11 ways to make your blogging life easier

Whether you’re sitting at home blogging for fun, sitting at home blogging for a living, or blogging from an office you want to make it easier right? Here are a few tips to help you on your way.

1. Think. First, and foremost. Check your sources, don’t spread rumors, don’t slander, etc. think about what you’re writing. There can and will be consequences.
2. Have a plan. Write down post ideas, format ideas, thoughts etc before you put them into your blog. Think about what you’re going to write.
3. Make Time. Learn to schedule regular posts. Schedule yourself. Don’t let many posts catch up with you. Don’t say to yourself “oh, I should write about that sometime”. Do it now!
4. Stay passionate. If you’re passionate about it, you should be blogging about it. Don’t burn yourself out but if you loose that passion – stop.
5. Write for the reader. Many people will tell you about keywords and SEO etc. Those are things to consider when you’ve written your post. Tweak it afterwards for better keywords etc. Write or the people who are reading your site primarily.
6. Be Real. Be you. I can assure you, you will be found out. Readers don’t like fake.
   Blogs are great for transparency. Even if you’re an anonymous blogger you still need to be real.
7. Engage. It’s all well and good to should about your posts from the rooftops but the forum you’re shouting at will soon tire of it. Engage people, think on the lines of “Oh, I wrote a post about what we’re talking about” or “hey, I put my thoughts on this conversation/topic in a post”.
8. Comment and reply. Somewhat related to #7. Look for other blogs in your niche (and sometimes ones that aren’t) and read and comment on posts that you find interesting (not all the posts and don’t spam the blog). Reply to people who have commented on your blog too.
9. Topic wander. You don’t really have to stay on topic. Your posts don’t have to be all on the same thing. I have what I call “soap box posts” in which I rant about anything I want to. It’s your blog, do what you want with it.
10. Feel it. Similarly to #4. If you don’t like the way a post is going either stop writing about it or change it. Put feeling into your posts. Enjoy what you do!
11. Check your work. There are two points to this. I think it should go without saying that you should check what you’re writing and have written but also, learn about analytics and check what people are looking at and what’s popular. Read into the numbers.

There are lots more suggestions and ways to make blogging easier but I think these 10 are pretty darned important.