This is the first post in a series–three of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make with their blogs that hurt their branding and credibility. Avoid these mistakes and you’ll get better results, faster from your blog.
Big Blog Mistake #1: Not Showing Up Consistently
You need to blog consistently if you’re going to blog effectively.
This doesn’t have to mean every day. It can be once or twice a week.
But blogging every day for a week then not at all for three months doesn’t work.
Just like other marketing and promotion strategies in your business, consistency matters!
If you can’t blog consistently, many will advise you to remove the dates from your posts. But realize people can still tell when you posted (by the dates of comments and shares on the social networks or looking at your RSS feed).
So what can you do to stay consistent? Here are 5 of my best tips: 5 Smart Ways to Keep Your Content Consistent.
Your Turn! What are your biggest challenges to staying consistent with your blog? Or, your favorite ways to make writing consistently easier?
I agree 100 % Michelle. My wife & I have noticed a dip in traffic when we are not consistent. In fact the universe conspired to make sure that we became more consistent with our blogging and the results have certainly been evident.
Same here, Wade. It really shows in my traffic if I’m not consistent.
Totally agree, Michelle! I preach about being consistent in everything that you do because it is SO important to always have SOME sort of presence. Even if it’s once a day (like on Twitter) or once a week (like on a blog or even FB). People tend to forget about those that aren’t consistently around, so be present! :)
Great advice!
Exactly! Staying on people’s minds so they remember us is important. :)
I used to be someone who would blog inconsistently. Sometimes I would post 4 times a week and then I would drop off for a week. Once I committed to having a post up on Monday and Thursday by 6am, I have seen a huge difference. My traffic has gone up, my Alexa ranking down and my stress level has gone down.
I know I can crank out 2 quality posts per week. And if I run out of time for a Monday post every now and then, there is always YouTube and a 10-minute post idea!
It is so much less stressful when you’ve got a blogging schedule, isn’t it? I feel so much more relaxed shooting for 2-3 posts a week and planning them in advance than when I had no strategy to my blogging.
Great advice, Michelle!
To me, being accountable is the drive to help me blog consistently. If there was a blog challenge every month and I’d join, I think that would absolutely make sure that I blog daily for a year! Whether I’d be burned out or not, that’s a totally different question :)
What helps me a lot to blog consistently is to write for half a day straight and schedule for a week in advance. I love the feeling of knowing my posts are published and there’s no pressure come up with something it every single day.
And contrary to the advice to remove the dates on the blog, I think that will actually make me slack even more and defeat the purpose of blogging consistently in the first place :)
Accountability really helps. One of my favorite things about the blog challenge is having that commitment. :)
Scheduling in advance ROCKS.
And yeah, it’s something I’ve seen more and more people advocating to remove the date on posts, but I’m with you, knowing people see those dates keeps me blogging consistently.
That’s a great tip Michelle. I find this to be true as well which is why I joined the UBC. This is my first step toward developing better blogging habits.
And that’s a great first step! :)
I’m looking forward to the rest of your series. I’ve got down the consistency. I need to know where to go after that to make this a business.
Awesome. Consistency is one of the biggest hurdles so if you’ve got that covered, you’re definitely headed in the right direction!
In the past I’ve been horribly inconsistent but this new blog for the company I have with my sister has started gaining some really fun followers and comments on my posts. And the Ultimate Blog Challenge has helped me take it to a whole new level.
Thank you Michelle!
Some of it is definitely about finding the right motivation to blog consistently. I do much better during a challenge month. :)
Thanks, Michelle,
Wonderful advice and I’m looking forward to your next post. I’m still striving toward greater consistency in my blogging, and I find that developing a few similar habits at once helps each one. For instance, I recently adopted “Inbox Zero” (Google it), and I find the discipline of processing every email in my Inbox every day keeps me in the groove to create a new blog post every day.
BTW, if I created a link to “Inbox Zero” here, would that flag me as a potential spammer?
Inbox Zero is awesome. I need to get back to it. Very smart strategy and so much more productive that way.
It shouldn’t. :) My moderation will hold a comment if there’s more than two links (not counting the link to your blog that’s in the URL box or commentluv link).
As my grand daughter would say “fantastic.” I appreciate the link back to your previous post.
By the way, I like that your left side bar for sharing is not intrusive. On some sites one cannot leave a comment because the bar is in the way.
Thank you!
Yes! Mine was actually doing that in Chrome last week and I couldn’t figure out why so I had to switch plugins. It’s worth occasionally taking a peek at our sites in various browsers just to be sure everything is working like it should. :)
Good post. With people using the internet so regularly so do do they regularly check the sites and blogs that they have an interest in. If one of those is yours you need to take advantage of this by having new content for them to read, to look at and to engage with.
Yep, giving people new content is key to keeping them coming back (and also giving them subscription options so they’re notified when we have new content and don’t have to keep checking back).
Thanks Michelle for this reminder. This is one I had down pat in the beginning and then overloaded myself with other tasks and slipped into inconsistency. I’m working my way back.
Thanks for reminding us also in the comments about the importance of checking our blogs in different browsers. It’s amazing how different they can look in different places.
Isn’t it crazy? I fight with Chrome a lot because it’s got a few quirks. Thankfully as more people upgrade to modern browsers we have fewer challenges to deal with. :)
Consistency always pays off. If you publish blog posts periodically, it shows you’re serious. The only way to retain your reader base is to get them great posts on a definite intervals.
Right — if we want an audience, we’ve got to keep showing up in front of them. :)
I totally agree – consistency is huge. I joined a blogging game and it’s not only FUN but the best part is it helps me to be accountable to blogging consistently every week. ?
Julie, I’d love to know more about the blogging game you joined. :)
Consistency is key. I used to blog daily on one blog but since I have several I know do it 4-5 times per week skipping Fridays and Sundays unless some big news in my niche is out. I love having some guest posts around because you never know when life will interfere.
Guest posts are great for helping fill in those moments when life happens. :)
blog consistency is very important , i have noticed it many times that i start to lose my user if i dont work on my blog for a week or more ….thanx for the fact :)
hello admin you observed the fact very smartly ……..every one face this situation and the best answer for this is to give your blog in safe hands for work if you are going on vacations or somewhere else
Consistently writing is easy. Consistently posting, with all the axillary tasks that goes with it is still a new habit for me.
The coolest thing just happened on my site. commenter are beginning to interact with one another. I love that! I suspect consistently posting helped facilitate this.
Something to improve on – I only post a couple of times a month, as those are the reasorces I have at this point. I spend a lot of time studying about blogging and about my niche, so it’s not possible posting more than that just yet.
I have seen yr YouTube vid about this subject and I do agree! I love the idea of pre-scheduled posts and I will implement that as soon as I have improved on my photo skills and editing. Photos are my biggest hurtles at the moment {apart from spambot – which I have fixed with GASP, thx to u! <3 } and my blog is highly dependent on photos.
I have also activated the editorial calendar plugin so that should come in handy when I'm ready, though I'm having some issues with it in the wp app so I'll have to see to that from my pc. – so much to learn, so little time!