One of the top comments I receive during every Blogging 101 webinar or workshop is that people find the thought of blogging stressful. This is understandable, especially if you’ve never blogged before, because the entire process is one big question mark.
Today, we’ll be laying out our process on how to create a blog campaign — which will make blogging more fun and less stressful.
How Often Should I Blog?
We’re asked this question all the time. Blogging three times per week is optimal for most businesses, but it’s often not feasible because of time constraints. Twice a week is better than once, and once is better than none.
Since it’s the easiest, let’s go with publishing one blog post per week. This is the minimum amount of times you should blog on a weekly basis. Every other week, or once in a while isn’t very effective. In many ways, its like exercise — with consistency comes positive results, and with inconsistency comes weakness.
Many of you may be thinking, even one blog post per week sounds daunting, so let’s dive right into the process of making a blog campaign.
How to Create a Monthly Blog Campaign & Lower Your Stress
1) Schedule Time
Just like you’d schedule an appointment with a client, the dentist or your doctor, you need to schedule time for yourself to create a monthly blog campaign. So, take out your analog or digital calendar and schedule one hour exclusively for blog campaign creation. Treat this appointment with the respect you would any other.
Schedule time in April to work on your May blog posts. In May, schedule time for your June blog posts (and so on). You always want to create your campaigns a month in advance. This takes the stress off when you actually sit down to write your blog. It also gives your brain time with the subject matter — either consciously or unconsciously — which makes it easier to actually write the blog post.
2) Choose Your Blog Topics & Titles
That’s it. No need to figure out every detail, just think of 4-5 blog topics for next month and write a tentative title for each. I know what you’re thinking, “what should my blog topics be about?” The answer is easier than you may think. Topics should be about the pain points and struggles your customers are experiencing. In other words, your blog topics can be about the questions and problems your clients talk with you about (that you help them solve).
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you have nothing of value to say. This occurs because since you do what you do every day — it’s common place to you. But it’s not common place to your customers!
3) Write a 2-3 Sentence Overview
Think of this as the cliff notes version for each of your blog posts. What is it about exactly? Or even better, write three sentences that describe the beginning, middle and end of the post. The overview DOES NOT need to be well polished, it just needs to be clear and relevant. If you think you’re going to need to do some research on a particular topic, it’s a good idea to pull together 2-3 pieces of online research material (other blog posts, articles or websites) that you can review before writing your post. If you’re quoting or heavily referring to one of these sources, be sure to site it in your blog post so the origin of the research is noted.
4) Save, Smile & Treat Yourself to a Coffee!
Once you’ve completed steps one through three, you’re nearly done. Make sure you clearly name and save the document, something like, “Blog Campaign for May 2016.” But before you do, create a “Blogging” folder to save it to. There’s nothing worse than doing all this prep, and then not being able to find your work. Next, brew up a fresh cup of coffee and enjoy!
Now, when next month comes along, you’ll know exactly what you will be writing about each week on your blog. No more staring at a blank page, under pressure, wondering what to do.
I hope these blog campaign tips help you blog consistently, week after week!
Learn More
To learn more about blogging, feel free to sign up for our complimentary Blogging 101 Webinar.
You can also click on “Blogging” in the categories section to your right.
Happy blogging!