You’ve probably heard of evergreen content before, but you might not know what it is or why it’s so important. I’m going to clear that up for you and give you five reasons why you should be creating your own evergreen content today.
What Is Evergreen Content?
It is content that’s suitable for and relevant at any time or in any situation, which means it will always be clicked on and shared.
According to Wikipedia, “Evergreen content is any piece of information that remains relevant over time and across different web pages.” Evergreen content is also known as timeless content or long-form SEO copywriting.
Evergreen content will help you get organic search traffic
Evergreen content helps your site rank higher in search engines like Google and Bing by providing value to your readers. Google has said that it considers the length of time each page has been on the web when calculating search results — so if someone searches for a keyword related to your product or service, they will see your page more often if it has been around longer than other sites offering similar products or services.
Evergreen content can last for months and even years
Evergreen content is a type of article that can be read by readers at any time during the year without losing any value or becoming outdated. It’s not seasonal or tied to a holiday or event. It’s always relevant and never becomes obsolete because it provides information that people want to know about their businesses and their lives in general. The best part about evergreen content is that once you publish it on your website it will continue to bring in traffic for months or even years after it was first published!
This type of content helps build trust with potential customers. If consumers see that you’re sharing valuable information on a regular basis, they’ll feel more confident visiting your site or buying from you in the future. In fact, 80 percent of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family over any other form of advertising — including paid ads.
It can help you build your brand by:
Creating trust
Informing customers
Increasing traffic
Building authority
Generating leads
Serves as a point of reference from which you can develop other forms of content
For example, if you have written a blog post about how to get rid of weeds in your garden, this article would be considered evergreen because it will continue to generate traffic long after the gardening season ends. You could also write a similar article about how to get rid of pests in the garden, but this article would not be considered evergreen because it would only generate traffic during the summer months when pests are prevalent.
Evergreen content brings in the big bucks
Evergreen content brings in the big bucks because people will find your page whenever they search for the topic you’ve covered. The best part? You don’t need to create new pages every time someone wants new information on the subject — just update your old page with new information as needed!
Evergreen content is a great investment because it will keep working for you long after you’ve written it. You can create one piece of content and have it generate income for years, even decades.
Final Thoughts
There is no question that to build your brand, you must publish content on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter if you are a blogger, writer, or small business owner – publishing new content that your audience will love is crucial for your brand’s success. I have found through my journey that evergreen content does wonders for my brand and whether you know it or not (or want to admit it), there are many benefits to creating evergreen content.
As a writer, procrastination can be a killer. Getting stuck in the dreaded writer’s block can make you lose confidence, and feel demotivated. To get inspiration and kickstart your creative process, try one of these 9 ways to find inspiration when you feel like you’ve hit a block.
Practice writing even when you don’t feel inspired
Practice writing even when you don’t feel inspired. You might think that practice makes perfect, but research shows that it also helps with skill acquisition, in part by increasing dopamine levels in the brain. Some writers say that they have to write through the bad stuff in order to get to the good stuff later on, and while this may not be true for everyone, it’s worth giving it a try if it seems like something that would work for you.
Write someplace new
If you’ve been writing in your favorite coffee shop for the past six months and suddenly it doesn’t seem as inspiring anymore, try another location. If you usually write at home, head out into nature or go somewhere with lots of people around. If you usually write at work, go somewhere quiet or even bring your laptop into the bathroom.
Draw/doodle your thoughts and feelings as they come to you
I find that drawing can be really helpful when I’m stuck on something. If I’m having trouble coming up with an idea, I’ll grab my sketchbook and start doodling whatever comes to mind. This helps me get in touch with my creative side and lets me explore different options without feeling pressured or overwhelmed by what might happen if I mess up. I also love to use Procreate on my iPad.
Try reading out loud as a way to hear what you’ve written in a different way
You might find some words or phrases that sound awkward when read out loud, but look fine on the page. This can also help you gauge how others will respond to what you’ve written, which is often useful when deciding whether or not to keep something in your story.
