A 7 Step Guide to Effective Blogging

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I have tried several times over the past few years to be an effective blogger.

First, I want to pose a question. What does it mean to be an effective blogger? It can mean a lot of things to different people. It could mean a certain number of rss subscribers or a certain number of comments, or something else completely. For me, being an effective blogger means that I have a consistent workflow for publishing meaningful and helpful content that my readers will want to read.

The biggest challenges that I have faced with blogging are…

1. Coming up with content worth writing about and
2. Finding the time to write consistently.

If you only blog once a month, you will find that your readership is HORRIBLE (Unless you are a super famous celebrity or something). Once a week may be enough depending on the niche you are writing for, but writing DAILY blog posts is by far the most effective and recommended schedule.

This is not always an easy task. In the rest of this post, I am going to address both of the issues I talked about above and give you some tools and strategies to significantly decrease the amount of stress and time involved in creating good content.

I have come up with what for me are 7 Steps to effective blogging. They might help you out. See for yourself and share any other ideas you have in the comments below the post.

Step 01 – Always Be Looking for Good Information and Ideas

There are a ton of ways to come up with good content. For me, the best thing has been to keep notes and ideas somewhere I can grab them easily. Everyday I have a ton of ideas for blog posts, but I found that most of the time, I wasn’t keeping track of them and when I would sit down to write, nothing came to mind.

Keep a notepad or file on your computer or smartphone where you can quickly and easily jot down ideas that come to you. Ideas come all the time in the strangest places. I have been sitting in a doctors office and seen a headline that sparks an idea for a new post.

Whenever you have a little spare time (I know most of us don’t have spare time) work on a new blog post. You can write in a simple text editor so that you don’t have to worry about being connected to the internet or anything else. Riding on the subway or waiting for an appointment? Use the time to write.

Be in the know. Read other blogs or use a tool like Google Reader to stay informed on topics and other blogs. Don’t copy them, but learn what is going on and use it to gather ideas.

Use Twitter Search, Facebook Search, Digg, and other social networks and social bookmarking sites to gather more ideas.

The more Ideas you have on hand, the better. Then when it is time to write, you will be able to pull from those ideas and get to work.

Step 02 – Set Goals

If you blog without goals or without a purpose for your blog, you are bound to waste time or create content that is not as valuable as it could be.

My goals for my blog are to give people great tools, strategies and knowledge to take their passions and change the world.

Each post I write or each video I create has its own goal or purpose, but I always try to meet the main goals of my blog. I don’t want to share garbage. Only information that will empower people to do better at whatever it is they are trying to accomplish.

Other goals for your blog might include:

• Finding prospects and sparking interest for potential clients
• Building a wider link web – As you build great content with the goal of getting backlinks, you are trying to create content that others will want to link to. This tells google and other search engines that your site is Happenin’
• Ask for Advice – Yoiur blog can be a great place for you to ask for advice. People love to share their knowledge and understanding. Ask questions and solicit direct feedback.
• Become a thought leader – People often just post about the same things everyone else posts about. Think of new ways to present content or post about things way outside the box.
• Promote – PRomoting your products and services on your blog is FINE. Just make sure that you don’t overdo it. If all you do is promote and you never share value, you will find noone wants to read.
• Share other people’s content – as you link to other valuable content, it attracts visitors and other links back to you.

Step 03 – Create a Blogging Schedule

Having a schedule has helped my a TON. I found that if I didn’t schedule time to blog and also what I was going to write about, I just didn’t do it.

I have two calendars in my google calendars for blogging. The first is my “Posts to Create” calendar. On this calendar, I schedule time to write and the topics I want to write about. I will usually try to create a few blog posts at each allotted time slot so that I can build up a reservoir of posts I can use if something comes up (which always happens).

Scheduling time each day is a great idea if you can. It will help you build a habit.

The second calendar I have is my “Publishing Calendar.” Once I have scheduled a new blog post to appear on my blog, I put in on the “Publishing Calendar.” This helps me to get a quick view of what has been posted in the past and what is scheduled to go out.

Step 04 – Create Your Post

Notice I didn’t say “Write.” You don’t always have to write. In todays world of technology, you could create a video, a powerpoint presentation, take a photo that fits your topic, etc. Get creative.

I use a combination of videos and text on my blog and I try to mix it up.

Another thing to do as you are begining to create your post is to write down any links you want to use in your post so you have them handy. Gather photos you want to include, and any other “assetts” you need for your post. This will save you a lot of time as you begin to create. (As a side note, if you need a good resource for photos, check out www.flickr.com or www.sxc.hu. You can find good photos at either place.)

If you write multiple posts each time, you can pre-schedule your posts with your blogging tool . This means, you could write several posts in one sitting and schedule them to automatically post to you blog during the week. I find that this helps me stay ahead of myself and relieves a lot of stress about falling behind.

Step 05 – Tag your posts

Once you have created your blog post, you want to make sure that you add relevant tags to it. Tags allow people to more easily find your content and helps the search engines as well. I recommend that you include 5 or 6 relevant tags.

Most blogging platforms have simple tag fields where you can add your tags.

Step 06 – Share your New Post

After I create my posts, I will share them with the world. I recommend that you first share them with twitter. Twitter is a great place because you can share every new blog post there because there is so much noise on twitter, some of your posts will be seen more than others.

I also share SOME of my posts on Facebook. Facebook users are more picky about how often and the content that you post. Only share posts on facebook that you think are truly worth sharing.

Bookmarking posts on sites like delicious.com or digg.com can also be a good idea. I don’t bookmark all posts, but my best ones I do. If you are going to do this, make sure that you also use the bookmarking tools to bookmark other peopls content as well. You don’t want to appear as a self-indulgent bookmarker. I find that delicious.com is a great place for me to keep track of content I want to be able to quickly and easily find down the road.

Step 07 – Check Your Analytics

I use google analytics to get a picture of how my blog is performing. This can be a lot of fun. Look where people are finding your blog and as you see others sharing your posts, contact them and start conversations. It can be a great way to build valuable relationships.

Ok, these are 7 steps that I use to be more effective with my blogging. Remember to share your ideas in the comments. I look forward to reading them.

Here are a couple bonus tips: Take time each day to read a few blogs and COMMENT ON THEM. don’t spam them. Post genuine feedback, questions, etc. You will find that it helps you out big time in the long run.

Here is a quick list of some of the tools I mentioned or tools I use in my blogging:

• RSS Reader (Google Reader)
• Flickr (for finding Photos)
• Jing – Great for Screen Captures
• Twitter Search
• Google Calendar

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