and spend the day relaxing or getting things around the house done. Just don't do this too often. Laziness begets laziness.
Write the way you speak, to a degree. This is more for opinion and story blogs, but you can use it for informational blogs as well. Writing the way you speak will help you blog a lot faster, and make your blogs seem like they're written by a human. Someone with likable qualities. You'll notice that my personal blogs are a great deal more silly than my tutorials, but even in the tutorials and informational articles, I don't try to make it sound perfect. I know that in high school you were taught to make yourself as clear and formal as possible when addressing a crowd. However, no one wants to feel like they're reading a textbook. That being said, you should still be at least a little mindful of grammar, and always spell check before a post goes live. Extremely long run-on sentences, sentence fragments, and changes in tenses can get a bit confusing. This stuff is just basic proof-reading, though.
Dedicate yourself to it. They say it takes 21 days to break a bad habit, or form a new good one. Blogging is the same way. The more you blog, the easier it gets. Once you feel comfortable with your schedule, push the boundaries a little. I currently am entered into NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month for January 2010. What's that mean? It means that every day in January, I post something to my blog. At the end of the month, I get 31 new blogs that are all mine! A great boost to content as well as the ability to bring in new viewers. NaBloPoMo happens every month, so you can start at the beginning of whatever month you get ready, and can submit more than once a year if you like! Also, NaBloPoMo does some pretty cool prizes as well, so you should check it out!
So there you have it! I should also add that it helps if you have someone to bounce ideas off of. Sanct, Ami, Krody, and Delya are my idea-bouncers most of the time. They're the ones who always remind me of good ideas I've had when I forget to write them down, or suggest things I could post about. They also frequently tell me if they don't like my ideas, even if I don't want to hear it. But it's still appreciated.
Comments
Your situation sounds almost exactly like mine! Two dogs and significant other and everything! The headphones are a great tool of productivity. I love them so much, and they keep out most distractions (save for a little dog tugging on my pants to go outside.) Quote
Great post! Quote
Incidently, I tried to get the logo from NaBloPoMo, but it just didn't work. Now I can't find it.
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