Get away from the computer screen when you have writer’s block
Writer’s block usually happens when you’re sitting at your keyboard staring at a blank page. It might help to take a break for an hour or two and do something else entirely — anything that is not related to writing. Go for a walk outside if it’s nice out, or just browse the internet randomly for fun things that catch your eye. If nothing else, this will give your brain time to rest while still letting you have some sense of productivity without having to sit still staring at your computer screen all day long!
Be open to new experiences and new ideas
Find something exciting in everyday situations. Whether it’s seeing the sunrise or walking through the park, there are many things we take for granted every day that could inspire us if we look at them differently. This can help alleviate writer’s block. If you take time out of your day to appreciate these little moments, they’ll help keep your mind fresh and engaged so that when it comes time for writing again, it won’t feel like work!
Listen to music
Listen to music to gain writing inspiration. Music is such a powerful tool and can inspire so much creativity. If you’re having trouble getting started with a piece of writing, put on some good music and let it wash over you. It will help you find the right words and ideas for your piece.
Break the project down into tiny pieces and pick one part of it to work on at a time
If you’re having trouble starting or finishing an essay or blog post, try breaking down your topic into smaller chunks — say, five sentences each — and writing those sentences in order. Once they’re done, move on to the next step until you’ve completed your project.
Try stream of consciousness
When you have writer’s block, try stream of consciousness. Write whatever comes into your head. Don’t worry about how it sounds or how it looks on the page; just let your writing flow freely from your brain onto the paper or screen. You might be surprised at what comes out!
Final Thoughts
Writer’s block is temporary, so don’t stress too much when you hit a wall, just grab a cup of coffee and some headphones and you’ll think of something soon enough!
Writing on Medium was a dream I had years ago, thinking it was only for the very most professional polished writers. Now, that I’m a paying member, I can see that it is a community of passionate people writing about so many different topics. And you don’t have to be perfect. There are beginners (like me) all the way to established writers offering courses and guides to help you succeed. And all are welcome.
What’s great about writing on Medium?
I enjoy reading stories on Medium and I’ve been inspired with new ideas countless times over. So, one of the great things about it is the diverse perspectives and views offered on the platform. To be a good writer or creator, you have to be a consumer of knowledge as well. So, this is a great place to build community among like-minded people trying to make it just like you.
Also, the content you write belongs to you, so you can publish it however you’d like. For instance, the very article you’re reading is on my personal blog and on Medium. This gives me double the chance to reach a larger audience. Also, the reach on Medium is much greater than on my own site at the moment. Therefore, I can leverage the interest that people have to keep my own momentum going.
It’s free to sign up and post articles, so anyone can do it! This makes it easy for anyone who wants to start building up their online presence (and traffic) with minimal investment or effort required from them (not like some other popular platforms that require payment).
The challenges of writing on Medium
The most obvious challenge is that Medium is not your blog. It’s not your site, it’s not your domain, and it’s not even your audience. You don’t get to control the design and you don’t get to control the features.
Getting traffic from your work is difficult because there are so many other writers publishing on the platform. Getting featured can help, but even then you’ll need to be persistent with your posts in order to build up an audience that will follow you back when you publish new articles.
I’m sure there are other challenges and I will create some update progress posts as I spend more time on the platform.
I’m going to write a series of articles on Medium. The goal is to establish myself as an authority in a specific niche. I will be writing about setting goals, productivity, and growing my personal brand and business. And who knows? Even other topics I’m learning about will be important to share such as search engine optimization, personal finance, and investing.
Medium is a great platform to build your brand because it’s a community where people are interested in reading about your topic. If you’re writing about something that people are passionate about, they will read your content and share it with their friends. This leads to more exposure for your work and more traffic to your website/blog afterwards. So what am I going to try and do during my first month of writing on Medium?
Grow my following to 100 followers by June 30, 2022 to be eligible for monetization
Post at least 2 articles per weekday for one month
Consume 30 minutes of content per day from other writers to gain inspiration
Connect with other writers and bloggers in social media groups
Medium is a great place to share and connect with readers, but it’s even better as a platform for building your own community that appreciates reading your content.
