I am asked frequently, how, why and when do I do all my blogging?
Fair enough question and with all of the newbies I am starting to bring online I thought I would take this muggy, rainy, dank Monday to blog on how I go about organizing my blogging.
Where Do You Start
I always suggest to anyone who is going to start blogging on any subject that they first sit down and write down the topics of at least ten blogs they want to write. Usually this gets one or two people in the audience to leave the room because to them that is too much work..geez. OK, those who left I take it they find this simple task not daunting so I continue.
Once the topics are chosen it is time to start writing…but before we jump into that..it might be good to talk about how much time it is going to take to write all of these blogs. That leads to thinking out how much time do you want to take to Blog.
Making Money Blogging Comes Much Later
At this point I will be asked how much blogging and time would it take to make money at blogging. When I outline the Professional blogging requires I generally get a few more people leaving the room since they either got a text message from the ones who left when ten topics was too much telling them that Starsbucks was having a special on double espresso latte-da-tay’s or the time and effort to be a Professional Bloggers is something they do not want to take. Professional Blogging is a whole different animal which I do, but will breakdown in another blog sometime.
So, we are down to the bloggers who want to make a difference and communicate to the world something of interest. By now I can scoot the chairs together in the room since the audience of people still interested in Blogging is just enough to fit in a booth at Denny’s.
I like it though since I can now kick back with what I have to tell the rest of the people as being more casual..which for me, blogging is just that..a casual chat with anyone who wants to hear more on a subject I am an expert in, or..something I like to chat about.
First Things First
The first thing I tell people is to set what ever time they calculated they have to spend blogging for one month into the shortest period of time. This means if I want to post five blogs a week that would be 20 blogs a month. I estimate to taking a maximum of an hour per blog so that is 20 hours a month.
Naturally to put that into the shortest time span possible would mean I would want to write all 20 blogs for that month in one continuous 20 hour span. Now, I know that is not going to happen, so lets look at how to get there in the next shortest span of time.
If I go back to the five blogs a week then that breaks down to writing for 5 hours continuously for one day…bingo..I can do that. Most people can. But what if you want to write more? Just use the same formula and stretch it until you find the right match of blogs to write per month, week or day.
Some people have only time to write one blog a week where others may take two days and write 10 blogs a week. Whatever time you have take it and do it all in one day if possible.
What too many bloggers do is try to write every single day. That heads directly to ‘Burn Out’. They try to start off with writing every day and then when something comes up one day that gets in the way of writing they get frantic and start trying to manage their time backwards.
This would not happen if you take it from the beginning of your journey down by determining what you are capable of blogging and then do it all at once..that leaves the rest of the week open to rest and get ready for that next week’s blogging session….or to refresh an older blog.
How Do I Do It?
Monday is my Blogging Day of the week. Since my golf course is closed it works out the best for me. This is the day I outline all of the issues within my domain of influence that need to be addressed this entire week and start making bullet points I want to make in each of the blogs. Generally, there are more issues and topics so I store them for the next week or just put them in ‘The Bag’ (my folder of blog topics) for when I am looking for something different to write about.
Then I get after it..
How to Manage the Blogs
I use Windows Live Writer as my blog word processor. it sets the content into html for me so I have the content of the blog ready to go either in plain text or in html coding. I know, there probably a million other apps out there and some maybe better (which I am always open to looking at anything NEW so send me what you got). I just wish there was something like WLW for my MAC…but I’ll save that wish for later.
I use a WordPress platform to showcase my blogs. OH, I have used other platforms..Blogger, TypePad and others and they are OK. However, WP produces better SEO results (meaning the search engines seem to pick up the WP easier than other platforms).
Once I have all the blogs I am going to post this week outlined and written in DRAFT I use the Set Publish Date feature to set when I want the blog to actual be posted. Usually I set it so one blog is posted each day at different times of day. This is a cool feature that many of the newbie’s to blogging do not know how to use, but should.
The Set Publishing Date (SPD)feature is also great to use when you go on vacation or like me, when you have a Monday Tournament you are playing in and not going to be in the office to post the blog for that day or week or month…a great feature so you can posted, date when to release it and then hit the tee box..and the blogs post like clockwork.
The SPD also allows me to go in during the week and change the order or correct something or add something to a blog. OF COURSE, I will post a blog on an issue that pops up if I have a slow minute between SkyPe calls, interviews with people or meeting with many of my mentees.
This is how I go about doing my blogging..maybe it will help you or at least answers the question..
’HTF does he do all of that Blogging?’
Let me know how I can help.
