The Rosie Writing Space approach to blogging is different than my approach to blogging for my clients. Because the goals and interests of every blog are different. Last year, I reached the ten year anniversary of my blog. So I wanted to share my approach to blogging, just in case you feel like it’s something that you can learn something from. FYI: some affiliate links are included. But I never link to or promote anything I wouldn’t personally recommend to my friends and family.
How is my approach to blogging ‘different’?
Overall, my blog is a one-person show, written and operated by me alone. Although sometimes I’ll invite people to participate in expert roundup posts, do guest contributions, or I’ll say “yes” to sponsored content opportunities. However, I’m so picky about what I’m willing to feature that guest blogger posts happen less often than I’d like. Because of this blog, I have my own business so I’m constantly juggling client needs.
I also have my blog’s needs, and private life stuff, like household chores and anything that my husband might need my help with. So I can’t pump out content at the same rate as a large corporation, with its own marketing team. Despite all that, I have found an approach that works for me. This approach helps me produce quality content that gets read and shared; even when I’m taking a break from producing new content. Here’s what that approach actually looks like.
1) I take note of anything that might make a great blog post
As I’ve mentioned before, conversations with your target audience are a valuable source of inspiration. Because there’s a lot you can learn from everyday interactions with your ideal readers. A great example of this is the first draft of my book on growing up with Dyspraxia. As soon as I joined online groups filled with adults who lived with my condition, getting the words down on paper was a hundred times easier.
How this helped me develop relevant material for my book.
Something about having a support network of people who live with my condition helped me learn the difference between my experience and the shared experiences of all Dyspraxics.
Just in case you’re going “what’s Dyspraxia anyways,” here’s a quick definition. Dyspraxia is a condition that affects the part of the brain we all need to process space and time. It impairs peoples’ relationship with space and time and makes tasks like reading maps and driving extremely difficult. It also affects other related tasks, like fine motor skills activities. I.E: team sports, riding a bike, arts and crafts, and tying knots.
How does this tie into my approach to blogging?
With my blog, I learn a lot from talking to people about the subject matter I typically focus on. Because they challenge my outlook (in a good way) on the work I do for my clients. Getting way too caught up in the bubble of your work and personal life is a natural human instinct. Although it severely limits the value of the content you produce. The only remedy to this: keeping a written record of on-topic and on-brand discussions that trigger thoughts such as:
- “Maybe I was wrong about this.”
- Or… “perhaps this thing I just experienced can help me do better on everything I’m already doing.”
Why (and how) you should use this approach to blogging
Moz tied this approach to blogging into something very practical: searcher intent. Rather than getting caught up in the constantly changing rules of search engine optimization, they offered a slightly different suggestion.
Tell a practical story that educates and inspires people to make a transformation. Then, apply your key takeaways to something the reader needs help with. Other key details, like how your post shows up on search engines and keywords can happen based on the story you choose to tell. Occasionally, a really great conversation or experience will spark a blog post idea.
That’s exactly why I have an editorial calendar focused Trello board. Starting in mid-May, I also started to record all the blogging related ideas in my trusty bullet journal. Someone in my writer’s group introduced me to bullet journaling last month and I’m absolutely loving it so far!
2) With my approach to blogging, I try to balance consistency, with my need to take a blogging break sometimes.
Lately, blogging consistently has been challenging. For the most part, it’s a lack of motivation problem. I’m having to adapt to a COVID-19 dominated world like everyone else, and have put hours of hard work into the book I’m writing. But this isn’t the first time this has happened. Occasionally, everything from the common cold to getting swamped with work has made it challenging for me to sit down and write a new post.
Although I don’t feel any sense of panic, stress, or remorse about my occasional blogging breaks. I have a large archive of content published both on this blog and other peoples’ blogs. According to the tools that I use, people still read and share my published articles; even when I don’t publish anything new for weeks.
But how exactly do I know this…?
On a regular basis, I see how my posts are doing both on social media and search engines. To do this, I use Buzzsumo and Google Analytics. FYI: with Google Analytics, you can upload your stats in Google Spreadsheet if you have the G-suite marketplace.
One of the most important lessons of reading my analytics was the peak times. As soon as I started to publish content on Mondays, I started to notice that most read my blog on Tuesday mornings. So I typically give myself a finished draft deadline of Monday morning after breakfast. After that, I do last-minute SEO and proofreading until I have something I’m happy with. Then, I hit the publish button.
But after a while, creating something new every Monday got extremely challenging.
So I test-drove a bi-weekly schedule and got the same results. And when I need an extra week or more off from blogging, I’ll take a break. Because Google rewards quality content that maintains the attention of its audience for a long period of time. However, quantity without quality doesn’t produce results. So if I’m having a week where I know I’ll have less energy and time to produce quality content, my readers can wait an extra week or two.