I look forward to writing on Medium and sharing my journey with everyone here!
Have you ever heard of the phrase passive income? What is passive income anyway? Maybe you have. Perhaps you even know what it is. Most think of it as a pipe dream, though — something most bloggers, entrepreneurs, and business owners strive to achieve. However, it’s not reserved just for the few who hit it big in this world.
Passive income is a type of income that does not require active work
Passive income is a term that is thrown around a lot in the personal finance community. It’s not just a buzzword, though — it can be a very real way to make money online.
Passive income is money that you earn without having to work for it. With passive income sources, you’re making money while you sleep or after your workday ends. The idea of passive income is that you build something up once and then it runs on autopilot. Your time, labor, and expertise are used once to install passive income streams that generate money over long periods of time.
You could work for 40 hours a week or 50 weeks out of the year, and still end up with zero passive income. Passive income is all about building up the money you make without having to actually work for it.
There are many benefits to passive income. The most obvious benefit is the lack of labor involved in its generation. You don’t have to work at your job to make money from it; you simply invest your money into a passive income stream and let it do all the work for you!
Another benefit is that you can spend more time with family or doing whatever else makes you happy. In fact, one of the biggest reasons people choose to invest in passive income streams is so they can spend more time with their loved ones while still making money!
What is passive income and another benefit? Passive income is also great because it allows you to accumulate wealth over time without having to work at all! This is especially true if you’re using a long-term strategy (such as real estate investing) rather than short-term strategies (like trading stocks).
Passive income is often created by making an investment
What is passive income and how do you create it? Passive income is often created by making an investment. When you make an investment, you’re hoping the value of that investment will increase over time. It could be an investment into a tangible thing or investment in your time at the start.
Let’s say you buy some stock in a company that you think will grow over time. If it does, then when you sell that stock, you can pay off your original investment and then some — creating passive income for yourself.
Or maybe you buy a rental property and rent it out to tenants every month. If the rent is more than what it costs to own and maintain the property, then that’s considered passive income.
But passive income can also be earned in other ways — by selling your own products or services online, for example. The more time and effort you put into building passive income streams, the more money you’ll make from them over time.
What is passive income and is it for me?
In the end, passive income is still a bit of a niche subject. It’s not something that most people are going to be familiar with in the beginning, and it can be easily misunderstood as well.
The best thing you can do is educate yourself on it, look for examples of it as you encounter them, and determine for yourself whether or not passive income is for you. You may find that it’s exactly what you’re looking for.
Personally, I’m trying to learn as much as possible about ways to make money in my sleep! Even if it requires a bit of investment with my time up front.
You’ve just started a blog and are wondering how to optimize your blog for search engines. You’re in luck because this post covers some of the most important strategies you can use to optimize your blog for search engines.
Optimize your blog for search engines using these simple steps
1. Keyword Research
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making your website more visible and accessible to search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Search engine optimization techniques are ways to improve your website’s ranking in search results so that more people can find your site. Keyword research is a part of SEO and allows you to identify what people search for on Google, Yahoo, etc.
You can then use this information to help optimize your web pages to rank higher in searches. Keyword research is important because it gives you insight into what people are looking for and how you can make your content more relevant to their interests.
Keyword research starts with analyzing the keyword landscape that surrounds your industry. For example, if you are a blogger who writes about business and marketing topics, you would want to see what words and phrases other popular blogs in the same space use in their titles and URLs.
You would then want to see if it makes sense for your blog’s title or URL to be different from the norm or if it makes sense for you to include something that is commonly used by your competitors. Once you have completed this step, it is time to actually conduct some keyword research.
One of the best ways to improve your blog is to ask readers for feedback. You can do this in a variety of ways. The most common method is to ask them directly at the end of each post. Simply write something like “Do you have any comments or questions?” and ask people to leave their thoughts in the comments section. (So yeah, go for it here!)
