Every now and then, I get asked how I find time to write regularly on my blog. This is one of those things that everyone who blogs has to deal with and figure out. As a new blogger, I just wrote and posted when I felt like it. I had a lot more time to myself when I started out, since I lived alone in Benoni and I was able to spend a lot of my evenings preparing posts. Since moving to Cape Town, it's been a bit more of a juggling act, but I've found that the most useful thing is to have some sort of plan (ideally written down somewhere).
My blog plan involves trying to create and publish 8 blog posts per month (about twice a week). Sometimes I post more often than twice a week and sometimes I post less often. But usually, around the end of one month, or the beginning of the next, I sit down and try to brainstorm a list of 8 blog post ideas that I can share throughout the next month. I like the idea of having a total number of posts per month as it gives me a flexibility to choose what I want to post and when, as well as a tangible goal that I can look back on to see if I have accomplished it or not.
Many of the blogs I follow advocate having some sort of focus for your blog. Having a focus may at first seem limiting, but it can definitely help you to come up with good content and thus make you more inclined to find time to write. I'm still trying to figure this one out. At the beginning of this year, I started thinking about where I want to focus my blog. I have so many areas of interest that I don't really know what to include or exclude, but that's another story.
In terms of actually creating my posts, I find that free evenings and free weekends I spend a lot of time preparing for posts, getting the right pictures together, and actually writing a skeleton post that I flesh out a bit before putting on the final touches and posting. Sometimes I'll re-write a sentence or a paragraph multiple times in order to get it to read correctly. I have also found that I spend a lot more time these days editing my pictures and making them look good before I upload them to a post - looking back over my posts I like to think that the quality of my images has improved over time as I've learnt a bit more about photography and editing pictures! Knowing when I'm going to be busy allows me to plan in advance and prepare some blog posts in advance so that all I need to do is press "Publish" on the day which is a really useful trick.
Over April I didn't get around to creating a blog plan and it definitely felt as though I didn't have a plan last month. Luckily I was able to sit down last weekend and I wrote down a blog plan for May, that consists mainly of posts about our recent trip to Namibia (you can catch up on that here, here, here and here and as soon as I'm finished editing pictures, more posts will be up). Maybe I'll be proactive and even try and start my blog plan for June!
What are your best blogging tips?
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