3) I batch create all my blog graphics and social media posts
I’m not an experienced photographer or designer, but I do know how to :
- Find stock photos that aren’t cheesy, and are public domain. My current favourite is UnSplash because they have a massive selection of HD photos focusing on every subject you can possibly imagine. The photographers are based all over the world, which allows a more diverse array of cultures to show up in the database. When I edited a Cannabis blog, I found photos on Unsplash of Cannabis customers and sellers; more importantly, though, they seemed like actual customers and employees rather than heavily posed models.
- Use platforms like Canva and BeFunky for blog image templates that look professional and polished.
- Setup and use software that reduces the image file size of JPGs and PNGs without butchering the quality of my images. This helps speed up the loading time of my blog posts. Because slow loading times make people impatient. When people are impatient, they click the back button.
If you do any of the things that I just mentioned for a living, don’t think of this as disrespect. I’m simply finding solutions for something I don’t have the resources to outsource at the moment.
What is batching? And what do I use it for?
Often, what I’ll do is mass create several blog graphics at once. Then, I’ll download them, and put them on my Trello-based editorial calendar. This helps me save time because I have a small collection of graphics I can use when I need them.
Although I also use batching for my social media messages promoting my latest post. Currently, my WordPress is connected to CoSchedule, my social media management software. So every time I publish something new, I create a few different social media messages per platform. Each message is designed for the day I publish the post, at a time when most of my followers are online.
This entire process is based on an algorithm that finds empty spaces in my social media publishing schedule that are also popular log-in times for my followers. Each message is published on the day the post is published; messages are also published 24 hours later, a week later, and a month later. Although I’ll also click the requeue button on one of the messages. This tells the software that I want to automatically re-share this post multiple times over the long-term.
4) My approach to blogging. How I edit my work: I allow at least 24 hours between when I finish writing a post and when I edit a post.
I’m a trained writer and editor, but sometimes I’ll make embarrassing mistakes (like everyone else). Although this doesn’t happen enough for me to not trust myself to edit my own writing.
Because I have a trick that I use for blog posts specifically that actually works. Normally, I don’t notice my own mistakes until 24 hours after I’ve written them down. This is not an issue for other peoples’ writing, but it is for sure an issue with my own writing. The SEO part, however, I’ll do as I go along. Because I realize it’s such a crucial part of the finished product.
How I edit my own material
For not SEO-related, big picture edits, I write an entire draft of a post, and then I wait 24 hours to edit it. That’s when I gain the ability to emotionally distance myself from the material I’m writing. Although I’ll also only catch the serious, big picture errors if I’m looking at them in preview mode. Because something about seeing a preview of the finished product helps me figure out what’s not working.
Although for smaller details, like the placement of commas and typos, my built-in Grammarly software is a huge lifesaver. Because it points out glaring errors as I write. That’s exactly why it’s a built-in feature of everything from my blog and social media, to the emails I write every day.
5) I don’t leave out the social side of blogging
Being heavily involved in writer’s groups since I was a teenager has introduced me to a ton of great writers. Although not all of them are great bloggers. Because you could write the most beautiful prose on your blog, and still get zero results.
Although zero results happen when you don’t have a strategy in place for promoting, reusing, and redistributing your content over the long-term. I’m proud to be someone with a blog that gets read and shared by a whole bunch of people who aren’t my friends or family. Some of them are people like my mom, my husband, and my dad, but they’re only a small percentage of my readership.
The secret, in this case, is community
In fact, that’s something that I’ve really missed about COVID-19 keeping everyone inside and apart. Once I started to combine:
- Regular conversations on places like social media groups and Twitter with my target audience
- And regular participation in community events, and my coworking space, where my target audience hangs out
The impact and genuine appeal and reach of my content started to increase. Because putting a face to the people I was writing for made writing content they’re interested in a hundred times easier.
Now, I still attend relevant events on platforms like Zoom and Google Hangouts; but to me, virtual meetings don’t create the same level of intimacy and emotional connection as sharing a moment over tea, coffee, or glass of wine in person. Although these are unusual times, so adjustments are necessary to stay safe.
The most underrated part of “good” content creation
If you’re not doing this already, a valuable part of this process is using your published content as a tool to help people, answer questions, and connect with your audience on an emotional level. Because if you’re creating content that builds relationships and understanding, recommending your content to others will be valued and appreciated.
I often meet people who are worried that recommending their content to someone they know will seem a bit icky, salesy, and gross. When they mention this to me, I always remind them of what makes popular blog posts, YouTube videos, and podcasts so popular. No two podcasts or videos are alike; but they all get a ton of attention because they make people laugh, cry, or think about the world they live in.
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Please add a comment below if you'd like to discuss this topic. – Rosie
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