You should also consider setting up a form on your website where readers can contact you directly. This could be as simple as a contact page with an email address, or something more complex like a comprehensive contact form that lets users select different categories based on why they’re contacting you.
Consider creating a survey for readers to fill out as well. This is particularly useful if you want to know whether or not your blog is meeting people’s needs, or if there are certain topics that people would like to see covered.
It’s important to avoid duplicate content, not only because you’re breaking search engine rules and could face sanctions from Google, but also because duplicate content isn’t as useful to your readers as unique content. However, if you are posting on different sites, make sure to note the original source in your settings. For example, I also post my content on Medium.
When you publish the same article on multiple pages of your site, you’re wasting the time of anyone who clicks through—they’ve already read this information on one of the other pages. If the articles are about the same topic, it can be even more confusing for your visitors to be bounced around, especially if they don’t see a clear distinction between what’s in one article and what’s in another.
I usually recommend that people write a single article containing all the relevant information they want to share, but with different subheadings or tags to indicate when they’re moving onto a new subtopic. It doesn’t matter if there are some overlaps in the writing from one section to another—that’ll happen naturally when you’re just writing about one thing anyway.
The important thing is that your reader has an easy way to tell when you’re talking about something new, so they don’t have to go back and reread an entire paragraph just because it wasn’t clear which part was a continuation of where they left off. This is helpful when trying to optimize your blog for search engines.
4. Use Internal Links
Internal links are hyperlinks that connect one page on your site to another page on the same site. Since search engine algorithms favor websites with more internal links, you will increase the value of your blog by strategically including links from all relevant pages to each other.
The quality of your content will also be improved if you include more links within the content itself because they will help guide readers through the rest of the article. For example, if you’re writing a post about how to develop your cooking skills, you could include a brief overview of common cooking methods at the beginning and end of the article, linking back to full articles on those methods elsewhere on your blog.
5. Edit Your Permalinks
The first step to improving your blog’s search engine optimization is to check its permalink structure. This refers to the way the permalinks are set up on your site — how they look and how they affect search engine optimization.
Most blogs run on a WordPress platform, which is why we’ll focus on how to edit your permalink structure in WordPress.
By default, your permalink structure might look something like this: http://mywebsite.com/p=123. The p=123 part of the URL means that the page you’re looking at is the 123rd post on the site.
This doesn’t help you in search engine optimization because it doesn’t offer any information about what your post actually is about or what keywords might be contained within it.
Instead, you can have a permalink structure like this: http://mywebsite.com/how-to-build-a-trellis-for-your-garden/ which would help with search engine optimization, as it shows that all content contained in that article is related to building a trellis for your garden.
Make sure to update your permalink structure to take out the date!
Whenever you have a new blog post, make sure you get it out there and promote it. But don’t forget about your old posts. Search engines are always crawling the internet for content. If Google finds a related blog to yours, it will bring that blog onto your results page. So it’s important to update to continue to optimize your blog for search engines.
It’s important that you update your old content to keep it relevant and current. By doing so, every time Google crawls through your website, it will find something new to add to the search results page. This is also how you can show potential readers that they can trust the content on your blog because it’s current and up-to-date.
When updating your old content, make sure you don’t change the URL or permalink of the post. If you do change anything, Google will classify it as a duplicate page instead of an updated version of the same page. In order to avoid this problem, select all of your old posts and check them individually to see what needs updating. When updating these posts, be sure to:
Add new links (other blogs and websites)
Add new images with alt tags (that contain keywords)
Do a double-check for any typos or grammatical errors
7. Optimize Your Images
One of the easiest ways to increase your search engine rankings is with optimized images. Search engines have a hard time reading the images themselves, but they do read the data surrounding it. Here are some things you should do for image optimization:
Use keywords in the filename of your images, such as “Atlanta-dog-trainer.jpg” instead of “IMG_01234.jpg”
Always fill out the alt tag when adding an image to your blog post. This is important for accessibility for blind people and for image searches by defaulting to the alt tag text if it cannot find anything else that matches the image search query.
Takeaway: SEO is a great way for you to increase traffic to your blog so take some time to learn the basics!
If you haven’t added legal pages to your blog, this is your sign to consider adding them today. I started my blog in February 2021 with no experience and no guidance. I found all of my resources through free sources on YouTube or just Google searching for things I needed to know.
Going into 2022, I’m ready to buckle down and figure out how to make this a business that makes money. Little did I know that not having legal pages was something that had the potential to ruin my new business before it even started.
Back on Track
But now, I’m on track by purchasing The Legal Bundle from Amiri at A Self Guru. The bundle contained a template for the privacy policy, disclaimer, and terms and conditions.
Why Should You Add Legal Pages to a Blog?
Reason 1: Protection
Well, the first and biggest reason is that it protects you from potential lawsuits. By letting people know that you are simply sharing information or that you are an affiliate, it creates transparency about what you do as a blogger.
The internet is a wonderful place to find information and connect with others. Unfortunately, it’s also a place where lawsuits can be filed.
You may have heard about the legal issues surrounding bloggers and the law. Whether you’re just starting out or have been blogging for years, you need to know how to avoid getting sued.
One of the best ways to protect yourself is by adding legal pages (affiliate link) to your blog’s website. This way, if someone goes after you for any reason, they will see that you’re serious about protecting yourself legally.
Reason 2: Law
Secondly, privacy pages are required by law in many countries around the world. So if you are planning to turn this blog into a business, then you need to add that in. You can create a page for each of the important legal pages and link to them in a toolbar, header, or footer.
Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to inform your users about what information you collect and how you use it. You should also inform them about the cookies or other tracking technologies that are used on your website. This way, your visitors know what information about them may be collected and how it will be used.
Reason 3: Trust
And third, having legal pages creates a sense of trust for your readers. You know that feeling when you’re on a blog or website and you see a page titled “About,” “Legal,” or “Privacy Policy?” It’s a good feeling. You trust the site more because you know that they care about their users.
It means that you take what you do seriously and so should they. And of course, I want that! This might have started as a hobby blog or a way for me to express thoughts. But, I now wish to utilize this platform to continue sharing knowledge with others.
Create that feeling
You can create the same feeling for your users by adding legal pages to your blog. Not only will it make your blog feel more professional, but it will also help protect you from liability if anyone ever sues you.
When you decide to add legal pages to your blog, you could spend hours, days, or weeks, researching free opportunities online and creating your own. But then, you run the risk of leaving out important details or overlooking something because you don’t have the expertise.
Not to mention all of the time wasted that could have been spent developing posts or adding affiliate links to make money on your blog.
Or, you could spend thousands of dollars hiring a lawyer or expert to write everything for you. Personally, I don’t have thousands of dollars lying around right now to spend on this purpose. I will though someday!
Recommendation
I decided that I wanted to go with a trusted source, someone who is a blogger and a lawyer. So I purchased the legal bundle from Amiri at A Self Guru. And now, as I think about incorporating my blog into a business, I’ll likely purchase the LLC template next.
The price was fair and reasonable, and I look forward now to figuring out how to start managing my business expenses in 2022. So what are you waiting for? Add legal pages to your blog now!
Well, I published my first post on this blog in February 2021. I can’t believe it has already been a year. I’ve had a lot of personal life changes during this time and blogging has been largely therapeutic and relaxing. However, I’m ready to start treating this more like a business in 2022.
Originally, I shared my stats after the first 6 months of having my blog. At that time I had 210 followers subscribed to the blog. Now, I have 251, so it’s not a huge jump in the last 6 months. However, my efforts at consistency were not always consistent. If you take a look at the image below, you will see there were long stretches of time where I didn’t post any content.
November, December, and January were particularly low post months. This is when I started traveling quite a bit for a new job. I didn’t anticipate how much of a toll it would take on my mental ability to focus and write content for this blog. Therefore, my organic reach dropped and my page views went down. I made one last push to write a bunch of articles to finish out 2021, which pushed January’s views up.
Areas for Improvement
Well, I definitely still can improve with consistency. My strategy has remained mostly the same with starting posts about topics that interest me and working on them whenever I have time. Although I recently started collecting more resources and ideas in my Notion dashboard.
Another place for coming up with more blog content is to seek out more partnership opportunities. Recently, I added legal pages to my blog, and I’ve found a lot of useful information on turning this blog into a business.
Earnings
I am not going to sit here and type out all the ways you can make money until I’ve proven them myself. In the past year, I’ve watched YouTube videos and taught myself some SEO, but there is still so much more I have to learn. And monetizing my blog is one place I want to continue growing. I made about $10 through WordAds for 2021. Now of course, with increased traffic that number could be a lot higher.
As part of my 2022 goals, I added Google ads to my site. I’m not sure if this is better than Word Ads or not. But, I thought it was worth trying until I am able to partner with some larger advertising companies for blogs. My earnings for January 2022 are shown below.
Truthfully, I wish I had more views and more money to report for the past year’s effort of work. However, I see so many bloggers sharing these amazing success stories and I just want to keep it real. Maybe I’ll get there by the end of 2022 or maybe 2025. Either way, I am going to keep manifesting the things that I want, working toward my debt-free journey, and staying transparent along the way.
And I am SO grateful to everyone who is following along with my blog and supporting me every step of the way!
First of all, if you started following along since the beginning of this blogventure or joined at any point along the way, many thanks and appreciation to you. I wrote my first post in February 2021 and I published 100 posts by January 1st, 2022. Thanks to my friend for guest writing Dear 2022 and my last push to get out 5 things to focus on for the new year:
The year was full of learning curves as well as inspiration striking at strange times. Through all my research I know I am supposed to “niche down”, but I am still writing posts that are a bit all over the place. Right now I have 25 posts in draft mode with random ideas I have had about topics I’m interested in writing about. So far, my strategy works well, albeit a bit inconsistent (even though I wrote about how consistency is important).
So what’s next for me?
The first thing I need to define is my goals. What are my top goals for year 2 of the blog?
Continue to share content and write about the things that interest me
Grow my blog to 10,000 monthly page views by learning marketing strategies and search engine optimization (SEO).
Start earning money so that I can turn this into a full-time gig at some point in the next few years
Before I get too far into new content (which I will definitely keep putting out there), I need to go back through old posts. This is important to do because I have added many new posts that could be linked to older topics. Internal linking is something that is helpful for SEO.
I also plan to take an SEO course, either a free one I can find or pay for one that is highly recommended in the blogging community.
One of the tools I’ve been using for marketing is Tailwind App. I will continue to utilize this tool to create pins on Pinterest and easy to use visuals to share.
I think one opportunity to grow the blog that I need to utilize a bit more is the power of LinkedIn. As someone who enjoys talking about productivity and time management, I believe there is a strong market of people who may be interested in what I’m writing.
Affiliate Marketing
One of the easiest ways to earn money on blogs besides advertisements is through affiliate marketing. I already joined the Amazon affiliate program and regularly suggest products I like.
Because I also have a growing following on Tik Tok, I am eligible to apply for other affiliate programs. Recently, I applied for my favorite iPad accessory, the PaperLike screen protector. Anyone can join, but if you have 5000 followers or more, you can request a free item to try.
Another lesson I learned was to add legal pages to my blog. I didn’t realize initially that I needed them, but if I’m going to continue to grow this as a business then it’s a must-have. So if you are in need of some as well, I recommend the Legal Bundle from A Self Guru. And now, I’m part of the affiliate program for them as well.
Final Thoughts for Today
There is so much to learn about blogging and I’m ready to tackle the next steps and reach these goals! You might see some changes in design or advertisements and upgrades to some old posts. Thanks again for reading and the support!
I’ve struggled for years with building my confidence. I think one of the biggest fears of putting myself out there is rejection or negativity. This is only natural. To some degree, we all want to be liked and validated. Some people are better at shrugging off the negative comments. While others, like myself, take them personally.
For years, I let my anxiety hold me back from sharing publicly some of the things I wanted to talk about. What will people think? What if it’s not good enough? What if I’m not good enough? The truth is, I will never be enough if I continue seeking validation from others.
Furthermore, I have the power to change my reality and my actions. If it turns out that I could have done something differently, well, then I have the chance to improve and be better next time.
When I read and watched YouTube videos about starting a blog, the number one advice was to niche down. I’m just not ready for that. And it is okay. My blog allows me to share my thoughts and experiences with my friends, family, and even strangers who are interested in reading.
That is partly why I believe it is building my confidence. Despite being academically driven, I never considered myself that great of a writer. People always saw me as the numbers person, good at math, and destined to work in a math profession.
Yet, if I look back through notes and journal entries from when I was a teenager, I always enjoyed writing to express myself. I didn’t necessarily enjoy writing to appease others through an assignment or required task.
Now, I pick and choose how to manage my time and write posts of interest. The likes and comments allow me to see what content the audience is connecting with the most. But overall, the comments are overwhelmingly positive.
Building my Confidence Through Social Media
My adult students told me for years to start a YouTube channel. I was scared. Making videos intimidated me. I finally took the plunge this past year and did it. At first, I always tried to make sure my make-up looked good and everything was perfect. Then I realized that perfection is not the goal. Reality is. And the reality is that we look different and have good days and bad days.
Tik Tok also brings out the opportunity to be silly and share with others. The app gives you a chance to showcase bits of your personality and separate yourself from work if you so choose. I am still working up the courage to post more dancing videos. But, if you know me, you know I love to dance. So, I better start having some fun and being my silly self!
Now, I still have a long way to go to be the type of confident that I wish to be. But, I’m well on my way, helped by inner reflection and being brave enough to put myself out there, flaws and all. Yes, there will be mean people, but most people are supportive and encouraging! So go build that community.
Whatever it is that you have been waiting for to get started, why wait? Don’t wait for the perfect body, partner, or job to start sharing your message with others or living your dreams!
Am I the most consistent blogger? No. Would I like to be better? Absolutely. Consistency in blogging is important. Many of the blog advice gurus emphasize how important consistency is for getting your blog going and maintaining the content(by the way, the article linked here is an easy read on 4 simple ways to come up with content for your blog).
Readers expect to see articles from you on a regular basis, whether it’s several times a week, once a week, or twice a month. As the writer, you get to set the tone and precedent to manage those expectations. If you’ve subscribed with me for a few months now, you might notice that I’ll post a lot for a few weeks, then kind of disappear, and then start posting again.
Even when I’m not posting, I still use the draft mode to collect my ideas as inspiration strikes me. However, because blogging is not my primary source of income (yet!), I do sometimes have to pivot to the things that take priority in my life, such as family or paying current bills.
In the spring, it was maintaining my two part-time jobs while finishing up my dissertation. This summer, it was helping my family move halfway across the country and then working full time at a customer service job to make ends meet while I waited for the green light to leave the country.
I recently shared my blogging statistics for the first 6 months or so of this endeavor. When I look at the chart of views, my best months were when I was consistently posting content 2-4 times a week. There was a month or so where I did post quite a bit, but I did it all at once with a long break in between. What this tells me, is that I should utilize the schedule post feature more often.
Even if I get a bunch of ideas that strike me and I get the urge to post 2 times in one day, it seems to be better if I draft it and then schedule it to post in another day or two. That way, there is some time in between the posts.
So, my commitment from October through December to finish out 2021 is to write at least 11 new blog posts per month. As I currently have 75 blog posts, that would put me over 100 for the year, which is an attainable and realistic goal. And would help my consistency in blogging.
I will use data and inspiration to choose content by monitoring posts that seem to do well. For instance, the blog posts with the most likes seem to be about time management, money, or technology. But, it would be very helpful if you comment below on any articles you would like to see me write more about!
